remindmeofthe | (no subject)

OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS.

The Chicago Cubs, looking for help at catcher, are closing in on a deal for Oakland's Jason Kendall, two sources told ESPN.com.

WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

For those of you who don't read/skim over my posts, HERE IS A RECAP OF THE A'S CATCHING SITUATION.

They traded their backup, Adam Melhuse.

They called up a kid from the minors, Kurt Suzuki.

They failed utterly in executing their badly-formed plan to have Piazza catch, since his shoulder is not up to strength and not likely to get that way in any reasonable amount of time.

So basically, they have Jason Kendall. Kendall has been having a disappointing year offensively, so I've heard his name in trade speculation once or twice, but but.

How is Rob Bowen an improvement? He's been doing even worse!

There has got to be something else going on here. If this goes through. This is insane. The logical trade would be to send Piazza to a team in need of a DH - and, given how Cust seems to have cooled off, even that might be a tad hasty. This makes no sense on any level.

. . . oh, man. Anyone wanna lay odds on them trying to make Piazza catch anyway?

We'll see how this plays out, but I'm thinking it might be time for an intervention in Oakland. Or at least time to make Beane upgrade to the good crack.

(Thanks to

beckla30 for the link.)

Edited to update like ten minutes later:

They did it.

And hey, here's a thing.

Contacted by phone early Monday evening, A's general manager Billy Beane confirmed the deal but would not reveal the name of the player being acquired in exchange for Kendall. MLB.com has learned that the player is a Minor League left-handed pitcher.

That article says nothing about Bowen, but the Cubs article does and names the pitcher as a Jerry Blevins.

Let's read on, shall we?

Beane said the decision to deal Kendall wasn't easy given Kendall's rapport with Oakland's promising collection of young pitchers, headlined by Dan Haren, Joe Blanton and Chad Gaudin, but noted that rookie Kurt Suzuki appears ready for "baptism by fire."

"We've always been an organization that's given young guys a chance, and we think Kurt deserves a chance right now," Beane said of Suzuki, who was batting .269 in 10 games with Oakland through Sunday.

AAAAAAHHHHH.

TEN GAMES. HE IS A ROOKIE. HELP MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE.

This is killing me. This is so bad. I can't even gather my thoughts.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Billy needs to go to rehab.

I wonder if they're thinking they'll call Barton up soon, and make him catch some? Even though they converted him from a catcher after trading for him? lol.

They're lucky Texas is so fucking bad, and the worst they'll do is a third place finish.

Hey, who knows? They tried to make their DH catch.

This organization is such a plane crash. I can't look away.

And let's remember, Rob Bowen was back up to both Piazza AND Doug Mirabelli last year.

Backing up Mirabelli? Oh, man. I love Belli as much as the next Boston fan, but - that just says it all right there, doesn't it?

I saw that deal and WTFed at it a lot, since ESPN spent the whole damn night reporting Bowen-Blevins in the bottomline but saying out loud that the Cubs had sent Sean Marshall, a pitcher, and I was all, "Uh, so who exactly is going to catch for the As if they're trading Kendall for a pitcher?"

I think they have to do it sometime. Kendall's hitting has been atrocious this season and I haaaate to say it, but the A's really do tend to value offense far above defense. They've probably got an algorithm worked out somewhere that told them how many wins Kendall's bat was costing them, and how many the loss of his presence behind the plate would cost them, and the bat just worked out to be much worse.

He has never once in his career batted as poorly as he was this year.... it's possible that they were too hasty in pulling the trigger, and the Cubs just got one HELL of a deal.

But it also sounds like the plan for the Future was always going to be Suzuki, and Kendall is, well, 33 years old. For a non-superstar catcher, that's a pretty deadly age to be at. Who knows? Maybe his bat sucks ass because he's hurt and unlikely to recover because of his age, and the A's just managed to cover it up enough to be able to trade him. They're as aware of his previous numbers as I am. It sounds like they were pretty damn certain he wasn't going to bounce back in the second half, or next year, and they figured they'd cut their losses and begin the always intended Suzuki era.

Oh, you and your logic and your considering it from the other person's perspective. Don't you know you're supposed to save the rational approach for real life and the irrational spastic flailing for baseball?

. . . in other words, I got nothin'. There is still so much wrong with this, starting with the assumption that Suzuki won't crack and then there's also the whole thing where the pitching staff loved Kendall and campaigned to keep him so we'll see what happens there, but it would all veer dangerously close to sounding like an eighty-year-old pasty sportswriter bitching about newfangled statistics and I really can't do that.

I sure picked a hell of a year to take an interest in the A's, though. I haven't been this entertained by behind-the-scenes drama since, well, the '05 Tigers. And I was far more attached to them so most of that was more horrifying than entertaining.

//starting with the assumption that Suzuki won't crack and then there's also the whole thing where the pitching staff loved Kendall and campaigned to keep him//

These are indeed the two biggest problems. The A's are under .500 right now; it's possible that they've written off this season and thus don't particularly care if Suzuki 'cracks'... they might just be using the rest of this season to get him used to catching and hitting in the big leagues. Which would be frustrating for A's fans, but surely no more or less frustrating than their season's been so far.

As for the pitching staff, well, that's a factor. I can only assume that the A's worked it out and decided that a rookie catcher would cost them less games than a sucking hole of ubersuck that was Kendall's spot in the batting order.

The A's have some young pitchers, but none of their starters are THAT young anymore. Perhaps they assume everyone is now mature enough to pitch tolerably well without a catcher holding their hands.

Perhaps they assume everyone is now mature enough to pitch tolerably well without a catcher holding their hands.

Well, I would hope they are, and if they aren't then they need to learn, but considering how attached they were to Kendall (I love some of the quotes, Huston Street in particular sounds like he's at a funeral), I am not at all sure of how well this can go in the short run. Of course, with the way the A's have fallen back in the division, and the whole thing where they have not actually won a game since the All-Star Break, it's quite possible that Beane is no longer thinking about the short term. Things are looking pretty bleak in Oakland right now.

And they're not even done with the trading yet. I am no longer as certain as I was before that Piazza will be traded, but I wouldn't be surprised. Dan Johnson's name has been getting tossed around, too. The last couple of weeks before trade deadline are so ~~scary~~ interesting.

Wow, wtf indeed O___o

I am WTF-ing at this too, but in a Cubs-oriented fashion, as you'd imagine. *headdesks*