Marcus Semien to Jays
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 26, 2021
Winter Baseball Sadness Grill 285
285 thoughts on “Winter Baseball Sadness Grill”
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Marcus Semien to Jays
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 26, 2021
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Shots fired from a distance
Is it still true that the biggest contact in Oakland history was 6 years/$66M to Eric Chavez in 2004?
By total value, I think so.
By average annual value, Khris’ current extension (2/$33.5 M).
On the rare occasions they’ve spent anything resembling real money, it sure hasn’t worked out (Butler, the final extensions for Dye, Chavez, Crisp, Khris).
Which is not to say that I don’t think they should keep trying.
Yeah, failed spending hasn’t been any more or less likely to correlate with A’s postseasons than no spending has.
It’s so telling that by not offering the QO, the thing they were most terrified of was not the wins lost by losing Semien, or even the prospect of losing Semien without any draft pick compensation, but the simple fact that they just could not, would not be willing to stomach the possibility of being on the hook for that $18 million QO.
Imagine being an almost 3x billionaire like Fisher and having an asset like this organization that’s generated so many profits and value appreciation over the last 15 years, a current core team that’s so good and so close to being a true championship contender, a net worth that’s largely recovered and then some from the March dip, and still wringing your hands over a 1 year dollar amount like this.
Although I guess it’s not hard to imagine when this was the same piece of shit who tried to save a million or so by not paying minor leaguers before he was shamed by his own staff (a lot of whom he also fired to save a few more pennies).
“They’ve been telling agents they have no money.” At what point does MLB step in and force something to change here, I wonder.
Oh god, I accidentally did an Ostler take.
His diagnosis isn’t wrong but imagining that MLB would force a profitable owner to sell is fantasyland.
shots landed. Pinpoint accuracy.
Slusser unfiltered
She no longer has to err on the side of staying friendly with the Oakland front office.
I’m expecting her to declare Howard Terminal deceased any day now.
No inductees from that list of names? Just pathetic. So tired of the anti-roid sanctimony.
loooooool
Wow, Schilling really took a dive there in the uncounted ballots. I really thought he would be higher
I started to write a serious response to this.
Omar Vizquel getting significantly more support than Andruw Jones is obnoxious.
A couple months of La Stella turned out to be shockingly great, but he was clearly born to be a Giants/Angels-flavored scrapper.
Are we really just going to go with Pinder & Kemp?
They don’t cost anything or require our head of baseball operations to think about things other than buying the Liverpool Red Sox or whatever so sure.
Shit don’t work at anfield anymore
Picking an early skirmish with the union using public health as a Trojan horse, interesting strategy.
There have been non stop 10-18u tournaments/showcases in arizona every weekend since May.
Believing they wanted to cancel was not remotely possible
Come on now.
We’re on the verge of a Kozma/Kemp/Pinder MIF with 3 high leverage spots still needing to be replaced in the bullpen.
I just can’t believe that a team with this much talent going for it is letting themselves go forward with this situation.
Can they DH for Nick Allen?
This Gamestop stock thing is crazy, succinct explanation in this thread, also it might sink the NY Mets.
Here’s a longer thing from this morning.
I didn’t know about the Mets connection. Even if those numbers are right, I doubt it affects Cohen’s ability to spend money on the Mets. Pretty funny just after he bought the team from the Wilpons though. Mets ownership is just cursed.
I have a friend who got in at $15 and is not selling until $1K. And he’s absolutely convinced it’ll get there.
Someone is going to be left holding a bag with several billion dollars of tulip bulbs, but at least he’s mostly playing with house money at this point.
I saw mentioned somewhere today that the tulip mania bubble also took place during a pandemic.
And if it gets to $1K does he have the discipline to sell at that point, or will he think “Nah, I bet I can get $1200?” That’s exactly when it turns into Webvan.com.
I screwed around with individual stocks some, many years ago. Making money requires getting two decisions right: when to buy, when to sell. Guess how that went; cut to present day and my entire stock holding is in the simplest most all-inclusive instrument there is, Vanguard Total World Stock (VTWAX, or VT if you prefer the ETF).
1K seems like the meme price point right now. But yes a lot of the furor seems crazed and irrational. Reading r/wallstreetbets, it’s almost like the irrationality is the point, and it feels like the 2017 crypto craze where people got in just to be part of the ride.
My friend is a techie at a FANG so I’m reasonably sure he won’t be financially ruined by this (I don’t know how much he actually bought), but to andeux’s point, there are gonna be real world consequences. And there are folks in with their entire life savings or maxed out CC loans who are going to be in trouble if/when the institutional investors eventually win. All for a meme.
Sadly, A’s fans were also the victims of a short squeeze today.
fans *and* managers.
just look at melvin’s capital.
A student I work with got in for $1500. He has already cashed out (smartly). I didn’t ask how much money he made.
60% drop today after Robinhood banned trades in GameStop … the hedge funds that bailed yesterday are going to be so pissed!
Ted Cruz and AOC are also both pissed by that decision.
It is on quite a ride today. Pretty sure it is not going to 1000.
Investors themselves, too.
I may very well be old-fashioned and/or wrong on this, but I just want all of the fucking “investors” off my lawn. I find all of the people involved in day trading and financial market betting to be leeches to the society and none of them to be “hard-working Americans” or hard-working anything. I mean, you didn’t make $50,000 for two hours of clicking buttons on your phone, drinking beer and eating pizza. Cry me a fucking river. And don’t even get me started on the Wall-Street guys and institutions. I abhor the fact that there is such a thing as a “financial engineer”, and claim — based solely on grumpy emotions and no facts whatsoever — that the existence of the stock market in its current state is the main cause for financial inequality in the world. Burn them all fucking down.
As usual I am just sad I can donate funds to the EC2024 presidential campaign. I am in no way extreme on anything but I would have no issue with a pox on all their houses.
Yes but you’ve got to at least be happy that a fine American company like Game Stop is now flush with capital to use for expansion, innovation, and employment. That’s how the stock market works, right?
Woooow, this really feels like someone powerful decided to just hit the “last resort” button. And it’s not a ban on trades per se, but a ban on just buying/calls, not selling I think?
Any legal folks want to weigh in? How is this not price manipulation? I feel like this is gonna have pretty strong implications for consumer confidence in the trading market in general going forward.
yeah. sell only on robinhood. no buy.
totally frees up stock so shorts can get off the ride where [presumably, if redditraders held as planned—but who knows] the stocks were not going to be available till shares hit $1000.
The 49ers own 37% of Leeds United now.
This interview with Beane (whose Bostonpool exit plan is apparently deader than dead) does not make it sound like there is a plan at work here…at all.
Look, we have a big list of guys. Binders of guys. Binders of Pinders. Anyway, the point is that for sure someone will be playing shortstop.
Really what is short stop? Look, we shift and when that happens there is no one in the traditional short stop position. We are always innovating. We don’t think having a short stop is a thing all teams will have in 10 years
The sad thing is he’s not even trying to spin that kind of BS anymore. He’s just flat out saying that they don’t have any solutions and haven’t really been trying that hard to find any solutions. He’s completely checked out. The interview is beyond embarrassing, or would be if he cared.
Bobby Crosby (just turned 41) and Adam Rosales (37) are in the organization.
The A’s are betting on 2021 not being played at all
Taking the Reagan defense to a whole new level, Enrique Tarrio “doesn’t recall” being an FBI informant.
Among many cases he helped with as a prolific informant was a steroid case in Miami…watch out, A-Rod!
How great is it that A’s fans are already well aware of the full range of Tootsie Roll products? What, no love for Child’s Play?
Are those the “midgees” Ray has told me so much about?
Let’s all jump in and buy call options in Francesco’s, we’ll make a fortune.
This “phenomenon” has a reek similar to Trumpists conspiring online to me.
Also “Gamergate,” and (in a different way) bitcoin.
And also the Jonathan Lebed case from 20 years ago.
(the subject of a pre-Moneyball Michael Lewis article.)
The Michael Lewis article is hilarious.
Like the part where the chairman of the SEC tries to explain how a 14-year-old kid talking up stocks on yahoo messages boards is different than what wall street professionals do.
The soundtrack to our new post-factual political and financial world can be Surrealistic My Pillow.
Dislike this image for not showing the wide variety of Tootsie Rolls. I am full team Vanilla Tootsie Roll.
Mom Aces used to include them in the Halloween candy bags she would make each year I (and eventually the next generation) complained about them annually and now I have to get a pack to cherish the memory.
Sugar Babies is a Tootsie Roll Industries brand. I still sometimes pick up a box of those if I’m in Dollar Tree. I haven’t seen a Sugar Daddy in a while though. Yeah, the cheapest mom on the block would drop one of those Tootsie minis in the trick or treat bag, maybe two if she liked my parents.
I miss Sugar Daddys. (But then again who doesnt)
Moms candy bags were something else. On one hand she would give like a half dozen Tootsie Rolls, then she would throw in a Reese pack and a couple of butterfingers. She went for both quality and quantity.
My and the little Aces kept up the tradition of making bags until we moved down south. We get almost no trick or treaters in this area so it just saves time to open the package and eat all the candy ourselves.
Sugar Babies – aka, Filling Pullers
Sugar Daddys were the real emergency dental visit threats. Sugar Babies dissolve in your mouth into a brown sugar slurry. That used to be my favorite candy move. I am now adding this to my next shopping list (so like in June some time).
The other one Dollar Tree has is Jujyfruits. They’re not really “filling pullers” but they’re definitely caught in there until the next time you brush your teeth.
Candy tangent: My kids and I recently got into a discussion of weird gas station candy that no one seems to ever buy, and the rabbit hole led me to discover that Big Hunk, Abba-Zabba, and Rocky Road are all made by the same company in Hayward. Has anyone ever eaten these? Are they good? Are they sold in gas stations outside of Northern California?
Family owned for 80 years! The candy biz is tough, old man Hershey’ll have his goons cut your brake lines. Profile from a few years back, they basically survive through intense loyalty to their oddball brands. At least at one time you could find their stuff nationwide. I’m like the Rocky Road a lot, Not a fan of the Abba Yabba (though the Captain Beefheart song slaps).
i used to love abba-zabas (in the age of actual sugar) but was disappointed last time. it happened one year at boy scout camp when all the other chocolate bars came out of the machine molten while abba-zabas kinda got better in the heat.
i was surprised they were made in hayward because i always thought of them as the sacramento candy. close enough i guess.
they were all common in socal in the 80s. big hunk was the classic one to use when cheerleaders made candy poems for their assigned football player. poster board with text and candy bars taped in appropriate places.
dear [whatchamacallit], i think you are a [big hunk].
even if they weren’t supposed to be terribly awkward sex puns by people who didn’t know how sex worked yet, they usually read that way.
I like the idea of Rocky Road, but it never is really like a good chunk of rocky road you can get in a candy store. I also think I have seen a mint chocolate version of that, but I am only so brave.
I’m pretty sure I had some Big Hunk long before diabeetus. It was like chocolate-covered marshmallow if I remember correctly – really thick and chewy.
now slide.
slide baby slide.
just slide baby slide.
AV feels a whoop coming up.
cotton candy, sweetie go
lemme see that tootsie roll!
Hello Oakland! I’m here just long enough to overpay for a beer at the Southwest gates at the airport. The flight to Reno looks like it will go but the drive from the airport to South Shore may be an adventure. An overnight at the Nugget in Sparks is a possibility if it looks too nasty to drive that.
Say hi to John Ascuaga for me.
I’d rather just get home but driving in blizzard conditions at night isn’t fun. Apparently it’s not terrible right now. Can always give up in Carson City.
1 hour 15 minutes to get home from the airport vs. the usual 1 hour even. It’s snowing but well short of a “blizzard”. Still gotta be careful for those folks driving 20 mph on the freeway.
LOL
there are so many ways to structure deals these days that minimize risk. but the all require paying market rates.
oh well, at least the new stadium is being built
Oh good grief. If Beane/Forst sell Chapman and Montas to the Red Sox and Luzardo to the Yankees for cash only, will Bowie Kuhn step in to stop the deal?
Fisher’s whole approach has been to insist on keeping the ledger in the black every single year. If that offer report is accurate, it suggests that they’re slashing payroll to meet worst case revenue projections. The bottom could be really really low.
It didn’t fully dawn on me until this morning that they really were trying to pay the beloved star shortstop $2.5 million this season. All the alarm bells are going off.
My god that is so embarrassing.
Right? Like, I am personally embarrassed to be associated with this as a fan.
they are right about one thing. No offer would be less embarrassing
I almost want to hire one of those banner dragging planes to say “we had nothing to do with this!!!” at the first Jays series.
No word on whether she thinks the Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, and Colonel Sanders were also involved in setting the fires.
If Lyndon LaRouche had lived a few years longer he would have seen his worldview become mainstream.
He seems so tame in comparison.
Now you guys made me dig out the “Lyndon LaRouche or Alan Greensperm?” flyer I got in Sproul plaza 25 years ago or so.
I am so glad you saved this.
off line for a day and now there are jewish space lasers? As long as we keep this away from SLF it’s cool
not even the shaka is safe, FSU. not even the shaka.
In a more just world Josh Hawley’s hand would be cut off for that.
He should be clubbed. No heiau of refuge for him.
I’m being told that the terms of the A’s lease state that any pots of gold be split equally between John Fisher, Mark Davis, and (squints) Scott McKibben.
that is not actually in the stadium
That was exactly my thought. “What about the end of the rainbow..is it at the AM/PM? Maybe the other side of Hegenberger?
I felt bad for Dave when I saw this. He has no say on any check writing and has to face the full anger of the fanbase by putting up rainbows and shit. I know he signed up for it but man I would just disappear from SM for a week or 2.
We may not be spending any money on the major league team, but at least we also don’t have any top 100 prospects.
One in KLaw’s Top 100: Puk at No. 84.
Meanwhile, a bit to the south
Cool. My countryman and namesake is the worst player in the NBA
… and starting shortstop for the A’s.
This really gets at why the SF school renaming thing is so frustrating to me. The willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism inherent in the way the project has been handled says something terrible about the way this body thinks about education.
While I agree with the larger point, I’m not all that swayed by the fact that several professional historians all say that they should have hired a professional historian.
I bet my guy Leon Litwack would have done it pro bono.
First I heard of it was at the Balboa back to school night and I thought that, yeah, a few should be renamed. We don’t need to continually “honor” George Washington. And Sure Balboa would be a great thing to change. There are a few whose origins I don’t know about so sure look into those.
But that process was so dumb, and it’s optics have been even dumber. I think I saw Clarendon on the list. From the Google doc
And the lick think, just stop. King County Washington was named after Rufus Wainwright King. I think he was Pierce’s VP, not gonna look it up, this was all told to me when I worked for King County in the 90s. Anyway, he was, as was the style at the time, a racist shitbag. So the County Counsel decided to rename the county after Martin Luther King Jr. Everyone’s happy.
Was he the son of Loudon Wainwright III King?
Had to watch it 3 times to figure out what the joke was
The voice of the Coliseum and its best chronicler in one month. This just sucks. It won’t be there there any more, in exactly the way G. Stein meant it.
How am I just learning that he was the guy from Warriors games back in the day?? I think about this call all the time.
Also Cal football, and as a Moraga resident Saint Mary’s basketball at McKeon Pavilion for many years.
He used to do this inexplicably funny read of “Is it in you” from a Gatorade ad before kickoff at Memorial Stadium. For some reason that stuck with me.
Drive home…sssssafely, Dick.
WTF
Shouldn’t he spend an unhappy three months in Oakland first?
“Ramon Laureano and the Mile high Curveball”
It’s like MLB told the owners they can “vote their conscience” with payroll and the bearish ones are selling everything
My second favorite team. Go Cards!
How much of it deferred?
honest question: Who is that?
Honest answer: no clue
$65 per year for 10,000 years.
LOL
Don’t know who this is either.
I think these are just products of a baseball reference random name generator. In the days to come expect we’ll also sign Reggie Williams, Juan Rodriguez, and Justin Miller.
Are we sure we could afford the cash considerations?
That’s where my 2020 A’s Access money is going.
Pete Kozma is so pumped
Bruce Jenkins basically did this take unironically today re Bob Melvin.
Melvin seems way too grounded to go in for such mumbo jumbo.
My “best fans” rankings:
1. A’s
2. Cardinals (big welcome to Mr. Arenado!)
whatever
29. Red Sox
30. Giants
Couple of early preps for the Triple Crown running today, Holy Bull in Fla at 1:50 PDT and Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita at 3:37.
You’re the only horse race person I know – is Big Brown a well known horse?
Yes! Won Derby and Preakness in 2008. At time Triple Crown drought was >30 years so there was enormous interest heading to the Belmont, which he was a heavy favorite and ran poorly.
I am not big on hot criminal justice taeks, but this makes me mad enough to type but not mean:
Attempted murder
… Soros, Dominion voting systems, Jewish space lasers, her emails, the DH …
Water cannons are in order.
be real. those people only respond to teeshirt cannons.
That works too.
after finding out he’s in that band named after the part of a delillo novel that deals with messaging in/re mass behavior: i hate this framing.
dear mikel, if that really is your spelling: “~30–50 fringers interrupted vaccination site for 55 minutes.” ok?
That sounds pretty reasonable
– Vaccines may be widespread enough by the beginning of May that things start to get back to normal again, at least for some people, although I would still expect no or fewer fans for a couple months after that.
– They are still losing 14 off-days? Would it be a normal schedule, or geographically limited like last year?
– Expanded playoffs suck and with almost a full schedule there is no baseball reason to have them, but the owners need/want them to make up for decreased revenue in the regular season, so fine I guess. Just don’t make that permanent.
– NL DH?
I bet we’re looking at some scheduled seven-inning double headers to make up those lost two weeks.
Yes, playing one doubleheader at home and one away against each divisional opponent saves 8 days. Then reduce off-days from the current 20 in a 26-week season to 15 in a 23-week season. Some of that could be done by revising the interleague part of the schedule to eliminate those two-game series that have an off day on both sides, or on a Friday.
Make the A’s play all single-city, two-team, double-headers.
Some pretty heartfelt comments in here ($) from Canha, Pinder, and Bassitt about how important Semien was to the team culture.
Also, Canha giving another data point for the 2015-2016 roster being a hotbed of assholes.
Josh reddick and billy butler were domineering types? You don’t say
and Valencia, and Lawrie.
I guess today is the day to dunk on the Chronicle.
“I can prove the point in one snark”
I used to follow Jeet, thought he had an interesting perspective back in the days when he was kind of a Ta-Nehisi Coates reply guy turned real-time essayist. At some point post-2016 he became just another guy in Canada who loves Bernie and thinks American liberals are always doing it wrong. Got boring, unfollowed.
My follows require at least one snob who gratifies himself through random abstract intellectual references. And Hitchens is dead.
Yeah, this is the good stuff right here.
he’s blown all possible credibility by not using BCE.
also, 1521… shakespeare?? scoff. martin luther more like.
Diet of Worms!
and here i thought no mere slogan would get me to go vegan.
I unfollowed recently, probably similar reasons. Good ones find my way to the timeline
“when my students regurgitate what i’ve inculcated into them, it proves i’m right. THERE IS NO OTHER INTERPRETATION.”
is gavin gonna get recalled?
the sigs don’t seem to be a problem.
also, when i googled to find the count, this was the top hit. see link at the bottom. totally what a legit news org should and would do.
there is enough chaos baked into the recall that it’s possible, yeah? I mean, I don’t think so? I had just moved back to CA for the last one. I think I am more confident that it won’t. Plus people had a hero to vote for in the last one. No star power this time.
dangle it in front of elon musk…
The facebook guy seems very Musk-ish, though not as well known (yet).
zuck?
his personality has zero likes.
Chamath Palihapitiya. I only heard of him a week ago. Suddenly he is all over the news.
– Supports the recall.
– Running for governor on a platform of raising teachers’ salaries while eliminating state income tax. Somehow.
– Got in on the gamestop thing because of course he did
oh him. the feel-good venture capitalist and 1/10 owner of the warriors.
Leather Jacket on CNBC Guy is a powerful brand.
if people’s own podcasts are any indication, it’s a no.
What I mostly remember from the Gray Davis recall was being annoyed that the bar to force the question seemed so low.
Looking at it now and I’m still annoyed. It takes 1.5 million valid signatures to recall the Governor now. That’s not so much harder than the 623K to qualify a ballot measure. With no limits on funders.
In the 600-1400-2000 debate, are people getting multiples of 600? We got the gift card this time and the amount was very weird. Like it include 25 cents. I am not sure what any of it meant. and I get really confused by people DEMANDING $2000.
Like if I were single living alone and making less the 75 or whatever, do I get $600? Even?
I think everyone got 600 but the 1400 would be for those at 75 and under? Saw that somewhere today and it was the first time I had seen it.
There have been income limits (based on 2019 income) on all of them.
I have never understood the limits. I don’t think we got anything last time, I could be wrong, but we got something this time and the amount, as reported by SLF was not something that I could easily parse out as $600 per adult and some other split for 2 kids.
From what I can find:
The June 2020 one paid the full amount ($1200 for each adult, $500 for each child) for incomes below $75K (single), $112.5K (head of household), $150K (married), tapering down to 0 above $99K (single), $136.5K (hoh), $198K (married).
The January 2021 one is similar, $600 per person, with the same upper limits for the full amount, but tapering off more quickly to 0 above $87K (single), $124.5K (hoh), $174K.
So if you’re in that middle range, you could get some intermediate amount (though it sounds like it’s supposed to change in increments of $5). But I don’t see how you could have been eligible for the second one but not the first one.
It may have come in and I didn’t notice. I am not what you would call a “finance” guy
Good news (for me): if your 2020 income is lower than 2019, you can still get the previous stimulus payments based on that amount.
Bad news (for Ed): you have to list how much you’ve already gotten on your tax returns.
did they send me a thing?
We can’t even have done this?
Agree to a point. Doolittle isn’t the best fit right now. He is not really a lefty specialist, but a lefty reliever is not the top priority right now.
Bullpen in general is probably the second highest priority after middle infielder, the money is practically nothing in baseball terms, and (per GM’s comment about Semien below) Doolittle is another guy who felt at home in Oakland and was loved by the fans. (And Cincy seems like an especially poor fit that way.)
Going to start hanging out at all the local bookstores to meet Sean and Eireann
After all the players over the years who didn’t want to be here, they had this absolute mensch who really did want to be here and they blew him off. It’s depressing.
Sagh.
This is extraordinarily funny.
Gotta love the free market
This is gold
Another day, another voting machine company suing for billions.
And it seems plausible that these companies could show real damages (as opposed to punitive damages, or things like pain and suffering that are hard to quantify) that big. Giuliani is so fked.
I gotta say, I’ve never been less excited for a baseball season to start. The A’s have made the playoffs three years in a row, and I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or not having as much free time or Fisher just not giving a shit, but I have given zero thought to how to improve the team or when pitchers and catchers report.
I’ve never really understood how die-hards just give up on their teams and no longer even watch them. I probably won’t be that cold turkey, but god damn, the A’s are really trying to bring that out of us, right?
Yup. Apathy is a really dangerous emotion to signal to your fans. It’s something that’s very easily reflected back and once they do, well they won’t exactly be “fans” anymore.
I’ve been thinking if this is the year I save $x and not get the MLB package.
Beyond the obvious issue with ownership’s refusal to fund a contender’s roster:
1. Short-term, I’ve found that sports loses a lot of its appeal when there aren’t any fans in the stands. That postseason series at Dodger Stadium felt particularly hollow. This should improve over the course of the summer, but California’s political leadership seems determined to make its point that fully reopening sports is the absolute lowest priority.
2. Medium-term, baseball looks to be headed for its worst labor crisis in nearly 30 years at the end of this season.
3. Long-term, prospects for a new ballpark in Oakland or anywhere else in the Bay Area for that matter are as dim as they’ve been in a long time. At some point this decade the A’s have to be out of the Coliseum. I can’t see caring much about the Nashville Athletics.
When the sky is that cloudy there aren’t any silver linings to be seen anywhere.
I have been thinking about this comment for a bit. First reaction was it was 100% fischer. But the more I think about it, It’s probably a lot the pandemic itself. It’s hard to have energy for frivolities, And I have not suffered more than inconvenience and disappointments in opportunities for my kids to do fun things. School is fine. Work is fine. But I can’t really “enjoy” things.
So, mostly the disinterest is on ficher, but it’s compounded greatly by whatever this whole thing is
There is certainly something in this. Not being able to go to games oneself makes it harder to engage, not having other fans there for the ones we watch on TV makes them feel more like exhibition games (Soaker’s point), and general feelings of malaise can make it harder to fully enjoy anything (your point).
But, counterpoint, for me probably the worst part was the first few months when it was spring/summer and on top of everything else there was no fking baseball to watch. And even though I was on record as thinking MLB/NFL should and probably would cancel there seasons, ultimately I was glad they managed to pull something off.
Returning to the original part: objectively speaking this probably won’t be close to the worst team we’ve had even in recent years. The Geren era was pretty sad, and the 2015-17 teams didn’t have much to recommend them either (and as noted upthread included some pretty unlikable players).
And of course, getting to some ballgames is going to be high on my list of things to do as soon as I can get vaccinated (assuming hopefully that is before the end of the season), even if the team ends up being worse than I think.
But management not caring about the team, at a time when they seemingly had a good chance to contend, really does make things tough as a fan. As lc suggests, if they don’t care, then why should we?
“I’ve never really understood how die-hards just give up on their teams and no longer even watch them.”
My theory has always been that they don’t. Even the ones who performatively burn their jerseys. Most backslide and/or hate watch. I’m not sure what the methadone for sports fandom is.
My methadone for football was the combo of the treatment of Colin Kaepernic and brain trauma (and it not helping that the Broncos generally suck.) Last season, I probably watched 15 snaps. This season, that number is zero. I just have no interest in the NFL and that has even bled over to watching Stanford games. No clue if I’ll ever watch again.
I agree that I am just so disheartened by the A’s that I don’t know how much I’ll care this year. I’m sure they’ll pull me back in, but I’ve definitely tipped from my attitude of “I hate losing my favorite players, but we’re scrappy and I wear it as a badge of honor” to “I hate losing my favorite players and I’m fed up with these cheap ass billionaires fucking with my team.”
Coming back to this after a couple more months, I’m pretty excited for Thursday and beyond.
— The roster additions since February 2 make it clear this team will be competitive after all.
— I didn’t pay all that much attention to the Cactus League, but for games I did hear on the radio, fans in the stands even at 20% made a lot of difference in the atmosphere vs. the piped-in sound and cardboard cutouts, and broadcasters and players agreed on that point. We’ll have FKers at the Coliseum for many games right from the start. I’d like to get the A’s broadcasters in the booths at the road ballparks rather than in the Coliseum while the sprinklers are running below, which will be a bit of a wait but maybe by June?
— Whatever “malaise” people were dealing with as a result of the pandemic, things are looking far more positive for society in general. There’s a reasonable chance that life will feel pretty much normal by summer.
“There’s a reasonable chance that life will feel pretty much normal by summer.”
So, Soaker Day by late July then?
Late July?!?! The roster additions since February 2 make it clear this team
will be competitive after allwill have me more disgusted than ever in June.June? We barely made it to April which is shocking.
Optimism from you feels dangerous.
Mike doesn’t comment all that much but when he does he’s worth paying attention to.
I’m still not there yet. I can’t shake the feeling that nothing will fundamentally alter this org’s ability to win a championship as long as this current ownership’s directives are in place. A last second Houdini act by Beane/Forst to bring them maaaaybe back to where they were last year is nice but again, doesn’t change the real problem plaguing this org. And if they fall short this year, I feel like it’s clear what’s going to happen.
I’ll be happy for this comment to look foolish in ~7 months.
This certainly looks like the final year of the Matts’ window, and if the team is out of contention before July 31, look out below. It’s also remarkable in this era that a manager with the record of Bob Melvin doesn’t have an extension beyond the end of this season, and I’d bet that’s his choice more than management’s. Bob is 59 and has to be looking for a final 5-6 year contract with an organization that has a very high expectation of World Series appearances in that time frame.
OTOH, if they are in contention this year and the blowup is inevitable anyway, maybe Beaneforst persuade Fisher to let them push all in for two months with a promise to dump everything not nailed down in the offseason.
James Paxton (if he bounces back) at the deadline could be nice.
A true ace at the deadline then! Also, the true shock is Harden. Way more innings than I remember. Of course, the big 3 spoiled us with their gaudy IP totals.
All of a week later…
Imagine both Rosenthal and Paxton joining the staff at next year’s deadline!
How Oakland would that be: finally win the title, sell everyone off so by the next opening day the only players left from the team are Sweet Lou and the backup Catcher.
Hey everybody,
as you probably know, I’ve been making a lot of crosswords lately because, well, there are not that many things to do, and I like it. There is a limit on the number of submissions for novice constructors and as I would like to increase my chances it would be best if I only sent my best ones. In order to know which ones are the best, I have set up a page (Croatswords, password: Natick) where you can test solve my not-yet-submitted puzzles and rate them. I have added that page to the Blogroll. If you are ever inclined to do so, I appreciate any and all feedback.
Whenever I add a new one, I will reply to this comment.
The link to the rating page for “Treat Trigger” goes to the page for “Sweet Vermont” instead.
Also, I don’t know if you want feedback on overall difficulty, but you could add a question for that, along with some calibration (1=NYT Mon, 10=NYT Sat, or whatever).
Thanks. Fixed and added
New one up
How did I miss this one?
I’m totally done with that and I still and furious I didnt think of it.
You can add this to the why couldn’t the A’s do that file
I miss Better Call Saul. I want more episodes yesterday. Here’s a great profile of Rhea Seahorn, who once again today was absolutely robbed by not being nominated for an acting award (this time the Golden Globes).
Turns out she pronounces her name “Ray” and not Ree-uh as I’d always assumed.
I’m kinda glad I didn’t get into the show as I am now looking at it as one to watch. I started thinking about it after listening to her WTF interview.
Hmm, the GOP conference is mad that Liz Cheney isn’t sorry, and gives Marjorie Taylor Qreene a standing ovation. I’m sure glad they learned their lesson.
It’s nice that the daily wtf moments aren’t the president. I fear her power growing id she is stripped of committees and I fear of her power growing if she remains on the committees
She’s a lunatic and I don’t fear her either way, short of being in a room together maskless. What’s really got me shook is that, far from repudiating them, the GOP as an institution is rushing to get back in good with the anti-democracy mob. I knew Trump had no bottom to the depth he’d sink, but I’ve still tried to think the non-crazy GOP had some line they wouldn’t cross. I wonder if I’ll ever stop falling for that.
Who knew that “murdering a police officer in the Capitol” wouldn’t cross a line for them.
blinkered by their zealous love of law and order.
What is happening.
New frontiers in passive voice usage.
Sounds like we need an investigation into who allowed that to happen. Probably Hillary Clinton.
If the liberal media hadn’t been so busy silencing her, she would have been able to make these statements before being threatened with the loss of her committee positions. So really it’s their fault (and by “they” I mean Hillary Clinton).
Mistakes were made
Somehow, that anger didn’t carry over to getting her out of the leadership post.
I’m sure she’ll have to deal with some extreme knuckle-dragger(s) next year in the primary, though.
Sad news from Poppy tonight. Poppy, if you’re lurking, I’m sorry to hear of your loss.
One of the FK OGs, hope she’s alright.
sending love to poppy and the entire poppy family.
Attn: AV
if this isn’t about how the scott adams podcast has +1200 episodes because he puts one out every day, sometimes twice, then i don’t want it.
EDIT: i want it!
wow, that is more than the watt from pedro show
Good lord
have tp process this
Andrus having a career WAR over 30 (though it is dropping) was as surprising (to me) as this trade.
i don’t really understand
Cash
His bat has completely fallen off the table but he should still be a plus on defense. Do not like giving up Heim at all, especially if we included him just to get money back.
I am sad about heim.
Can we have Beltre, too?
How does Chapman feel about having his head touched?
I don’t know what to think either.
Khris and Elvis were both below replacement level last year, and even if they bounce back this year, aren’t players you would want at $15M+ going forward.
It seems reasonable to think that Elvis will provide a little more value at SS than Khris will at DH, especially given the current needs. So from just the on-field perspective, this probably makes us (a little) better in the short term.
But they’re taking on two extra years of commitment beyond this one. Depending on how much money is coming back, that could be very bad, and pretty un-A’s like — generally they’re much more conservative about committing money for longer-term contracts than for shorter ones. But seeing this move, following the failure to make a competitive offer to Semien even for a single year, makes me think that the current situation is more about avoiding short-term losses given the diminished revenue last year and this. So they’re maybe saving a little cash this season, at the cost of a greater liability in future years. Makes sense from the “fantasy CFO” perspective, but not great overall.
And I am bummed about losing my homie Jonah Heim too. Don’t really know about the other players involved, but doesn’t sound like anyone too significant on either side.
Looks like a small net saving of money, actually.
Apparently there’s a 2023 option that now belongs to Andrus, but yes the Rangers bought five cheap years of a nice upgrade from Jeff Mathis by saving Fisher some short-term expenses.
There’s some confusion over whether that option automatically becomes a player option or if Andrus still has to vest it with the PA goal. Rosenthal reported the former first but now seems to be walking it back to the latter. I dug up the old MLBTR article about him signing the contract and it seems to confirm the latter:
This makes me feel better then. I think there’s almost no scenario where the A’s give him enough PAs for that option to vest (unless by some miracle he actually performed well enough to justify the PAs).
So the A’s dumped Davis’s 1/16.75, took on Andrus at 2/14.5 (taking into account the cash the Rangers are sending), and sent two non zero young players to make up the difference. This isn’t great because Andrus is probably not gonna be good (obviously Marcus at 1/18 would be better), but it’s the type of Faustian bargain you make when your owner deals you a shitty hand. You can still live with it.
If it comes out that Andrus’s 3rd year does actually become an auto player option, this would be really, really bad.
This certainly fits with a overall imperative to reduce 2021 payroll no matter what. I am glad I don’t have to spend another year feeling bad for Khris every day.
This won’t end well.
I’m sure FSU will be yelling at his TV anyway this afternoon, but this is quite a streak that’s ending.
That is so far back in the prehistoric era of college basketball that the defending national champion was (gasp!) Cal.
My dad was a UNC sophomore at the time. Today is his 80th birthday.
Puk to bullpen officially I guess.
Yikes
Having too many healthy starting pitchers has never been a problem for the A’s.
It’s all coming together!
There were some rumors about Benintendi earlier, this seems like it would open up some cash/roster spot for him? There’s a spot now for LF/DH with Grossman/Davis’s departures.
As sad as I am to see davis go, his production made me sad and “roster flexibility” is a real benefit
Gotta be a relief for Melvin not having to figure out ways to force him into the lineup.
I guess this is OK given what is left on the market, but Semien and Wong were also on the market.