What's Next For Oakland?

What's Billy Beane's next move? He's already traded his team's best pitcher and one of his better hitters. Let's start with a couple of additional moves brought up by Susan Slusser.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/04/SP4PU8UVT.DTL


Trade Eric Chavez. Chavez expects to go, and he was refreshingly candid in his comments. His contract runs through 2010, and he's willing to waive his no-trade rights. He's had three surgeries this winter, so he has to prove his health before anyone acquires him. A big first half would go a long way.

Sign Barry Bonds. Such a move wouldn't surprise Chavez. Slusser believes a bargain Bonds chasing 3,000 hits and extending his home run record could be a way to get fans in the park despite a noncompetitive 2008 team. For $8-10MM, I could see it.

Other possibilities outside of the two mentioned by Slusser:

Trade Mark Kotsay. He makes $8MM in '08 and only managed 56 games last year. Maybe the Braves would take him on in exchange for a nonprospect, if the A's kick in $3MM.

Trade Mark Ellis. He's signed at $5MM for '08, plays Gold Glove second base defense, and is an above average hitter for his position. Too bad for the White Sox he didn't get thrown in as part of the Swisher trade. Outside of the Rockies I don't see many fits for Ellis.

Trade Rich Harden. Since he has a reasonable $7MM option for 2009, Harden is similar to Chavez and Kotsay in that it makes sense to wait to see if he can build a little value before trading him.

Trade Joe Blanton. I'd be surprised if this doesn't happen, with Beane adding three or four more of some team's top ten prospects.

Trade Huston Street. Why not? He's got three years of service time left, so he should draw a better bounty than Jose Valverde did. Perhaps Beane can focus on acquiring a good young middle infielder here.

Vets like Bobby Crosby, Alan Embree, and Justin Duchscherer probably shouldn't get too comfortable either.

ht -Mlb traderumors

http://www.metsblog.com/2008/01/04/note-mets-need-a-big-market-farm-system/#comment-75841



In a chat yesterday for Baseball America, site-editor Jim Callis wrote that the Devil Rays, Red Sox, Reds, Rangers and Yankees have the best group of minor-league prospects in MLB.

The Red Sox were ranked eighth by Baseball America last off-season, up 13 from 2005, while the Yankees were ranked 24, the same as in 2005.

…so, basically, it’s possible to spin a system around in just a few years…begging the question: where are the Mets…

According to Baseball America, the Mets had the 10th Best Farm System in MLB after the 2004 season - after having traded Scott Kazmir and Matt Peterson a few months earlier.

Omar Minaya joined the Mets in the Fall of 2004, and further traded Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit, Grant Psomas and Gaby Hernandez, among others, during his first 12 months in an effort to quickly acquire proven, major-league talent.

…as he has said in the past, minaya’s argument is that in order to make a quick 180–degree transition, from a 71–91 team in 2004 to getting one game away from the World Series in 2006, he had no choice but to a) sign major free agents, like Carlos Beltran, Billy Wagner and Pedro Martinez, which also cost him top draft picks, while b) also trading his best young talent for proven veterans like Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca…in other words, he had to cripple his farm system to quickly improve the major-league team…fact is, he did both…yes, the team won quickly, but he did in fact weaken their minor league talent pool…

…and so, here we are again…the Mets are good - far, far better than 2004’s team - with a pretty good crop of young talent in Fernando Martinez, Kevin Mulvey and others, and three top picks in the coming draft…yet, minaya is being tempted to decimate his farm system, again, to acquire one pitcher: Johan Santana…

…as i have said, at this point, given the pressure to win and the desire to field a popular team for the debut of Citi Field, i would give up this club’s best young pitchers to get santana, who will almost certainly always be better than Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey…

…to do this, though, if he’s going to trade several prospects for one pitcher, minaya has got to abandon his team’s painful loyalty to MLB’s slotting system…

For more on the ‘slotting system,’ check out Ken Davidoff’s recent column for Newsday, during which Minaya insinuates a need to sway from his previous draft style

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=18671

Justin (Queens): The Jets need a pass rusher in the worst way. With the 6th pick, who should Tannumbaum go get?

SportsNation Matt Williamson: I think the Jets need a LOT. Yes, a pass rusher for sure is a priority, but I also have zero faith in either of their lines. Some names-C Long would be awesome, but probably gone-still, there are nto a lot of true 3-4 DL at the top of this draft. Could be a good trade down team to get a OG, RT, DE, NT and OLB....at least!

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=18671

Justin (Queens): The Jets need a pass rusher in the worst way. With the 6th pick, who should Tannumbaum go get?

SportsNation Matt Williamson: I think the Jets need a LOT. Yes, a pass rusher for sure is a priority, but I also have zero faith in either of their lines. Some names-C Long would be awesome, but probably gone-still, there are nto a lot of true 3-4 DL at the top of this draft. Could be a good trade down team to get a OG, RT, DE, NT and OLB....at least!


TD (Boston): Would the Pats go CB at #7 - are there any worth the #7?

SportsNation Matt Williamson: They might have to if Samuel walks. Still, I would bet on a trade down and I have a hunch that they really like Laurenitis. Are Jenkins from Ohio St or Cason worthy of such a high pick? Hard to say right now, but probably not. They won't reach.

“And if Beane’s so smart, why is he having to completely restock his farm system in one off-season?”

Several reasons…all of which you already know but I have 15 minutes to kill:

1) Billy Beane is not God. I sometimes like to think he is because the afterlife would rule, but even when a team retains and nurtures its best talent its system can still be weak on multiple levels due to key injuries and prospects not panning out. Overall, his body of work is still excellent.

2) Teams like Oakland can’t afford to pay the mega prospects so they don’t draft them. Other teams can afford them but they are afraid to join the party. This is how teams like Boston, New York, Detroit, etc went from having dried up orchards to fruitful bounties seemingly overnight. Beane has made a career out of letting other teams pay the high signing bonuses and then trading for those players only after he knows they are adjusting to pro ball. During his playing days, Beane’s struggles with the mental side of the pro adjustment were legendary. This is why he applies high value to that particular attribute in players he drafts and targets in trades, but I digress…

3) When you don’t have the monster payroll winning has to be cyclical. You go for it, you rebuild, you go for it, you rebuild. Several years ago Beane developed what he believed to be a contender and traded a few key prospects (Harang, Teahen, etc.) and spent most if not all of his top picks on near-major league ready college kids to seal the deal as soon as possible. Had he been loading up on high school prospects, chances are the system would be richer at this point.

I agree that the casual A’s fan will have a tough time swallowing the pill Beane is feeding them but I assume the more sophisticated A’s fan is excited about the impressive talent being stockpiled for a legitimate, low-budget run that should start in two to three years. I know that if the Mariners were in the A’s position I would love to see our GM doing what Beane is doing. Unfortunately, it rarely happens because most GM’s don’t have his job security and most owners are terrified of making less money.

If you’re an A’s fan, hearing all of this talk about how your GM is a genius and he’s great at finding undervalued talent and making great trades and all of that, I think you would eventually like to see that translate into more on-field success, since the A’s have had bad luck even when they’ve reached the postseason in his tenure.

Tough to imagine more on-field success than the A’s have had… In the past 10 seasons, the A’s have 2 losing seasons - last year and 10 years ago. Their overall record is 901-718. Here is how they’ve done:

1998: 74-88
1999: 87-75
2000: 91-70
2001: 102-60
2002: 103-59
2003: 96-66
2004: 91-71
2005: 88-74
2006: 93-69
2007: 76-86

THAT is impressive, and for team that has consistently been in the bottom 1/3 of payroll, I would say it’s unprecedented. For those who wonder about the man-crushes on Billy Beane, that’s the reason, and it’s tough to argue with.

If you’re talking about post-season success, say so, and I’m sure someone will explain why it’s basically a crap-shoot.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ticketing/sth_renewal_letter.jsp

Resale of Ticket(s): Any direct or indirect sale, resale, auction, assignment or transfer (collectively, "resale") of Tickets must be done in accordance with applicable law. Any resale or attempted resale in violation of applicable law violates this License. New York State law prohibits the resale of any Ticket(s) within one thousand five hundred feet from the physical structure of the Stadium under penalty of law. No Ticket(s) may be used for advertising, promotion (including contests, giveaways or sweepstakes), or other trade or commercial purposes without the express written consent of the Yankees. Any violation of the License shall give the Yankees the unrestricted right to revoke this License, terminate this License and/or cancel the Ticket Account immediately. The Licensee is absolutely responsible for any violation of the License and should safeguard the Ticket(s) so that the License is not violated. The Yankees reserve the right to investigate violations of the License. The failure of the Licensee or any person in possession of the Ticket(s) to cooperate with any investigation constitutes a violation of the License.

These two policies, as a combination, concerned me a bit. So, I contacted a high ranking party in the Yankees Ticket Operations department and asked them:

If a Yankee season ticket holder were to sell their tickets on StubHub and then the person who buys them sells them “within one thousand five hundred feet from the physical structure of the Stadium,” would the season ticket holder then lose their license? Or, would the Yankees work with StubHub to verify that the tickets were sold by the season ticket holder and then they (the season holder) would be relieved of what happens with the ticket after the sale?

And, this was their answer to me:

The Licensee is absolutely responsible for any violation of the License and should safeguard the Ticket(s) so that the License is not violated.

So, if you're a Yankees season ticket holder, and you're thinking of selling some of your tickets this season on StubHub, you may want to think twice about it - because, if the person who buys your ticket (with your account number printed on it) does something bad with it, the Yankees are keeping you on the hook for it.