Summer '08: Ins and Outs

"Are" they (currently 2nd place in AL West, 6th place in AL)?

Or "were" they.......................???

The "Moneyball" Years
Walter Haas died in 1995, and the team was sold to San Francisco Bay Area real estate developers Steve Schott (no relation to one-time Cincinnati Reds’ owner Marge Schott) and Ken Hofmann, prior to the 1996 season. Once again, the Athletics’ star players were traded or sold, as the new owners’ goal was to cut payroll drastically. Many landed with the St. Louis Cardinals, including McGwire, Eckersley, and manager La Russa. In a turn of events eerily reminiscent of the A’s Roger Maris trade 38 years before, Mark McGwire celebrated his first full season with the Cardinals by setting a new major league home run record. In fact, McGwire came close to the record in 1997, when he split 58 homers between the A's and the Cards.

The Schott-Hofmann ownership allocated resources to building and maintaining a strong minor league system while almost always refusing to pay the going rate to keep star players on the team once they become free agents. Perhaps as a result, the A’s at the turn of the 21st century were a team that usually finished at or near the top of the A.L. West Division, but could not advance beyond the first round of playoffs. The Athletics made the post season playoffs for four straight years, 2000–2003, but lost their first round (best 3-out-of-5) series in each case, 3 games to 2. In two of those years (2001 against New York and 2003 against Boston), the Athletics won the first two games of the series, only to lose the next three straight and hence the playoffs. In 2004, the A's missed the playoffs altogether, losing the final series of the season—and the divisional title to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

In recent years, the Athletics were best known for starting pitchers Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito, collectively referred to as “The Big Three,” as well as infielders Eric Chavez, Jason Giambi, and Miguel Tejada. After becoming free agents, Giambi left for the New York Yankees after the 2001 season, while Tejada departed for the Baltimore Orioles after the 2003 season.

The general manager of the Athletics, Billy Beane, has become notable in recent years for Michael Lewis's publicization of Beane's novel approach to business decisions and scouting referred to as Moneyball, both the title of the book, and hence the school of thought to management. The Athletics organization began redefining the way that major league baseball teams evaluate player talent. They began filling their system with players who did not possess traditionally valued baseball "tools" of throwing, fielding, hitting, hitting for power and running. Instead, they drafted for unconventional statistical prowess: on-base percentage for hitters (rather than batting average) and strikeout/walk ratios for pitchers (rather than velocity). These undervalued stats came cheap. With the sixth-lowest payroll in baseball in 2002, the Oakland Athletics won an American League best 103 games. They spent $41M that season, while the Yankees, who also won 103 games, spent $126M. The Athletics have continually succeeded at winning, and defying market economics, keeping their payroll near the bottom of the league. For example, after the 2004 season, in which the A's placed second in their division, Beane shocked many by breaking up the Big Three, trading Tim Hudson to the Atlanta Braves and Mark Mulder to the St. Louis Cardinals. To many, the trades appeared bizarre, in that the two pitchers were seen to be at or near the top of their game; however, the decision was perfectly in line with Beane's business model as outlined in Moneyball. The Mulder trade, to many experts' surprise, turned into a steal for the Athletics, as little-known starter Dan Haren has pitched far better for Oakland than Mulder has in St. Louis.

 

Scott Carson would be great. He's better than Niemi, I think.

 

Frome the financial side of things "Spending" only means you either go into debt, you increase your debt, or you decrease your profits. If Al Fayed doesn't want any of these things for whatever reason... he doesn't "spend".

You especially don't "spend" if it leads to nowhere. Like last summer's transfer market for instance.

 

I don't care so much about the ins and as I do the outs. I think we need two or three big signings, but the rest of it should be off loading some of the Sanchez regime.

 

To start off Seol Ki-Hyeon, Lee Cook, Chris Baird and Stefanovic can be written off. With Philippe Christanval, Ian Pearce and maybe Steven Davis following closely behind them.

 

Most of the Sanchez signings are on long contracts, so its not going to be easy to get rid of them. We would have to hope that the players would leave for less money but increased playing time. Which very well may be the case, as I'd hate to spend my mid-20s rotting on the bench.

 

I would hate to see Steven Davis leave. Unless you mean Sean Davies. We would do well to just sell him to Rangers for a good price so we don't take a hit on his selling.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. Carson is too inconsistent to be a top notch #1 GK. He was capable of following up a pretty good performance with a clunker. How many times did Villa give up 4 goals last season? Not to say that he is completely crap, but he isn't any better than what we have now.

Also, after watching Bullard's free kick against Villa, a lot of keepers would have saved that kick. It didn't go in just alongside the post, or in a completely unsavable position. Not that I am complaining.

 

Let's bear in mind Carson is only 22, which is awfully young to be a starter in the Premier League. Tim Howard was 24 when he started at Man United and he made some young-keeper errors as well. Guys like Cech and Casillas and Reina who are ready to be top-tier keepers in their early 20s are rare. Look at who's starting around the league. van der Sar is in his late 30s, Lehmann is old, Howard in his late 20s, Friedel is in his late 30s, David James is in his late 30s (and is one of the best keepers England has despite being gaffe-prone), Robert Green played in lower leagues until his late 20s before becoming an EPL starter, Robinson's old, Given's old, Schwarzer is old.

I guess my point is, Carson may not be as good as Keller now, but Keller has been figuring the whole thing out for fifteen more years. Another five and Carson will probably be a dynamite player.

 

Sanchez signings and players of the old regimes.


Diomansy Kamara-Please stay. Coming off the bench, he might give us 6-10 goals. He's a damn good talent.



Seol-Uh,LEAVE!

Lee Cook-Thanks for wasting 2.5M. YOu can kindly go back to the Championship where you belong.


Baird-Leave.

Christanval-This is very sad. If he was healthy, he'd been rumoured to be signing for a big club again. He's a damn good talent, but he's wasting wages.

Leijer-Leave

Simon Elliot-Leave

Alexei Smertin-Leave

Nathan Ashton-Stay. I wanna see what he can do at LB.

Antii Niemi-Leave. He has turned out to be a horrible signing with the occasional great game.

Ricardo Batista-Leave

Bouazza-Stay for depth

Hughes-Stay for depth. DON'T START!

Stefanovic-You can leave, you asshole. Picking Portsmouth to win against us love from the supporters.

Steve Davis-I REALLY feel sorry for him. I felt Hodgson should've given him a chance. He's gonna prove everybody wrong and totally go onto be a damn good players. He should leave only because Hodgson doesn't seem to like him.

Healy-Stay

Nevland-Stay

Murphy-Stay

Stalteri-Stay

 

So ready to throw Smertin under the bus? He was afterall the brightest spot had at Fulham for a month or two, but for some reason hasn't figured into Roy's plans. He's a player with a fair amount of talent and tireless work rate. Would be great if he were able to stay.

I believe the sad truth that we will begin to realize is that Roy will find some Fulham favorites like Smertin, Volz and Boca expendable.

 

What's the point in keeping 2 young keepers at the club? If we sign Carson or Hennessey, how many more young keepers do we need? It would be a waste of money to have 3 young keepers at the club.


It's based on us never giving young players a chance. How many have rose up from the reserve team and claimed a spot in the team? Nearly nobody.

 

Because these keepers have experience of nothing higher than League 2. Get rid of Batista and bring in Carson or Hennessey. Both are FAR superior anyways.


Volz was brought in from Arsenal and was sure to get a shot as he cost 3M. Rosenior and Omozusi were exceptions to the rule. Rehman too. Leijer was brought in from Australia and we haven't heard a peep about him. He might get the odd game, but nothing significant. Either get rid of him or throw him out on loan.

 

Leijer and Batista's wages are minimal. I'd rather ship out some extra stewards at the Cottage. I do recall an article on the official site stating that Roy was impressed with Leijer, and thought he might need him for first team duty. Obviously it didn't work out that way, but I can't really blame the manager for not wanting to experiment with guys with no experience in the middle of a relegation battle.

I'm sure everyone would love to swap Batista for Carson or Hennessy...but who's gonna pay for it?

Oh my, have I really made two Ross Perot references in this thread?