But hey, we’ve had the best commercials in baseball for over decade and Safeco is great place for soccer moms to take their kids for the ‘ballpark experience’!

why do people seem to feel that the Ms are the only team in baseball that cares about promotions and ballpark atmosphere? (heck, even the A’s started their own tv commercial run based obviously on the M’s success ….) If they really only cared about getting ’soccer moms’ to the ballpark, they wouldn’t have spent like drunken sailors on FAs the last few years.

As an earlier poster mentioned, doubling the payroll would most likely allow the rebuilding period to be shorter, but even with access to a lot more money I doubt Beane would be able to consistently field a 110-win team.

Actually, from a profit maximization standpoint, building a 110 win team doesn’t make sense. There was a great article at the Hardball Times recently about how teams make money. Wins are a huge contributor, however, once a team has clinched a playoff birth, the marginal value of additional wins sharply decreases. Having as many great players as would generate a 110 win season would be a lot less valuable than, for example, using one of those players to stock your farm system for organizational depth and future wins.

Imagine if Mr. Beane had been GM during Bavasi’s laughable tenure. 4 years with $100+ million dollar payrolls.

To be fair, I don’t think the GM really makes the signifigant roster decisions in this organization, nor do I believe those decisions are necessarily made with World Series titles in mind.

But hey, we’ve had the best commercials in baseball for over decade and Safeco is great place for soccer moms to take their kids for the ‘ballpark experience’! Remember when they tried to ban ‘Yankees Suck’ shirts? Yeah.

I wonder what Beane would be able to do with a modest payroll, let alone something like the $100+ million the M’s have to deal with. Would he be able to put together a team that would win 100 games a year? I’d have to think that with more resources the guy would be nearly unbeatable.

Not so fast. The amazing thing about the A’s is that they’re so competitive on such a tiny payroll. I think Beane would agree that as more money is available, the amount of GM skill needed to field a good team actually decreases. Also, “great” teams usually have their share of stars; the market for top-notch talent is *generally* valued fairly, and so can’t easily be exploited.

As an earlier poster mentioned, doubling the payroll would most likely allow the rebuilding period to be shorter, but even with access to a lot more money I doubt Beane would be able to consistently field a 110-win team.

Since Beane’s team first made the post season in 1999, they’ve averaged 92.5 wins per year. Given that the original premise is a 100 win average, I’m looking at the marginal cost of 7.5 wins and thinking it’s pretty do-able with a decent payroll.

I wonder what Beane would be able to do with a modest payroll, let alone something like the $100+ million the M’s have to deal with. Would he be able to put together a team that would win 100 games a year? I’d have to think that with more resources the guy would be nearly unbeatable.

Not so fast. The amazing thing about the A’s is that they’re so competitive on such a tiny payroll. I think Beane would agree that as more money is available, the amount of GM skill needed to field a good team actually decreases. Also, “great” teams usually have their share of stars; the market for top-notch talent is *generally* valued fairly, and so can’t easily be exploited.

As an earlier poster mentioned, doubling the payroll would most likely allow the rebuilding period to be shorter, but even with access to a lot more money I doubt Beane would be able to consistently field a 110-win team.

Beane doesn’t sound like a man to gild the turd. And that’s probably why he never has to.

It is easy to follow the A’s and wish them well because they have a front office that is constantly trying to make their team better.

Would the M’s trade their bloated $117 million dollar roster straight across for the A’s $48 million dollar roster?

What impresses me even more is not that everything Beane turns yarn to gold, but when he does flub up he doesn’t leave an aging veteran on the roster to take up space. He works harder at correcting his mistakes. Only 8 of the original 25 opening day roster from 2007 are on today’s roster.

The M’s are toast….go A’s!

does that come from the nature of the CEO, specifically, or from the awkwardness of a 15-person ownership and a 7-person board?

Good question. Probably more the former than the latter, because I can think of partnerships in business that are larger, but are considerably quicker to react because the organizing partner has a dominant personality and has the trust of the rest.

It strikes me that much of the ownership are dilletantes in sports that like to mess around with the team, and only one or two are really sharp fans that would take to sabremetrics.