Well, fine, but when does this "future" start, and why couldn't a guy like Dan Haren be part of it? Beane may know exactly what he is doing and may be putting a cheap, 95-win team on the field in 2011. But I think what he is doing has some major risk attached to it and is very speculative.

I think the Haren trade was different than the other ones in Beane's mind. The other trades involved players that were relatively easy to replace or had major injury risks. Haren's trade was because he had the most value, and Oakland's minor league system was weak enough that building a winner would take many years, unless things went perfectly.

I suspect the mindset of Beane was that with the Santana fever of last offseason, the return for Haren was too great to give up, especially after a poor season for the A's and the empty minor league system. Then the White Sox approached the A's for Swisher, and offered so much that Beane couldn't turn it down for a guy who would likely be limited to corner outfield or first base in a short period of time. Then Harden's value got as high as Beane expected it to get, so it was time to trade him - he was unlikely to be an A after 2009 anyway. Gaudin was included to get the package that Beane wanted from the Cubs. Blanton is just somebody having a poor season, who still had the value to get a good prospect, and other stuff.

Now, it's certainly possible that Beane has miscalculated how close the A's were prior to these moves. Perhaps at this stage he just has trading fever - in which case, there will be several more trades before July 31. But before the Haren trade it was looking like the A's would be falling short for an extended period, with no real long term hope barring an incredible number of things going right. Now they at least have a chance of making a run for a number of years, if a reasonable number of things break right for them.

The next step now is to go all in.

The team should have gone "all in" awhile ago...

My favorite article was one from the Philly Inq (I think) early last year, which stated that the Phils would never win with their current core, they should gut it to start over- as a Met fan I said YES!

We get the same idiocy in New York, driving two hours one day I masochistically listened to two morons on the Fan discussing how the Mets current core couldn't win, so they had to trade someone from that core- mainly Reyes.

Anyway, back on topic- the Phils of recent years have had a championship caliber core, the problem has been filling in around it.
The key item missing in their run of 2nd place finishes was a #1 pitcher- well Cole seems to have developed into one.
The second "key" with respect to their 2nd place teams was their inability to avoid 1 or 2 suckholes in their lineup, whether it be Bell at 3rd, Glanville, Byrd in the OF, Abraham Nunez anywhere... Helms....

Fortunately for us Met fans, the Phils still have the lineup/rotation suckhole problems
some are their own damn fault, Eaton sux? He sucked last year, in fact he's sucked much of his career. (worst career ERA+ among active pitchers with 1000+ ip)

Myers sux? that might be the Phils' fault (might not be)
Jenkins sux? He's 33, a slow slugger coming off OPS+ marks of 101 and 101- there was a significant danger of him sucking (which has come to pass)

Some is not their apparent fault, Ruiz posting a 51 OPS+???
Having to play Bruntlett so much?

RR,

I wasn't commenting on whether the A's should have traded all those pitchers, I'm just saying they weren't traded because "SPs in their late 20s/early 30s, as the new "market inefficiency."

Of course there's speculation involved in whether it will work out for the A's in the end, but there also wasn't much reason to think they were going to be a 90-95 win team in the next couple years after their crappy 2007 season.

And it doesn't even look like the Haren and Swisher trades have hurt their chance to compete this year so far. Haren's been great, but Smith and Eveland have given the A's over 200 innings with an ERA under 3.50. Ryan Sweeney's outplayed Swisher with the bat and glove when he's been healthy, and Carlos Gonzalez has even chipped in with a 99 OPS+ and excellent defense in CF (according to Dial/ZR). Gio Gonzalez looks like he's going to replace Blanton, so we'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, Chris Carter has the third most HRs in the minor leagues, and BA just rated Brett Anderson as the 16th best prospect in baseball.

It's definitely frustrating to see them giving up major league talent while still in the hunt this year, but it's not as frustrating as last year was.

I've been exchanging email with my bro-in-law in the Bay Area about the A's deals. He is quite disappointed with the Blanton deal, and figures they are setting up for the first couple season in the new park, 2010 and 2011.

I figure people will come out to the new park in its first season, no matter what, though I guess you'd better show a decent team even then to sell season tickets for the second year.

Ryan Sweeney's outplayed Swisher with the bat and glove

The glove? Zone rating has Swisher at 902 in CF, the only OF position that Swisher has played regularly. Sweeney at 894.

RZR has Sweeney being better in zone, 929 to 918. OTOH, Swisher has made 25 out of zone plays in 381 innings. Sweeney, 11 out of zone plays in 293 innings.

Seems like wash to me.

Fair enough, though Sweeney has an excellent ZR/RZR in his 170 innings in RF, while Swisher's played nearly 300 innings at 1B.

"but Eric Patterson's playing 2B every day in the minors for a reason."

While I don't doubt that Beane is thinking about how well Patterson could stop-gap the 2b position, 2b has also always been where Patterson has profiled the best at so it is not surprise he would start at 2b in AAA everyday. He would do that for most AAA teams.

Blanton eulogy... Blanton was great fun to have on the team. First, he showed his socks, which is of course symbolically and stylistically important.

Amen. You gotta show your socks.

He didn't have great stuff.

I've never really watched a Blanton start closely but I've always been puzzled about how quick the rep on him went 180.
In college he was a big kid with a really live, raw arm but lacking refinement and control and then once he became a minor leaguer the talk was about how polished he looked but his stuff was so-so

while Swisher's played nearly 300 innings at 1B.

Yeah, but that's probably more a function of Konerko being injured toast.

So, it seems Beane sees teams overvaluing SPs in their late 20s/early 30s, as the new "market inefficiency," having now moved:

I think he sees that pitchers about to hit the open market for 4-7 year contracts are to be dumped at all costs. Doing so a year early maximizes value and ensures the A's continue to rebuild for eternity because they would rather win the dollars/win metric than the World Series.

MM1f, I think Blanton in the big leagues could be described as having great command (notwithstanding some meltdowns this year where he has lost his sh*t), but not swing-and-miss stuff. He doesn't throw real hard. Good curveball. Low walk rate. Not a lot of Ks.

they would rather win the dollars/win metric than the World Series.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest the A's are trying to win the World Series.

they would rather win the dollars/win metric than the World Series.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest the A's are trying to win the World Series.

More than that, I think they are trying to set themselves up to win multiple WS's.