Beane completely changed the playoff situation as he made his team (spelled "three man rotation in the playoffs") complete. Well, he could use a bopping DH, but he has Blanks soon to return and a very flexable lineup.
In '09, the M's finished 10 games out of the WC and 12 games behind the Angels. That's the closest that Z has come to sniffing the post-season as a GM.
Getting Cano was very worthy of my respect. He changed the M's story with that one. That trade was expected to put us in a place to compete. OK, it worked. We're in that place. Now what?
Samardzija, Gray and Kazmir and pray for rain.
Ackley, Endy and Hart and pray for a trade.
I detect a huge difference.*
moe
*Without minimizing the huevos it took to pull the Cano trigger.
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RESPECT is a feeling of admiration.
It is elicited by another person's achievements, attitudes, or character. Typically it is associated with a certain level of deference. It recognizes the intrinsic worth of another person - almost always, because of the choices they make, and not because of the talents they were born with.
You don't respect blond hair; you respect a bald person using a walker in a courageous fashion (as I witnessed at the gas station the other night, where a young man took several minutes cheerfully folding up his walker to put it into the back of his truck. How many times has he done that?).
You do not respect intelligence; you respect a surgeon who calmly spends 10 hours making sure every single move he makes is precise, however tedious it gets. You respect the woman who spends her Saturday volunteering at the food bank. You don't respect Colin Kaepernick's footspeed, not on a human level; you respect Russell Wilson's determination to help the Seahawks, and not himself.
I can respect the discipline any man uses to become one of the top 1% in his profession, as all MLB(tm) shot-callers are. That doesn't mean that Dan Duquette receives the same overall deference that Pat Gillick receives. You do not respect George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton at exactly the same levels, or even similar levels.
You don't respect Ken Lay of Enron the same way you respect Bill Gates of Microsoft. Once you ask for, and get, the steering wheel, let's see what you do with it.
You don't respect inborn talents. You respect priorities.
....
America, today, is about demanding respect. It is about treating respect as a courtesy, something you do as a favor to others. Those two mis-definitions miss the entire point of respect. If you want to talk about courtesy, then use that word. Or sensitivity. Or kindness. Or helpfulness. Or use another word. Some word other than "respect." Because respect can only be earned, not demanded.
Maybe America is re-defining "respect" as a shortcut. We're a drive-thru society, aren't we?
....
So the Oakland A's own a 429:301 run differential, halfway through the 2014 season. This projects to a +244 run differential, and that's before any July trades, of course.
By comparison, the last three times the New York Yankees won the World Series (2009, 2000, 1999) their run differentials were +162, +57, and +169, respectively.
So what's the point? Once you're fairly good, what is the point of getting any better? What's the goal? You've already got Soccer Mom in the stands and a better chance of winning than losing. What is Billy Beane thinking? What is "responsible" about a man with Billy Beane's budget trading two young club-controls stars for short-term, expensive players?
He's thinking with his gonads, is what he's doing. It's a testosterone thing. And it is what makes baseball useful. Vicarious war. The battle to be #1, as opposed to being #5, that is what gives the evening's struggle its soul.
The internet is about SAT's, seeing who can be more "clever" in analyzing what is done by men with large muscles, long shin bones and 6th-sigma hand eye coordination. What is going on between the world's most elite athletes, that is about testicles.
If you want to reduce your pastime to an intellectual endeavor, I recommend tournament chess. It's far more intellectually challenging than sabermetrics, and there are absolutely no unmeasurables of any kind.
I do not respect the man who attempts to convert baseball into chess. It isn't the same thing. It isn't close to the same thing.
.......
Gray, Kazmir, and Chavez are very good. But they aren't Stars & Scrubs. Jeff Samardzija is a difference-maker when they hit the bright lights in October. Gray, Kazmir and Chavez are now the Scrubs to Samardzija's and Hammel's (and Donaldson's and Cespedes') star quality.
My son thinks Moneyball was one of the top 10 movies of any kind, and would dearly love to see Beane hoist a championship trophy, and call himself the best in the world. Beane deserves that moment; not all MLB(tm) shot-callers deserve that moment.
Beane famously said, "my slop doesn't work in the playoffs." He responds to those disappointments by --- > attempting to find some slop that does. That, I can respect.
I wish I were an A's fan,
Dr D
Comments
as it was a Zduriencik thing. Lincoln wanted to keep the wolves at bay so he made a huge PR splash, authorizing a $240 million contract. But the M's were unwilling to follow that up with backup moves that secured the results of the big move. I think Zduriencik benefitted from Lincoln's decision to make one splash this past offseason, I don't think he was the driving force behind the signing. Lincoln authorized significantly more than the Yankees were willing to spend, and that made the deal happen. I don't think it was Jack's "huevos" that drove the deal.
Lincoln can now either prove that his move wasn't PR by authorizing Jack to spend the money to compete, or he can tacitly confirm what I have suspected all along. Jack, meanwhile, needs to prove something to me, BIG TIME. Can he run with the big boys? To me he has never yet demonstrated he can. So what'll it be, Jack? Do you prove me right with a pipsqueak move? Or do you surprise me and make a significant counter-move.
We are all rightly excited to still have significant games in July. We are all having fun again watching the Mariners play in a way that kindles real hope that they can compete for the rest of the season. It's taken six long, LONG years.
But all this means is that now the game truly begins. Heretofore the M's have not even been in the game. Now that they are what do they do with it?
But as I've had time to think about it, I'm not convinced the sky is falling.
Let's set all the concern about Beane giving himself a juggernaut while the M's stand pat and look at this again.
Good for the A's:
-They shore up the biggest potential weakness on the club, the back end of the rotation, and give themselves some safety against injury or players having a rough spell.
-Samardzjia could be a post season ace, giving the A's a big three.
-Good PR move and will sell extra seats because the A's are in it to win it or some such jazz.
-Prevents another team from adding this players to the roster, notably Baltimore, which would really improve with two good pitchers.
Not so good for the A's:
-Jeff Samardjzia has not been an ace up until this point in his career. Yes he's been the Cubs opening day starter, but has he been one of the best 30 pitchers in baseball? The guy has a career ERA of almost 4 (3.97) and that's with getting to face pitchers 2-3 times a game. A 3.80 FIP in an era dominated by pitching doesn't scream ACE to me.
-Jeff Samardjzia has not been a winner. 31-42 career W-L. It's not like the A's just added a Félix, Kershaw, Price type who will put the team on his back with 8 or 9 shutout innings. I think Sharks best case scenario is a Doug Fister type explosion in W-L record in a new city (even though I'd argue Fister is a better pitcher).
-Both Hammel and Samardjzia are having career years. Maybe it's a plateau leap. Maybe it's unsustainable. We don't know.
-Hammel is 69 innings shy of his career high. He could easily fatigue down the stretch.
-More than likely, this club just added two wins down the stretch. Maybe one more maybe two less.
-The Mariners biggest weakness is LHP. We have no additional worries as a result of the trade.
Adding 2003's Joel Pinerio and Ryan Franklin to your pitching staff might be a great idea if the plan is to hand the ball over to your bullpen in the 7th or 8th with a close game and take it from there. I think it cements Oakland as a playoff team, but I don't feel less comfortable playing them than I did two days ago.
There are trades out there to be made, but I hope we don't make them because we feel we have to. I think that's how we lost Fister. This team is coming together, and there is stuff to trade, but I think the other teams are skeptical of the guys we want to trade, and they are asking about the guys we want to keep. And that makes entirely good sense. We aren't getting a .800-.900 major league hitter for a Franklin and a Taylor, unless he's a old slow slugger with injury concerns. They want Walker or Paxton.
We're a little different from Oakland in that we are willing to sign our best players to long term contracts. In Oakland, Beane is the star player. People go to the park to see his team. They don't do that here. Nobody goes to Safeco to see Jack's team, nor should they, really. Moneyball is a great movie in how it depicted how that happened: how Beane became the superstar of the Oakland A's.
But I think Z is a better GM than people give him credit for. Taking a 61 win team to 85 wins in one season - that's pretty much unheard of. He did it, though. When it collapsed back to 61 wins, it was apparent we were going to have to work a little more on the foundation. 65-67-75-71 is a pretty standard follow up for teams that are that awful. Four seasons to get to where we are now.
In 2007, Oakland went from a 93 win team to a 76 win team. Not so steep a drop, they could still sniff .500. Following that they went
75-75-81-74 before they began to see the kind of success Jack is on his way toward having this season (94 wins, and sustainable).
We probably won't win 94, but we can sustain a competitive team. We can see the outlines of it today. But it won't be Z's team, like the A's are Beane's team. It'll be Felix's team, and Cano's team.
Z wants to win a World Series. Maybe not this season, but I'm pretty sure he didn't think he'd compete his first year here. He may try to pull a Cliff Lee type deal. In fact, I'm sure he's trying, but people keep,asking for Walker, and THAT is a move you can't screw up. Howard doesn't care much about winning, but Jack does. He'll make the move, on his timetable. At least I hope so. I don't want Jack reacting. I want him acting.
The Beane deserves a lot of respect for his continuing stream of awesome, but this seems like one of his first major deadline trades since something like Jermaine Dye? Or the subtraction of Matt Holiday? Neither of which had much impact positively for the A's in the playoff picture.
So, in conclusion, I say wait & see. I can see Shark and Hammel turning into pumpkins in the AL. But I can also see Beane turning around and trading one or both later this season (or in the offseason) too.
The A's are consistently BORING.
And have you noticed that boring teams get smashed in the playoffs?
And trades in general.
The imperative of countering is worth a thought or 2, just not worthy of reaction. The fact that Beane has stepped forward with a top prospect is worthy of much more consideration in my opinion. His teams playoff roster needs were clearly there. It's easy for me to understand the acquisition. It's trading away Addison Russell, who might be an upgrade over Jed Lowry as soon as next year. That may be understating his talent. A very good to excellent defender at SS with legit 5 tools. It's not like they have a logjam there and still sent out the best. They have little close at MIF, high-A-SS-some-say-MLB-3B to be Daniel Robertson is all I'm seeing. Maybe they're more confident in his ability to stick than anything I've read. Still, high A...I'd defer to others on that. If Jim, Gordon or others have more insight on those situations.
The Mariners have A LOT more behind Walker than that. And closer.
2001 not sustaining through the playoffs to me goes in a different category than most years do. I hope it doesn't come off as insensitive if I point out the work stoppage from 9-11 through 9-17 changed the season. After that they had their first 3 game losing streak that then became 4 as Oakland became the first to sweep them. .722 after the game on the 10th became .716 on the season pretty quick considering that was with 18 games remaining. The Mariners' season wasn't as big of a worry, suddenly. Including to them.
You can count off several years from the mid nineties to early aughts that the Mariners were doing well and had some holes but just used duct tape and super glue. The hot streaks faded and the team did too. Not always...
I think the attitude can be extended longer by the addition being something the guys see as an addition and them coming in and producing. Maybe I'm just hopeful. But I'm hopeful for that actual All Star bat addition. At least I'm confident that any RH addition who hits lefties well should improve the situation with Mac in control though. Previous managers I'd have been worried they would use them too much at the wrong times.