Seeing what Theo has done and how he has owned him has to really get him down.

The amount of players that were on the A's(or in the A's system) who are now contributing to the Cubs is pretty big.

On quick glance:
Addison Russell
Jason Hammel
Jon Lester
Ben Zobrist


Then, when Billy goes to sleep, he gets to dream of Kenny Williams flashing his World Series ring at him.

Poor Billy Beane. At least he got a book and movie deal! Take that GM's with rings!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Well, I'm pretty sure Billy Beane does dream about men.

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Addison Russell is really the only one for Beane to lament of those four. Zobrist and Lester were rentals, and while the A's obviously want to extract as much value from every player as possible, Lester got them to the postseason and Zobrist fetched some parts from Kansas City. Russell for Samardzija could prove to be a first-order fleecing, but in the grand scheme of things it just evens up from the times Beane got six years of Jerry Blevins for two months of Jason Kendall, or Josh Donaldson for Rich Harden.

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That's Billy Bean. Different guy.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Right. The A's couldn't afford those vets anyway. But they fucked up on Russell. Then again, they had a great team and he was trying to win a World Series.

It seems like he likes the small market or fears the big one. The Boston job was his. He backed out. He's had offers. Kinda weird actually.

Like if The Butler coach refused to ever leave

Nah. Give him credit. He wants to try to win in poor Oakland. That's noble.

I'm sure that makes his empty hands feel better.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yeah. What have the A's ever won?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yeah. Then won in the 70s and 80s.

The point being the haves and have nots were different back then. There is a bigger margin between the poor teams and the rich teams in this era. That's my point.

So should we then discount GMs who won with high payrolls?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Maybe he just loves living in O-Town

He won't cry himself to sleep over Russell...he won't have much of a career.

sin

jorr

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I haven't made a prediction on Russell one way or another. I just wouldn't expect him to be radically different than he is when it comes to his control of the strikezone.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Did I misread this? It's not a prediction?

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That's not a prediction. I was talking about what they've done to this point.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Kash, and Don

Now smashmouth made him cry.

http://deadspin.com/oakland-as-get-very-defensive-when-reasonably-critiqued-1788362056

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

In Oakland's case, that's not quite true. The A's of the early 70s were so strapped for cash that they sold players. Charlie Finley, the owner (a Chicagoan who wanted to move them here), was poor in comparison to every other owner. He was under enormous financial pressure, but he managed to build one of the great all-time teams.

The Samardzija trade wasn't bad--after all, the A's were trying to win it that year. If they'd have won it, it would have been worth it. Risky, but they were tired of doing nothing in the playoffs. I'd even call it a Whitesoxian move, except that the A's were actually in the damn playoffs.

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The A's never had a ton of money under Charlie Finley (attendance was shit, even for the '70s when all baseball games seemed to be half-empty), but they fared much better later on when the Levi's heirs owned them. At the same time, the Giants were perpetually cash-strapped and had one foot out the door for St. Petersburg until their sale and steps toward building Pac Bell Park.

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I'm sure he did last night.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The guy got desperate for his legacy to be something other than romance novel by Michael Lewis, a mediocre movie and a long, regular season win streak.

We all do stupid things in desperate moments.

That was a bad trade from the get go. Samardzija seems to have some magical power to cause smart people to make stupid decisions

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yes...

http://deadsp.in/xTmARRl