"Brilliance is in asking the questions."
If this is your first time to ELEPHANTS in OAKLAND, read a quick guide on 'HOW DOES IT WORK'.
THE SKINNY?
I started a new job in February as a consultant for a Health Care firm. If you have heard that consultants 'make good money'. Yes. They do. But they also work 60-70 hour weeks on site on top of travel and working from home.
Shuttling back and forth from Richmond, VA earlier in the year and now to Greenville, SC for the past five months has been...something. I am not sure what. But I am about to eclipse 200,000 miles on Continental. I am not an Elite frequent flyer. I am not platinum. I am not Elite Platinum. I am Elite Platinum Plus.
It means I get bumped up to first class when there ARE first class seats and not an EJR. The leg room and cushy seats are great. But the rest; the food and the booze are rather wasted on me. I am a picky eater (I don't like a lot of colors with my food or when things touch) and I stopped drinking when I was 18. I was REALLY good at it.
Anyway.
STATUS of EiO?
I dropped a few grand on a new software platform that I was hoping would make things easier. Instead I am confounded by their documentation. In fact, I installed the software according to the documentation and the page with the 'Congratulations' and exclamation points came up...do you see anything different? Nor do I.
Jenga - You are going to see these; Jengas. I have a habit of tailing off into side subjects and eventually returning to the topic at hand. Sort of like Jenga. You pull stuff out and keep going. But, you pull the wrong one and the thing collapses. Yes. There is many a collapse on EiO and that's where readers are supposed to point out the structural deficiencies.
Where was I?
Oh, the Jenga for the above on software installation. Does anyone else find the "Congratulations" and exclamation points a little off putting? I'd much rather have an animated troglodytic mouth breather clapping his hands together saying, "hooray...you did it." Isn't that what we all look like when we complete it, huh, don't we George?
THE POINT?
I have contacted someone who is going to walk me through getting the software up to speed and I will have a beta site up so you can offer your opinion of the design and direction. The software is tremendous but the customer service is non-existent.
HOW BAD ARE THE A's?
Don't you remember? I am a 'hater' and 'negative' and I 'make stuff up' and have 'no idea' what I am talking about. But it's funny, a rare Billy Beane quote emerged this week:
"...we have gone from one of the worst farm systems to one of the best in one year. We had to take steps back and rebuild, and invest in putting together the talent to develop a contending team. Fortunately, our ownership was with us."
- Billy Beane, Minority Owner of the Oakland A's
[The Link to follow; a Peter Gammons article on ESPN.com]
Hold on there, Professor. You traded for a bunch of prospects. But you couldn't develop the prospects you have had.
What the A's have done is get better quality cuts of meat. But if they can't prepare, cook, or present the meat any better - what freakin' difference does it make?
To boot, Beane is not the acting General Manager of the Oakland A's. This is why this quote is so rare. David Forst has been running the show for the last two seasons. Beane, more than likely, gave an ownership/administrative directive: blow the thing up, gut it and we'll see what happens.
CAN DAVID FORST SAVE THE A'S?
I don't know. He has not been able to make very good decisions on acquisitions. The Harden and Blanton trades equated very little for the A's. Fingers are crossed for Josh Donaldson. But the true weakness of the A's is their farm system which starts with their poor drafting abilities and inability to take a player with talent and polish that player to be better than a replacement level player or pitcher.
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