True enough. I try not to think about the A’s. And I fear they’re not done spending money (though not for the re-treads Heyman proposes). Figures — the M’s FO smartens up only to discover Beane now has money to spend….

I answered all 3 questions correctly (about the 30th post down the list). Will I still receive a lovely prize?

And how many teams have done anything yet that you could point to that says “what a great move”? There have been zero significant signings/trades so far this offseason.

Not to nitpick too much, but I would say that the A’s trade for Matt Holliday is significant. It worries me that they might be on the upswing again.

Unfortunately for the M’s, his defensive weakness was speed, or complete lack thereof, which made it look to the casual observer (including a couple of recent Mariner managers) as if he was actually a good fielder because he caught the balls he could get to, and made plays that looked exciting on balls that another fielder would have caught easily. I call it the Carney Lansford syndrome.

When we lived in the Bay Area years ago I remember a game between Minnesota and the As near the end of the time when Canseco was playing for the As. That was well into the time when Canseco had decided he didn’t care about anything except for home runs.

The Twins clearly came into the game with a strategy to hit to right field as often as they could. After about the fourth inning it was getting comical, and it was working. My daughter had a gradeschool-girl crush on Canseco, and went ballistic when one of my sons and I started laughing every time the Twins hit a fly ball to right field.

I was (and in some ways still am) one of the biggest Vlad fans around (I was tooting his horn back when he was excelling in obscurity in Montreal) but remember that he went into free agency with ominous back problems that scared off a few teams.

and he had a very specific wish-list for where he settled, and apparently his idol Alfredo Griffin was a good salesman.

What’s up with women and old bald guys, eh?

They often have money.

Sorry, so far, I see nothing “yet” to get excited about…at least nothing I can point to that says, what a great move that is to shore up our pitching, or offense.

And how many teams have done anything yet that you could point to that says “what a great move”? There have been zero significant signings/trades so far this offseason. That’s likely to change soon with the winter meetings going on, and certainly the dominoes will start to fall once the top-of-the-market guys (Tex and CC) move, but I don’t see a basis for criticism yet. Zduriencik has only made little moves so far, yes, but so has everyone else, and his little moves have shown hints of sensible evaluation of both talent and value — unlike the little moves made by, say, Bavasi (eg contrast the cost of Shelton+Branyan with Broussard+Perez). Zdurencik could still screw the pooch with a major signing, of course, but all the signs so far are positive, not negative. Nobody’s trying to start a parade, but we’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt so far.

As I said before — we’ve just sat down at the table knowing the evening is going to consist of a 25 course meal (some of which will be leftovers). We’ve just picked up a couple of breadsticks, and people are complaining they haven’t seen the dessert yet.

I apologize in advance for the lack of precision in my argument, but signing Raul was part of the unmaking of the Mariners following the 2003 season. Three linked decisions in the 2003-04 offseason doomed the franchise: releasing Mike Cameron, giving Carlos Guillen away to the Tigers for a bag of beans and choosing Raul over spending the kitchen sink on Vladimir Alvino Guerrero. The Mariner brain trust choose to “spread the money around” and sign Raul, rather than spend for Vlad, a first ballot Hall of Famer. I seem to remember that Raul’ new 2004 salary plus the savings on Kaz’s salary plus $500,000 equalled what the A’s paid Vlad when he was signed in January 2004. Of course, there is no way to know if the Ms would have won that bidding war, but it would have been nice to find out.