Quote:

jafabian said:
I think Anaheim and Seattle should go after Zito. In the AL West the road to the playoffs goes thru Oakland and both teams need staring pitching. He might even give some insight to the Oakland organization and such a move would piss off Bill Beane, which is always fun.



Barry Zito can bring many things to that organization, but having heard Zito give more than a few interviews, I do not believe insight is one of those things.

As for the A's, "dismantling" is what they do every year. Thomas is supposedly getting $30, for two or three years, which is a little on the risky side, given Hurt's age and injury history. Trying to match that offer wouldn't be cost-effective for Beane. He got cheap production from Thomas, Thomas got the big payoff from somebody else.

The good money says the A's will move on, find somebody new and cheap to fill the holes left by the two free agents, and still win 85 games or so next year.

Of course, there's even the possibility that Oakland will open its checkbook for once and give Barry Bonds a ring. His agent made this comment yesterday:

"There are teams that don't characteristically sign free-agent players such as Barry that called and said they were interested. I was a little surprised."

Sounds like a team I know!

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.