Vlad's famously loved hitting at Arlington (career 996 OPS there) and had a fairly dramatic home/road split in 2010 (882/797). He also fell off a cliff after a hot May and June, with a 919 OPS before the All-Star break and 748 after. $10 million for that? For a guy who simply cannot play defense? If that's the direction to go, why not get Hideki Matsui for less than half that price?

Agree with the previous two posters--this seems like a fairly underwhelming strategy. The problem, though, is that this may be the best the A's can do since hitters really don't want to seem to play for them. I'd really love to see them just blow a ton of money on Adam Dunn or Jayson Werth. Outbid the rest of the field by a decent chunk to make sure they get a legit hitter. That is, in my opinion, a better strategy than going after these cheap players who rarely pan out. Ben Sheets, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas et al. Thomas was fantastic, but if you're constantly building your team on guys who "might" pan out, it's going to be very hard to compete. Ironically, I made this same complaint about the Giants, telling a friend they'd be better off signing two really good players than keeping Renteria, Sanchez, DeRosa, Rowand, Molina, etc. And yet they won it all...

I'd like to see the A's get a Juan Uribe type to spell Kouzmanoff and Pennington.

So "upgrading" from Custs' .306 TAv to Vlad's .288 (does TAv adjust for park effect?) helps the offense score runs how exactly? Sure, Cust hit fewer HR last year, but he also had 200 fewer PA. His SLG was actually up from 2009. His OPS and Vlads were almost identical, expect Vlad's was more slugging dependent playing in a park that helps power.

I just don't see how you upgrade your team by spending more money to get the same or lesser production.

If you want to upgrade the offense, you should consider replacing Kouz at 3B with somebody who can find first base.

Points of interest:

*To put a popint on what other posters said, Vlad had an on-base of .322 and hit only 9 homers in the second half last year. At his age, I think it's fair to speculate that's the beginning of the end.

*With Chavez and Duchscherer also off the books, they get back 24.5 million from the two of them and Sheets.

*Beane has already sounded like he is going to be a Scrooge this Christmas, saying they don't want to overspend until they're ready to move into a new park.

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20101004&content_id=15413198&vkey=news_oak&c_id=oak

*He has also said they don't want to compromise the defense so the DH might be the place to improve.

*Depending on the pythagenport record you choose to look at, the expected wins of the A's were between 85 and 86 while Texas was between 88 and 91.

*Texas will lose Lee and Guerrero while the A's will gain Carter.

2009 - man, Vlad was not too good, I guess he's cooked
1st half 2010 - Vlad's back!
2nd half 2010 - man, Vlad was not too good, I guess he's cooked

The moral of the story is that none of these are significant enough samples to judge on their own, and it appears people are breaking down his numbers along these time frames.

Yay!!!! Yet again BP says that a really bad As team is actually really good and needs only the most minor of changes. An incredible blind spot for such a group of smart people.

As were 10th of 14 in the AL in OPS last year, yet no significant offensive additions?

I can understand if one had certain finaial constraints, but in a "what if" scenario like this, give the A's something!!!!!

Is this 1985? I've never heard of a 25K buyout. What is the point?

Ugh. I was hoping Karhl would do this. Being an A's fan and all.

You don't even address the 5th starter hole. Mazzaro is not the answer. De La Rosa has been tossed around and it makes a lot of sense.

What about Pena as a DH?

As someone already mentioned, Jack Cust = Guerrero, Matsui

"If I get Guerrero or Matsui to come to Oakland and Jackson to agree to the creative contract, perhaps they would write a book or make a movie about me. It would have to be a short story, though, since my career would only span 24 hours."

A movie? A movie! I know you are poking fun but its not funny and shows what effort you put into this "article".

I pay money to read this crap about my team. Can I get some effort please?

It doesn't even recognize that the A's might be a darkhorse for Beltre, Werth or Crawford. They did go hard after Beltre. The free agents mentioned are old veterans that have little value and can be replaced easily.

No imagination, not thought. Give us something! Please!

Again, Ugh.

I think you just made the A's worse add unnecessarily added to their payroll. Why does Chris Carter play LF when he really has no defensive position? Why not Carter as DH?

Vlad or Matsui hitting at the Coliseum half the time. Really?

You did not address back up catcher or Adam Rosales' role.

Further you glossed over Kurt Suzuki's poor performance at the plate and inability to throw out baserunners.

Why would you keep Kevin Kouzmanoff? What justification exists?

Joey Devine is due back and possibly makes Brad Ziegler trade bait and with Super Two status a likely scenario at some point.

BP needs to start filtering their content. This was beyond being a pointless exercise - the suggestions made actually would hurt the A's.

No mention of David Forst?

"Considering right-hander Ben Sheets' $10 million is off the books now that he is a free agent—and he's not coming back on my watch—I have some money to play with on the free-agent market. Optimally, I'd rather sign a free agent than trade from my pitching depth."

Why don't you use some of that available money, and make a big splash. Go after Adam Dunn. He belongs in the American League, and he would be the most talented power hitter the A's have had in a long time.

Conor Jackson has never played right field at the major league level. He also misse the last part of the season with a serious hamstring injury. He's played more games at 1B than the OF and has similar numbers to Daric Barton.

Why not suggest trading Barton and moving Jackson to 1B where he is leas of a defensive liability? Or trade Barton and Rajai Davis (who you did not mention) to San Diego for Adrian Gonzalez?

This was not up to BPros normally high standards.

Carter is the whole key to the A's. If he's the 0 for the call up guy we saw at first then they are going to be in trouble because it will take them the first quarter to half of the season to figure it out. If he builds on a better finish to the season and gives them something approaching his AAA numbers, they'll be in pretty good shape. In fact there are some other factors that suggest (assuming good Carter) the A's could compete for the division even as is. Specifically, I think Suzuki's season was derailed by his injury. Even when playing, he never seemed quite right. If he gets back closer to where he was offensively in '09, that's a good start. I think Cliff Pennington has the chance to be a pretty decent offensive player. He had some first full season ups and downs, but he showed that he's not overmatched at this level. Also, the A's didn't get anything close to a full season out of Coco. Granted nobody has gotten a full season out of Coco with regularity. Of course that's a lot of ifs, but what's an off season for?

I'm not really sure what they should do with Rajai. He went through some very bad stretches. He's also not as good defensively as you'd want him to be, especially in center where he seems to take a lot of bad routes and get poor jumps.

It's easy to say the A's should go after a big bat, but the fact of the matter is they probably aren't going to spend the money and players like Adam Dunn just won't want to play in Oakland anyway (see: Beltre last year). They'll probably give Jackson a shot (did just enough), maybe bring in a cheap Melky Cabrera type and put him on a short leash like they did with Jake Fox and if it doesn't work out, cut bait pretty fast.

For once, let's acknowledge that Beane has built a very good ball club with very little money. Like 3-card monte, it can be profitable as long as no one is truly watching what you do. So, some suggestions From Way Out In Left Field:

The Big Bopper: TRAVIS HAFNER. You have a great medical staff- you can keep him healthy when his current club doesn't seem that interested. He is owed $26+ million over the next two years; try out whether Shapiro would welcome being relieved of, say, half of that. BUT: Keep Cust (he actually plays in the field). Sign Vlady if you must, but as part of a DH platoon. Set a ceiling for the combined cost: $12.0 million.

HEALTH RISKS: Your infield is fine from a talent perspective, but not from a health perspective. Thus you need to have some depth here, which you won't necessarily need for the outfield crew. Suggest going after Uribe or, if he gets too expensive, Mike Fontenot, who will not add to your offense much but appears comfortable playing multiple infield positions.

PITCHING: No need to change a thing, but look at every spare arm available in ST, and add selectively for relief depth.

This is a disappointing effort. Following these suggestions would make the A's worse, not better. Or at the very least, leave them stagnant.

As has been mentioned, Cust at DH isn't the position that needs addressing. The A's need one (or two) COFs, and, as a secondary priority, a 5th starter and a 3B. The A's gave up the fewest runs in the American League, but a lot of the reason for that lies with the defense.

I'd love to see the A's pursue Crawford or Werth, but barring the impossible, at least make serious considerations towards trading for a quality COF bat, and not just adding yet another retread veteran to the long list of hopeful has-beens the A's have signed in the past 5 years.