The lineup that could have been for 2010.
LF Nick Swisher
CF Carlos Gonzalez
RF Andre Ethier
1B Carlos Pena
2B Mark Ellis
SS Miguel Tejada
3B Adam Kennedy
C Kurt Suzuki

Instead GGGGGGGAAAAAARRRRRBBBAGGGGGGGGGGEEE! Wow, that Beane is a talent keeping genius!

And our pitching would be horrrible. So would our AAA and AA teams.

But you do have a point with Either and Pena. Those hurt. :P

Isn't great the decisions you can make with 20/20 hindsight and also pick and choose the piece you want to remember?

Even with hindsight you missed the boat.

LF Nick Swisher -- We got three very good young players for him. One of whom easily replaced Swisher, who by the way, only lasted one year in Chicago... You think White Sox think they got the better of that deal?
CF Carlos Gonzalez -- Yeah.. Would've been nice to hold on to him longer.
RF Andre Ethier -- ditto
1B Carlos Pena -- Are you kidding? It took him 5 years to figure how to be productive. Plus he would've been in free agent period by now which means he still would be gone. You do realize you can't have a player take a pay cut to play on the same team right?
2B Mark Ellis
SS Miguel Tejada -- 20/20 hindsight.....
3B Adam Kennedy -- You actually want Kennedy to be your everyday 3B?
C Kurt Suzuki --

Why don't you list the players that were traded before they imploded or the trades that Beane fleeced the other team? Oh yeah! That won't support your point!

Knowing what I know now I can go back in history and buy all the hot tech stocks and sell them off just before they crash...........

You're consistently one of the most ignorant posters around. Do some research with any of the deals that included those guys. Pena....GOD this guys has been trumped for year now. The A's were NOT, in fact NO team would have held onto a guy for 6 yrs to show any development. That's how long it took before he did anything. Duh.

Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney (who's better than Swisher alone) and Fautino De Los Santos was acquired for Swisher. You make that trade 900 times out of 900. Duh.

Losing Carlos Gonzalez was tough, but you do that when you acquire a Matt Holliday and eventually a guy who's touted equally if not more in Brett Wallace who will be the A's 3B in a year or two.

Miggy Tejada would have cost a min of $70 mill and in fact the A's defacto owner stated aloud that they would not entertain attempting to sign Tejada, not Beane you half wit. Of course though, since you know not one thing about this team other than the cover, this makes sense.

And just the same you blast Beane...DUH he obtained Adam Kennedy for?.....take a guess....c'mon..I know you can't......yep, you have no clue huh? Beane dealt Joe Dillon for Adam Kennedy straight up. Of course no credit given by you for this move, but you lament the lineup that could have been with of course Adam Kennedy being included. Duh. Sit on a toilet and use your brain for 3 minutes before you post. This is flat lacking of any thought.

By the by, Beane single-handedly drafted Kurt Suzuki.

Andre Either is another brutal one, but of course you were waiving your flag when Milton Bradley was tearing the cover off the ball in Oakland though too. Yep. You're a hypocrite also. Imagine that?

So, yes ignorant one, do some research. Just a bit. Try. I know it's a hard thing to do, but try this website to help you. www.baseball-reference.com

And if you're seriously flipping out over Swisher's stats, take a peak at the fact that the Yankees themselves had hit more homers at the All star break than they did in the entirety of 2008. What does that mean? The new Yankee Stadium is the equivalent of a little league park. Thus see if you can read between the lines on Swisher.

Looking at Miggy and what happened you are correct, it was Schott, he refused to even discuss contract with Tejada. But Beane went along with it. I always thought that was really classless, no matter if Schott was going to sign him or not they owed Miggy the courtesy of at least talking with him especially since Miggy had indicated he was willing to extend a home discount. In the end Miggy signed a 6 year $72 mil contract, was that really a lot of money for a player of his caliber? He won the RBI title 04 with 150, his lowest average since in six years is .283, hitting over .300 4 times since 04. Kudos to him this year, "ol man Miggy" hit .313 with 86 rbi's. The decision not to sign him was devastating to the team, sure, hind sight is always better than foresight, but Schott and Beane have to take responsiblity, they sure would have if Crosby had panned out. What it came down to was cheap ownership, pure and simple.
I also agree losing Carlos Gonzalez was tough, I really don't think I would have traded him for Holliday who was trade bait from second one in Oakland. Carlos has all the tools, we needed more patience with him. I believe this was an instance of too much trading.

Calling Billy Beane a "hillbilly" relects badly on you. You're the one with the name "Billy" in your handle.

While it would have been nice to keep Miggy, his agent was asking for $100 million. Yes Miggy did have a 150 rbi season, but his production has plummeted every year since, despite playing in 2 bandboxes since leaving Oakland. He was found guilty of using roids, never helped another team approach the playoffs, lied about his age, hit fewer than 20 hrs the last 3 years, etc. As has been shown, Chavez' OPS was better than Miggy's in 2004, Tejada's best season, not to mention 5 of the other six seasons before 2007. And there was the defense. Looking at the choice in 2003, Chavez was clearly the better option.

As far as Miggy's loss "devastating" the franchise, I have to think you know better. In 2004, they blew a 3 game lead with 9 games to play, in 2005 they were tied for the division lead with 2 weeks to go despite trading Mulder and Hudson, and in 2006, they went to the LCS after failing 4 times with Miggy, with at least one of those failures directly attributable to his baserunning error. Miggy, meanwhile, played for teams that went 451-520 in the last 6 years.

I respect your opinion, you know that. But we are going to disagree. Miggy was the fire, and of course, hindsight is better than foresight. Imho, it was a terrible decision, Crosby was a pathetic replacement, and Chavez has been injured. No-one could have foreseen the injuries, but the decision was made because Crosby cost less money than Tejada, pure and simple. I will never believe Beane thought he was going to catch lightning in a bottle twice with Crosby, he knew how long the odds were of replacing a MVP shortstop with a rookie and expecting that rookie to be as good. They went for the cheap option rather than the quality option.

I have a novel idea, Fisher and Wolff are going to spend how much on a new ballpark? Why not take just a portion of that money and spend it on the team? Forget about a new ballpark, really improve the team and see if attendance improves at McAfee? Are we talking $500,000,000.00 for a new ballpark? Why not take 20% of that and spend it on the team? $100,000,000.00 would go a long way and I would bet attendance would shoot up. Forget about what's best for the owners, forget about holding payroll down, just once do what's best for the fans and team.

I like your proposal for Uncle Lew to spend some money on the team, but remember that Wolffie has always intended for others to pay for the stadium, be they ticketholders, PSL owners, condo buyers, naming rights holders, etc. That's how he became the A's "owner" despite fronting very little of his own money. Those other parties will not be willing to pay more to increase payroll. Plus, in a good news/bad news scenario, the A's are reducing ticket prices for next year. I'm all for cheaper seats, but revenue might fall even further, especially if the team doesn't improve.

If he were to spend the money and noticeably stabilize and improve the team, attendance, even in the old Coliseum would increase dramatically. Make the A's a winner again and 2 million + in attendance will return. Of course if he keeps tarps on the seats and constantly disparages the Coliseum and continues his longing for the South Bay, I don't know if a $100 million would increase attendance.

We'll have to agree to disagree on Miggy vis a vis Chavez.

A report out there that the 2010 A's are a very interesting team to watch over the season. Light prediction they'll be a Tejas Rangers type of surprise. And if ya think about it....very very possible even with guys like Cunningham, Doolittle (he might make the big club in LF), Chris Carter coming in later on in the yr.....I still like adding one vet pitcher and a Jermaine Dye, resign Kennedy and they're right in the mix.

while i do agree with you that beane is a tool, i think the A's lack of offense is due to it's philosophy in hitting and what they teach their hitters. swisher, pena, gonzalez were not developing in oakland because they were taking too many good pitches to hit looking for the base on balls so they can bump up their on base percentage. who knows how ethier would've turned out here. even when we had great hitters like giambi, a healthy chavez, tejada, jermaine dye our offense was still at the bottom. you want offense, it has to start from the top. starting with mr. beane.

Swisher had his best years in Oakland. Since he left his production plummeted in 2008 and improved this year due to a great lineup and a bandbox in NYC. They got 3 players for him, including Gio and Sweeney.

Pena hit .223 this year and still walks a lot. He also strikes out 1 out of 3 appearances and was shipped around for years before having a breakout season in 2007. He's not approached those offensive numbers again. His .871 OPS in 2008 was .020 higher than Jack Cust's that same year.

Jury's still out on Gonzalez with his small sample size this year and playing in Colorado. (See Holliday, Matt for Coors' inflated numbers)

And you must have become a fan sometime after 2001. That year the A's scored 884 runs, 4th in the league, following up on their 947 from 2000, when they had the second most runs scored. In 1999, Beane's first winning season, they scored 893 runs, 4th in the league.

Oh, and as aside, the Bosox used the same old Moneyball philosophy of OBP to win 2 titles and the Halos were better this year because . . . they claim to have followed Bobby Abreu's careful, pitch taking approach at the plate.

Forget hindsight. This thread makes perfect sense.
I got ripped for ripping Beane for dumping Ethier for that piece of garbage Milton Bradley.
Yeah who would have known?
Maybe Billy should start talking more to the scouts.
Eitheir is a stud. Billy Beane is the Bust.
That would have been a great line up.
I've been saying for years that they should have kept Miggy and dumped Chavez down the sewer of overrated wet dreams.
I heard a rumor that Chavez might come back next year and be our DH?
That would be D umb as H ell!
Get rid of that bum now!!!
If you thought the A's had trouble hitting this year, then just wait until next season.

"It's A Long Way To The Top, If You Want To Rock 'N Roll."
Seems the A's are still trying to rock, but they will never reach the top again until:

A) A new owner is found.
B) A new stadium is built.

The A's truly are on a "HIGHWAY TO HE11!"

Signed,

Bon Scott

Bon

Did you write this post just so you could throw in a couple of AC/DC titles? Maybe you should lay off the drugs and booze and you might be able to think. You might still be alive. (Suprised you didn't know that)

"If you thought the A's had trouble hitting this year, then just wait until next season."

Please provide specifics to support your statement. Let's see how good your analysis is.

"I heard a rumor that Chavez might come back next year and be our DH?
That would be D umb as H ell!
Get rid of that bum now!!!"

And here's a D umb as H ell question for you how do you: How do propose to do that when is still under contract that makes him untradeable? You can waive him but you'll still be paying for his contract.

"Seems the A's are still trying to rock, but they will never reach the top again until:"

A) A new owner is found.
B) A new stadium is built.

It won't matter new owner or not. As long as they're stuck playing in Oakland with no new revenue stream they're going to continue having to watch their spending. No only do they need a new stadium they need to have it somewhere else other than in Oakland.

Ethier was a trade for Milton Bradley and Bradley was the one piece that got us over the hump into the second round of the playoffs in 06. Pena? C'mon, gimme a break! Six or seven teams hired and dumped him before he finally caught on with Tampa Bay, and even THEN, he hit for a mediocre average. Granted his dingers were timely and pretty, but he had plenty of guys on base to drive in, thus inflating his otherwise pedestrian performance. Good riddance to Pena, I say.

The true measure of a man isn't in how he does in prosperity. It's how he handles adversity.

Rrrrrrrrrrraptorman

How many people are going to drop to their knees in front of Carlos Pena? The guy is fine, he's not Joe DiMaggio and would not have made the A's leaps and bounds better. Especially when he couldn't out-hit Scott Hatteberg.

Based on his batting average, he was barely comparable to Cust. In fact, I'd say Cust was the better hitter of the two because (1) he had no protection in the lineup and (2) the Coliseum's a much more difficult place to hit because of the expansive foul areas and it's a pitcher's park.

Pena always thought he was something special. He isn't.

Btw - I'm now accustomed to the 11-R signature. It sorta growing on me.

Rrrrrrrrrrraptorman

For the goof balls who think (imma, So-Zuki, billy_mays etc) that Beane current A's ownership is a joke, I present you Charlie Finley. The guy BARELY paid attention to his team. His players won in spite of him....and here's just a small video of how much he was disliked as an owner and how random his ownership style actually was. There was nothing he did that made him any better or worse than current A's ownership and funny enough, he bounced as quick as he could. Yeah, Charlie Finley eh?

ht tp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhNLLYKvduw&feature=related

I will have to disagree with you when you say Charlie Finley barely paid attention to the team. The guy definitely had an eye for talent. He built the team that ruled the early 70’s. The team that included Hunter, Blue, Odom, Jackson, Bando, Campaneras, Rudi, Fingers, North, Henderson, Tenace, Holtzman, etc. He was an innovator. He was also the one who came up with designated hitter. He did a lot of things to draw attention to the A’s such as paying the players to sport moustaches, wear white shoes, ballgirls, the mule. To say he didn’t care about the team is just plain wrong. Now you can definitely make a pretty good case that he was cheap which is what led to the team's demise when Hunter gained free agency because he didn’t pay for Hunter’s insurance policy. Once he saw the writing on the wall he sold the team when he saw the future of free agency and escalating salaries. The players did win in spite of him. But they also fought among themselves while in the dugout. But when they took the field they played with the same fire that they fought with each other.

I wouldn’t hold Finley in higher esteem that current owners since we are not comparing similar situations. Finley didn’t really have to deal with free agency since he got rid of the team before free agency went crazy. Current owners are limited by what they can do since there’s not much revenue stream. With free agency, Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Dodgers and other big market teams it’s assured that marquee players will leave for more money. But I do think that they are building a foundation for a strong team in the next few years.

Yeah...that's a much much better description of Finley as an owner. Much better. cheers. I'm beyond sick of the whining and complaining by goofs as those mentioned and then turning and just casting Finley as some God when he obviously had major flaws as do ALL owners/GMs. Not many here say Beane is the greatest thing even, but he overwhelmingly has shown more upside than down in his career. That's the point I was trying to convey. I did so horribly, but here the A's are, steep in a stated 5 yr rebuild, and already ahead of schedule with some absolute studs in the making. I think ultimately guys like Carter, Mazzaro, Wallace, Green Weeks, Cardenas, and now Desme need to show some consistency, but all of these guys go on prolonged sessions os outright destruction of the baseball with their respective bats. When there's this much talent in the organization, there will be multiple players that pan out to be good as opposed to bad. That's super encouraging.