MLB Thread - 2023
- Thread starter SLAB
- Start date
We've scored 35 runs in our 3 wins and THREE runs in our 3 losses lol. 4 if the scores holds today.
So uh, yeah. I have no idea what's going on. I think the offense is significantly better with some actual upside guys. No long fully depending on dinosaurs to produce. Love seeing Cobb and Disco pitch so well, but Webb hasn't been super great through 2 starts.
So uh, yeah. I have no idea what's going on. I think the offense is significantly better with some actual upside guys. No long fully depending on dinosaurs to produce. Love seeing Cobb and Disco pitch so well, but Webb hasn't been super great through 2 starts.
Hopefully there's some kind of Bad News Bears mid-season turnaround in store for this year's Oakland squad because right now it looks like our vaunted front office has managed to dismantle a 97 win team in record time and all they have to show for it is a bottom 5 payroll and farm system and a major league roster with 1 good player on it. Bravo folks. Truly inspirational!
Done deal... Sayonara Oakland, hello Las Vegas Athletics.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/36241520/oakland-agree-purchase-land-las-vegas-strip
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/36241520/oakland-agree-purchase-land-las-vegas-strip
Little more details here. Like won't move into new Vegas ballpark until 2027 season.
https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/oakland-a-s-purchase-land-for-new-stadium-in-las-17907772.php
https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/oakland-a-s-purchase-land-for-new-stadium-in-las-17907772.php
This A's ownership group has never made any effort to keep the team in Oakland. They wanted San Jose from the beginning and the Giants vetoed that so it's just been a waiting game until they found another city they could move to. Lew Wolfe pulled the same shenanigans that the Maloofs pulled -- sabotaging public votes, delaying EIRs for years while pretending that his team was actively pursuing many sites. MLB just did not want the Bay Area to be a two-team market -- they handpicked this ownership group and then steered them toward Vegas. The fire sale the front office carried out over the last 2 seasons made it clear they had no intention to stay. You don't start a 10 billion dollar project (the proposed Howard Terminal site) by poisoning your fanbase to save $50 million.
This really hurts. The A's were the first pro sports team I ever followed. I knew it was over in 2020 when the word got out that Oakland wasn't even going to pay its minor leaguers that year -- the city of Oakland was never going to be able to pull off what Sacramento did to keep the Kings. It was just a fool's hope maybe that they would be forced to sell before they could complete their theft but that ship has clearly sailed now. They'll probably still sell the team and get a big windfall for having a new stadium. They'll always be the third banana in Vegas though and baseball will be done forever in Oakland.
The A's sent me a survey regarding my interest in potentially following the team if they relocated to Vegas about a year and a half ago. Obviously I told them that I was not at all interested and I also wrote them a very long essay about why I think MLB will continue it's decline from the sport everyone once watched (as recently as the mid-90s) to the one that no one under 40 cares about. When you invest nothing in building youth baseball within the local community and focus instead on exclusive television deals and state of the art stadiums filled with expensive luxury boxes and 20,000 less seats than the old stadiums had you're actively shrinking the size of the fanbase who has access to the teams -- most critically the kids who might have become lifelong fans. Most of the elite talent on the field is already coming from Latin America and Southeast Asia now. There's just no culture of youth baseball anymore in any of the major MLB markets because they've let it die. I still enjoy playing the game of baseball but if the institution of MLB collapses under the weight of corporate greed it's good riddance to me. Better baseball is already being played in other countries anyway.
This really hurts. The A's were the first pro sports team I ever followed. I knew it was over in 2020 when the word got out that Oakland wasn't even going to pay its minor leaguers that year -- the city of Oakland was never going to be able to pull off what Sacramento did to keep the Kings. It was just a fool's hope maybe that they would be forced to sell before they could complete their theft but that ship has clearly sailed now. They'll probably still sell the team and get a big windfall for having a new stadium. They'll always be the third banana in Vegas though and baseball will be done forever in Oakland.
The A's sent me a survey regarding my interest in potentially following the team if they relocated to Vegas about a year and a half ago. Obviously I told them that I was not at all interested and I also wrote them a very long essay about why I think MLB will continue it's decline from the sport everyone once watched (as recently as the mid-90s) to the one that no one under 40 cares about. When you invest nothing in building youth baseball within the local community and focus instead on exclusive television deals and state of the art stadiums filled with expensive luxury boxes and 20,000 less seats than the old stadiums had you're actively shrinking the size of the fanbase who has access to the teams -- most critically the kids who might have become lifelong fans. Most of the elite talent on the field is already coming from Latin America and Southeast Asia now. There's just no culture of youth baseball anymore in any of the major MLB markets because they've let it die. I still enjoy playing the game of baseball but if the institution of MLB collapses under the weight of corporate greed it's good riddance to me. Better baseball is already being played in other countries anyway.
Yeah, it's just hard to get excited about anything regarding this team right now. Fosse was our cheerleader and he's gone. The team is probably moving so guys like Lawrence Butler, Denzel Clarke, and Lazaro Armenteros (who is randomly having a massive season after 5 years of going nowhere and losing his prized prospect status) are unlikely to even play in Oakland. Brent Rooker is having an amazing start to the season but the team is 6-23 and the entire starting pitching rotation is winless 29 games into the season. This is the team that has won on the backs of its pitching staff for the last 25 years and suddenly we're the Angels... with no offense.
I've followed the team through all the re-builds and they always bounce back but this year feels different. Maybe because the core group that was traded were all so young still. Maybe because none of the pitchers that were acquired in the teardown trades look halfway decent. Maybe because the pandemic robbed that Chapman/Olson group of a big chunk of what is already an extremely small contention window in Oakland (due to front office impatience and insanely cheap ownership). I get more excited following the MVP worthy seasons that Chapman, Olson, and Murphy are having than actually watching the A's right now. I was invested in those guys -- I watched them get drafted, play in the minor leagues, and grow into stars. It's incredibly cruel to tell your fans to invest in players knowing that they'll be traded before they even reach their prime.
Billy Beane once said he would never do a Houston Astros level teardown and bottoming out for draft picks but he's not the GM anymore and that's exactly what new GM David Forst has done. Which is even dumber when you consider that there was no lottery when Houston did it so they got multiple #1 picks. The A's may never get a single #1 pick out of this. Even if Vegas falls through and they somehow stay in Oakland, the damage has already been done. The only way this team bounces back is if Fisher sells.
I've followed the team through all the re-builds and they always bounce back but this year feels different. Maybe because the core group that was traded were all so young still. Maybe because none of the pitchers that were acquired in the teardown trades look halfway decent. Maybe because the pandemic robbed that Chapman/Olson group of a big chunk of what is already an extremely small contention window in Oakland (due to front office impatience and insanely cheap ownership). I get more excited following the MVP worthy seasons that Chapman, Olson, and Murphy are having than actually watching the A's right now. I was invested in those guys -- I watched them get drafted, play in the minor leagues, and grow into stars. It's incredibly cruel to tell your fans to invest in players knowing that they'll be traded before they even reach their prime.
Billy Beane once said he would never do a Houston Astros level teardown and bottoming out for draft picks but he's not the GM anymore and that's exactly what new GM David Forst has done. Which is even dumber when you consider that there was no lottery when Houston did it so they got multiple #1 picks. The A's may never get a single #1 pick out of this. Even if Vegas falls through and they somehow stay in Oakland, the damage has already been done. The only way this team bounces back is if Fisher sells.
Sell the team please!