Dumb Decisions to begin 2010

They weren’t the only bidder.

And what you’re suggesting is ludicrous. No reason for Beane to go. None of this hurts the future of the club. Just looking for a chance to contend, which can happen if everyone stays healthy.

But really, you make it seem like these contracts have sunk the team into huge debt, not even close.

His elbow is his biggest injury of his career. You must have read the homerific and stupid analysis at LL to come up with the “advanced analysis” of his K rate. Sheets could easily be a great signing.

We’re going to evaluate a plus defender in CF strictly on his bat to decide if he’s worth his money? He was worth 1.2 wins last year in about a third of season. He played in 118 games the year before, and 145 the year before that. Not sure what 150 games has to do with anything, but ok you’re right he hasn’t done that in the majors. He did do it in 2003 though, playing in 155 games between AAA and Cleveland and he’s played in 145 games twice and 139 games another year. He was the 4th OF in Boston in 2008 so you can’t really hold that year against him. So we’re talking a broken finger in 2006 that cost him 41 games and the injury last year. He was productive last year, but hurt. He was healthy in 2008 but unproductive overall because his defensive numbers were way out of line with his career numbers. 2007 meets your criteria though, healthy enough for 145 games and he posted 3.8 WAR. As it’s mentioned below, the A’s have separate budgets and while in some cases I think spending money just to spend is a mistake, this isn’t the Astros signing Pedro Feliz and Brandon Lyon because they needed to spend the money.

I added up the A’s payroll for the top 26 players listed on mlbcontracts.blogspot.com and assumed $500K for the players without listed salaries, higher than it will likely be. If they didn’t spend the money they spent on Sheets and Crisp, they’re in Marlins territory and people would complain about them taking revenue sharing cash and pocketing it. Can’t have it both ways.

None of us are privy to the actual contract negotiations or offers for Sheets, so it’s as likely that other teams were in the general area money wise as it is the A’s were the only ones there, but we don’t know for sure and there isn’t any reason to speculate one way or the other. What we do know is that Sheets has had a year and a half off from pitching and should be healthy. He also threw just under 200 innings in 2008. As for the K rate…he’s never had a consistent K rate, it’s been all over the board his entire career. He maintains a low walk rate and has only had a FIP over 4.00 once outside of his rookie year.

The only rationale I could possibly see is due to Cust’s salary, he’s likely to clear waivers and go to the minors, where he would be called up once Chavez gets hurt.

But it still makes no sense…much safer to take that risk with Chavez than Cust…

For some reason if someone is critical of A’s moves, their fanbase accuses the poster of hating Beane. I am actually a big Beane fan and feel that he is arguably the best at finding good pitching in the draft. Learning how Beane did things in Moneyball changed my view on how MLB clubs should be run. He was undoubtedly ahead of his peers and revolutionized MLB front officfes.

 However, he does make mistakes and this has not been a good offseason for him in my opinion. If someone can show me a legit source that said any other team offered Sheets a non-incentive laden deal close to the 10 million I would like to see it. However, I have never seen such a report and highly doubt that any other team was going to sign Sheets to such a contract. Instead Oakland paid Sheets for his high reward upside without accounting for his high risk. That is not a smart contract in my opinion. They should have at least insisted on a club option in the contract to help mitigate the risk. When you combine that with throwing away 2.5 million on Cust, and signing an injury prone, poor hitting CF for 5.5 million, I don’t see how anyone can say that they were happy with Beane’s offseason.

He is working around 91 when his velocity in his 2008 was 92.6. It isn’t a huge drop but it is something to note. When you combine that with Sheets extensive injury history, I have a tough time believing that he will stay healthy this season.

Also, my argument isn’t that Sheets can’t be valuable. My argument is that the A’s paid 10 million to a guy when nobody else appeared to be bidding close to that amount to acquire him. Has anyone heard one legit source claim that another club offered him anything close to 10 million guaranteed? All the reports I heard were for around a base salary of 4 million with another 4 million in incentives.

He did not throw just as hard in his tryout. He topped out between 90-91 in his tryout. He worked at 92.6 in his last season pitched.

Thank you for the correction.

Like the tagline. Frandsen—Starting Pawsox 2B.