iampeterbrand

[iampeterbrand]

2011 - Current (Part 2 of ?)

“So what actually went wrong?” is what you’re probably thinking. The A’s made the playoffs the next two years. 

Yeah I guess that was good. But such a short window if you ask me.

What bothers me about all the success of 2012 - 2014 lies in one offseason: 2012′s. 

I will restate: I was a big fan of the plan the FO started in Winter of 2011/2012. And 2012′s success essentially proved empirically that the trades for Parker/Reddick/Etc... and the signings were all good ideas.

So then why abruptly stop the plan? Well it’s because while as GM’s we all wanna be successful, when it finally happens, it turns us into dragons, lying on our treasure unwilling to leave the dungeon. It’s quite funny that in an era where GMs are praised for their cold, hard analytical bent, that the minute a team reaches the postseason, everyone starts using the same tired playbook. Fill a few minor holes on offense through FA and trades and like everyone always does: sign a lefty reliever.

And yeah, your (our?) A’s, they bent over like everyone else to the gods of “Hey, now you’re a postseason team.

They acquired Jaso, Lowrie, and Okajima and a few others. Straight out of the playbook.

Completely scrapped the path 2011′s bold moves had put them on. But damn, here’s the question of this thread, what would have happened if they had kept going? What if they had not been blinded by the light?

We’ll dig in next post.

-Pete Brand

[iampeterbrand]

2011-Current (Part 1 of ?)

Alright, let’s finally get into it.

Going into 2011 you could sense some optimism emanating from the A’s front office just by reading into their moves. Coming off an 81-81 season in 2010 where Andrew Bailey had won rookie of the year, the team made a few trades and FA pickups that were clearly win now moves. They traded for Josh Willingham and signed Brian Fuentes (oof) and Grant Balfour, just to name a few.

I don’t think we need to dwell too much into it, but obviously the season didn’t go the way it was supposed to. Bob Geren got let go midseason and among many fires, the flames in the bullpen burned the brightest.

And then the 2011-2012 offseason happened and it was pretty perfect.

They signed Brandon Moss to a minor league deal and we all know how amazing that turned out. They signed Bartolo Colon (win) and Jonny Gomes (win) and resigned Coco Crisp (win). And, well, they also signed Manny Ramirez, but whatever.

Then there were the trades. Oh yes, the trades. In a shrewd move, not unlike what the Rays seem to be trying to do right now, they traded a few young assets - regardless of years of control - for upper level minor league talent. Trevor Cahill netted most notably Jarrod Parker and Ryan Cook. Andrew Bailey brought back Josh Reddick. And Gio Gonzalez brought back several workable parts, including guys that would later be used to acquire Jed Lowrie and John Jaso.

It was a rebuild for sure, but sort of a shotgun one. The best prospects in the deal were in Triple-A and in the case of Reddick, already in the majors.

Then there was the Yoenis Cespedes deal. God, the A’s offseason was like singles off the Tragic Kingdom album, the hits just kept coming. If Brandon Moss was Just a Girl and the trades were Spiderwebs, then the Cespedes deal was Don’t Speak. Like holy s***, this song is so great, but it’s still the third single released? How good is this cd?!

Anyway, so yeah as you could guess 2012 was a magical season for the Oakland A’s. I was with the Mets at the time, but being in the NL, I felt pretty ok cheering for the A’s from afar. And I’m glad I watched so many games because the 2012 season might have been the best season of baseball I’ve ever been alive during. And, full disclosure, a part of me was jealous I didn’t have an office in the Coliseum to watch it go down firsthand.

So naturally, after that season, I paid a little bit more attention to the A’s offseason (I was paid to pay attention to every team, so there’s also that). After the bold 2011-2012 flurry, I wanted to see what Billy and Dave had up their sleeves. 

Well if the year before was metaphorically like Tragic Kingdom, the offseason that followed was a literal tragic kingdom.

We’ll address that next time.

-Pete Brand

[iampeterbrand]

Opening Day Thoughts

-Lineup construction is not optimal. But I assume Olson will be moved up as soon as the team feels comfortable turning him loose.  If the A’s lose without Olson getting a 5th AB I’d have to conference with Bob.

My lineup program also thinks Lucroy should be batting 9th today. After watching a few of his spring at bats and a couple today, I tend to agree.

-Why leave Graveman in to face Pujols if you were ready to take him out the next batter anyway? Graveman has horrible numbers against Pujols. I would’ve deployed Pagan there. Albert’s never seen him before. Melvin being a little precious probably wanting to use Pagan in a more of a setup role. 

-We’re gonna get into it in a bigger post, but here’s the essential question of this season: Is the ambivalence to improving the talent and stability of the starting pitching staff intentional or an oversight? And more specifically was it intentional to deploy a fun offense for fans to enjoy, but still lose enough games to get a top ten pick, without people realizing it was the plan all along? I tend to believe the A’s front office evaluated their SP depth incorrectly.

But...the unintentional sabotage of your season, might be the best thing for the long term health of the team. Higher picks and the punch-you-in-the-face lesson about starting depth.

-Pete Brand

[iampeterbrand]

Soderbergh’s Moneyball

Part 1

In 2009 Steven Soderbergh was hard at work adapting Michael Lewis’ book “Moneyball.” And he had a lot of ideas. 

He wanted to intercut actual footage of the Oakland A’s 2002 season in with the rest of his film. He also wanted to surround Brad Pitt (Billy Beane) and Demetri Martin (me) with actual coaches and players from the Athletics. And he wanted to animate Bill James.

His movie was never made. 

Amy Pascal, the Sony chief at the time, sensing an auteur overreaching pulled the plug on Soderbergh’s vision. He was replaced with Bennett Miller. Jonah Hill filled in for Martin. And alas there was no animated Bill James.

Who knows if Soderbergh’s version would have been any good? It certainly would have been interesting. Between the real version and the hypothetical Soderbergh version I’ll never see: I prefer the hypothetical.

Part 2

This is David Forst. He replaced me as assistant GM in 2004. He became the full-time GM in 2015 when Billy Beane was promoted. In any simple google images search you’ll find him wearing a version of this performance fleece jacket about 80% of the time. 

Why is this important? Because of it’s symbolism. The fleece jacket is such an easy, boring, and uninspired style choice. And not in a cool way like those Steph Curry shoes. 

And what does that symbolism have to do with this blog? Let me circle back to it.

The thesis of this blog is this: From about 2012 to now, a bunch of wrongheaded transactions were made based on wrongheaded evaluations of the state of the ballclub. And those boring, uninspired moves by management has capped the growth of the A’s over and over again. But they (the moves and how it’s reflected on mgmt) have been just good enough to not throw up any alarms but never good enough to take the team to the elite level. 

Management has been performance fleece.

Part 3

So what am I gonna write about? 

The Oakland A’s. 

Since I left in 2004, I’ve kept tabs. And my idea is to layout key points since my departure where things went wrong. Some of those transactions may be innocuous and others blatantly stupid.

Also along the way, maybe I’ll suggest future moves. Not sure about that yet.

But the crux of it all is, I’m gonna present a reality of exciting alternative moves. Where the GM stuck to a plan and didn’t waver. Or a GM traded a fan favorite because it was the right move. Where safe, easy moves gave way to ballsy ones.

I’m gonna try to animate Bill James.