The latest on the Oakland Athletics, all of which comes in the form of Twitter links…
- The A's have until 12am ET Monday to finalize a contract with Hisashi Iwakuma, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. That includes the contract and physical. Oakland broke off negotiations a few weeks ago, which prompted Iwakuma's agent to tweet his side. If a deal is not reached, Iwakuma's former team does not receive the posting fee.
- Rosenthal adds that the A's were not confident with Lance Berkman, who just landed in St. Louis. Their spacious ballpark is proving to be a tough sell.
- Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle says that the A's are "very likely" to feel they need to get the Adrian Beltre situation resolved given all the recent signings and trades. Oakland made the free agent third baseman a five year offer a few weeks ago.
Beane has been very active in the rumors (Beltre, Dunn, Berkman, Iwakuma, etc) yet hasn’t signed anyone. As I mentioned previously, the A’s will be hard pressed to attract big time offensive free agents. Their best bet is to trade some prospects or their young pitching to get a bat, like they did with DeJesus
Similar to Jays AA, linked to many players and they have gone elsewhere 🙁
Hey krab. Just to let you know if you don’t like my post you don’t have to read them. I’ve had the same feelings about the giants all my life. Giants fans aren’t what you think
Rep, how is generalizing an entire fan base suppose to make you come off? What do you mean Giants fans aren’t what I think? I understand your feelings towards the Giants but how about trying to post comments that are not derogatory or make you come off sounding bitter. Honestly I try to skip over comments that don’t add to the discussion but you post frequently on discussions having to do with the Giants, hard to avoid.
I seriously need the A’s to sign Adrian Beltre! I’m not complete without him on our team!!!!
Yeah, tell me about it. Can we AT LEAST sign him?
I have a very quiet sneaky feeling LAD is going to make a suprise play for Beltre and have Blake & Gibbons take over LF.
I’d love to see the suddenly free-spending Dodgers bring Beltre back.
SS Furcal
RF Ethier
3B Beltre
CF Kemp
1B Loney/Blake
2B Uribe
C Barajas / Martin
LF Hopefully someone not currently on the 40-man
man beltre is really left with crappy options. the A’s or orioles or maybe the jays. i think he is a money man so he will go where its the most cash. he would make sense with the dodgers but a boras guy wont come at a reasonable price
Look – Beltre would be the biggest signing in years, but aside from a respectable name – do we want this guy? Isn’t he the King of Contract year players? If he doesn’t work out – which is so very likely, not only are we left with a bad contract, it dissuades Beane from even rolling the dice in future years.
Someone please build us a stadium, gosh I love my A’s….
With all the moneys the A’s have available, they should have at least been in the mix for Adrian Gonzalez. They have the prospects to get a deal done. Adrien also has played in a pitcher’s park similar to the coliseum and has put up crazy numbers. We know that his numbers would not fall off a cliff like I expect Adrien’s would. Why half-ass free-agency with all this dough billy has ready to throw at players?
You are telling me that a package headlined by Michael Taylor and Daric Barton couldn’t get it done? Taylor + Barton + Weeks or Cardenas + Simmons or something along those lines would have San Diego drooling. I don’t get why this scenario was “too far fetched”.
Wishful thinking, as much as I like your idea. A’s are a small-market, low-budget team. Like others, they not only can’t meet Gonzalez’ $ demands, but don’t have the luxury of putting all their eggs in the Gonzalez basket.
The biggest reason(s) Gonzalez-to-the-A’s is impossible? Gonzalez wouldn’t do it. He’s a Mexican-American from San Diego, who loves San Diego. He’s already gone on record as saying he’d want to play in a hitters park (believe it was Fenway specifically he was talking about) And two, as one insider said in the past few days, what hasn’t been mentioned so far is Gonzalez really wants to win.
So why would Gonzalez leave for a worse situation than the one he has – and switch leagues to do it? Coupled with the reality that the A’s are a troubled franchise right now in a state of uncertainty, it’s just not an attractive option to free agents, not to mention the ones that command alot.
the A’s are “small market” but with the expiring contracts of Chavez, Ben Sheets, and the loss of Jack Custs’ salary off the books + money from Revenue sharing, the A’s have the money to sign Gonzo to a major multi year deal.
I do not believe the A’s are in a “worst condition” than San Diego. They are 2-3 Big Bats away from being World Series contenders. Gonzo is a HUGE bat so I would say with the addition of Gonzales, they are 1 good bad away and that good bat could very well be Chris Carter. With the recent Giants WS victory, it should not be hard to see that the A’s have the ability to be contenders with the addition of a little offense because they operate and are built in a similar fashion. If players can’t recognize the elite pitching/defense the A’s possess and don’t see them as contenders, then they are not informed about the game.
Come on Beane….Give Iwakuma his money ($ 127 MM).
Are you crazy 127 million might as well go bid on Cliff Lee with that kind of money.Geesh people are stupid
People who doesn’t get sarcasm…
I could see the Sox signing Beltre if the Gonzolez trade falls through.
I’d just like to know where the Cubs have been while all these 1B’s have been in play. They probably didn’t have the package to get Gonzalez…but I certainly thought they’d be in on Dunn hot and heavy.
Maybe they are holding back on someone like Prince Fielder. It’s not as if money would be much of a stumbling block for them.
They’re quiet for some reason. We’ll hear from them at the winter meetings. I don’t think Carlos Pena is what they are after.