I dont like giving him up, but bottom line he’s been disappointing since that trade. He screwed up a locked up rotation spot in spring and eventually got passed up by cahill, anderson, mazzaro, braden, outman, etc. Its obvious SD didnt want an eveland, simmons, gio, etc and A’s werent trading those other pitchers. They desparately needed some offense and beane was forced to beat another hairston trade offer. I believe there were giants sanchez for hairston rumors. The question is will they miss a potential solid 3/4 in gallagher and will they get a similar type caliber prospect when they trade holliday and others

The A’s traded depth (2 complete wild card minor league pitchers, one high ceiling/injury prone/unable to put it together at the MLB level pitcher) for an outfielder who can play in CF (an organizatinal weakness), or in the corners where his should also play well at this point in his career. Holliday is as good as gone, and I don’t buy into the fact that Beane should be “begging” other GM’s to take him off his hands. He’s having problems adjusting to a new team, and a new league. He also has a pretty underwhelming, and underperforming lineup around him which isn’t helping matters. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a solid defender, and his down offensive year is hardly reason to believe he won’t continue to be a force on the offensive side of the ball as well.

Hairston is a productive player on both sides of the ball, and is under team control for another couple years. When Holliday departs, Hairston takes his spot which is obviously a bit of a downgrade, but a piece the A’s will need regardless. If he continues to man CF well, he immediately becomes one of the best offensive CF’rs in the league. He is hardly a guy that you get for pieces out of the scrap heap. His play, and contract situation make him a very nice piece for most, if not all teams.

Gallagher has a chance to be a solid #2-3 starter, but at this point he’s not. He had 2 good outings for the A’s after he got traded, and he’s been dealing with injuries nearly the entire time as well. There’s just as good a chance that he never reaches his potential (injuries/performance) as there is of him becoming a mainstay in somebody’s rotation. It’s hard to judge this deal at this point because the only established player in the deal in sitting in the A’s dugout, while the other 3 are still question marks. Webb and Italiano may never even see the big leagues, and were absolutely buried in the A’s depth charts. You can’t just judge a deal based on the players involved. You judge the deal as a whole, from the players, to the needs that these players fill for each team. I like this deal for both teams, and would still give the A’s the edge at this point. Remember, Beane didn’t make this deal to pull the A’s out of the cellar in 2009. He made this deal to give them a productive player beyond 2009. This is the way he’s going to have to do things considering Oakland seems to be one of the LAST places free agents consider. Deal strengths for weakness’s and hope for the best.

thanks for pointing out the game for me. Was it something Gallagher did to get on Bob G’s bad side?

I posted about it a couple times on AN. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if he’s got a significant undiagnosed larbral tear. They’re hard as hell to see on MRI (plus every pitcher has labral fraying which is really small tears and that just confuses the diagnostic issue even more). I don’t know what his continuing velocity problems indicate other than arm problems. I don’t buy Geren’s suggestion of mechanical problems at all. That’s cya stuff for the A’s running him out there multiple times while hurt last year.