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The Oakland A's winter has been confusing.  Mass confusing.  How about we put a stub here, and youse guys can help Dr. D clear his head.

Point 1, stipulated:  SSI isn't especially interested in "grading" a major league GM.  Not with the intent of establishing that we're smarter than he is.  Once in a while, it can be interesting to ask if a GM has botched it, like my man Zduriencik definitely did with Doug Fister.  This (the A's winter) might be one of those times!

Point 2, stipulated:  the A's aren't rebuilding.  They never rebuild.  They "re-tool."  Here is a Bay Area guy who defines re-tooling.  Beane wants to be good, every year, and set up his future, every year.  That's all.

Point 3, stipulated:  the loss of Cespedes, Addison Russell, etc., is dee-lish for M's fans.  But it wouldn't factor into any "grade" for 2015.  It was part of an attempt to win in 2014.

That said, we as M's fans are dee-lited that the Orcs won't be winning 98 games again.

Point 4, stipulated:  the A's went through one of pro sports' epic mental collapses last year, comparable to that of the 1964 Phillies or 1995 Angels.  If I were Beane, I'd have ripped up the paper too.  The imperative towards a mass re-shuffle was legit..

Point 5, stipulated:  for me, the Zobrist trade roughly cancels the Donaldson trade.  In terms of player-pairs, I'm fine with Zobrist and Lawrie vs Donaldson and Sogard (64 OPS+).

Point 5b:  you're never going to convince me that Billy Butler, 3 years $30M, was reasonable.  Butler himself might, but you ain't gonna.  (Butler's Power Index was a feeble 80-85 in both of the last two years.  He can square the ball up some, but he's a 300-lb singles hitter at DH, and his 0.0 WAR reflects that.)

Point 6, stipulated:  the below table doesn't balance out what the A's have pulled in, or pushed out, in the minor leagues.  After looking at it, maybe G-Money or someone can tell us "the A's nett'ed out org prospects worth X."  It also doesn't factor in club-controls value.

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Get On With It

Bill James was axed about this weird offseason.  He seemed to be attempting to be kind, and seemed to indicate that the Josh Donaldson move was a budget move:

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That said, if Donaldson was a cost move, can YOU explain the Butler move?  In what world is Butler + Lawrie preferable to Donaldson & Org DH & cash?

Beane himself had this quote:

We've collected young players, and we're going to try to redeploy the extra payroll. We are trying to walk the delicate balance, getting younger and trying to be as good as we can as quickly as possible. We've never been an organization that says, 'Hey, we're going to punt for the next five years and get a top-10 draft pick. That's not in our DNA.

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WAR Grid

Position	2014 Orc	OPS+	2015 Orc	OPS+
1B	Moss	119	Vogt?	Part-time feeb, who knows
2B	Sogard/Punto	65	Zobrist	119
SS	Lowrie	93	Escobar	92 lol
3B	Donaldson	126	Lawrie	101
LF	Cespedes	115	Fuld?	72
CF	Crisp		Crisp
RF	Reddick		Reddick
C	Norris	118	Phegley	rookie
DH	Jaso	117	Butler	95
Rotation	Gray, Kazmir, Chavez, kids		Same
Defense	Good		Better?

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I probably made a bunch of mistakes here -- quick, build us a better bridge, somebody.  But I hadda draw up this table just for my own benefit.

Leaving aside the issue of losing Jeff Samardzija, Jon Lester, Jason Hammel and Tommy Milone in the rotation -- and losing their superstar SS prospect -- it seems like they did this:

• OUT:  a really cool set of #3 #4 #5 hitters 
• IN:  Ben Zobrist, a .270/.350/.400 second baseman
• OUT:  John Jaso
• IN:  Billy Butler
• OUT:  Derek Norris
• In:  Phegley

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The kind analyses of this say, Well, Beane now has about 15 solid players.  The opposite of Stars & Scrubs.  He's now got a fleet of average/solid players to compete with one another and push one another.

("Scrubs" aren't bad players and bench players, people.  They're cheap, fungible players with upside.  Willie Bloomquist isn't a Scrub.  Brad Miller and Justin Ruggiano are Scrubs.)

But!  Beane had a lot of average/mediocre players last year.  As we're talking here, and at first glance here ... it does look to me like Beane:

• Watched a team implode, so was forced to dismantle it
• Jettisoned his 3-4-5 hitters
• Also jettisoned Norris' beard (often batted cleanup, 5, or 6)
• Refused to admit defeat for 2015 (admirable) (leading to funky Butler signing and other stuff)
• Churned his minor league system (and he's got a cool track record doing that)

I haven't been following much, so also don't understand why (let's say) Beane wanted to offload Derek Norris.  I don't really understand any of it, saving the idea that maybe he had to deal with a huge mutiny or something like that.  Little help here?

Hm.  Beane's last Operation Pedal to the Metal, in July 2014, crashed the hot rod into the rail and over it, into a fiery top-down crash at the bottom.  Tough for Dr. D to have much confidence in this Operation.

BABVA,

Jeff