One of my favorites, though, and, now that I look back, I definitely underappreciated him. Isn't he calling games for the A's now?

And Karros's feelings were really hurt. He seems to be one of those guys who is not happy that he didn't go out when he wanted to.

(scurries out of the room)

7- At least someone likes Baez.

Other then Giovanni I have no clue who he could be talking about.

I don't see how griping about playing time and contract incentives is bashing a teammate.

I know he wrote an article that year on how he thought the signing was horrible because he didn't believe in the right-handed "lefty-masher". Sounds like this article might be a way for him to gloat.

15 - No, the article was about the J.T. Snow signing - just because a player is cheap doesn't make him risk-free. Neyer wasn't saying "don't sign a good player who is on the decline phase." He was saying "be careful not to sign bad players."

In other words, there's a difference between declining and declined.

I may be a Karros apologist from time to time, but I completely agree Karros should have been cut from the A's. I just can't go so far as to say that one player with 103 ABs lost the pennant for the team.

What is success? I suppose that you could say that succeeding is more of a mental thing. More like being put in a position to succeed. Do I hope my players succeed? Of course, I do, but I think that if they satisfy themselves with the knowledge that they, from a competition standpoint, did their best that they could, considering all the circumstances, then they did succeed. But I do want them to have peace of mind? Well, only if it puts them in a position to succeed.

And yes, 19, "don't sign really bad players" is obvious when stated that way. But I'd take the point of the article (the point of having written it) as twofold: (1) there's no such thing as a free signing -- bad players will cost you, even if you don't play them much, and (2) Jon's phrase that "there's a difference between declining and declined" and teams need to figure out a better way to know when someone is just plain done, and not "due for a bounce-back."

Although I agree with the basic gist of your post. Singling one player out for costing the A's a division title is pretty classless on Neyer's part. There were lots of other reasons the A's blew it in '04. Karros' suckitude was a contributing factor, sure, but not the exclusive cause.

Too many baseball fans and GMs are overly optimistic about has-beens (he can do it again! he knows how to win!) and overly pessimistic about prospects (he hasn't done anything yet!).

I remember him doing a talk radio appearance last summer and saying anyone can see that Choi can't hit. That's a paraphrase, but it was something very blunt like that.

http://www.theonion.com/content/index

Mia Hamm Declines Third-Year Option On Nomar Garciaparra

November 17, 2005 | Onion Sports

SANTA BARBARA, CA—Just days before the two-year anniversary of their initial agreement of terms, women's soccer legend Mia Hamm opted not to pick up her owner option for a third year on former husband Nomar Garciaparra. "Although I made a commitment to Nomar, there is no doubt that his skills have diminished with age, and it has shown in his lackluster performance over the past two years," said Hamm, who added that although she will always appreciate Garciaparra's loyal service, she is taking herself in a different direction right now. "Nomar is a great person, but he is well beyond his prime, and I just don't see him as a fit in my future." Although Hamm would not release details, she has hinted that after the mandatory waiting period concludes, she will begin to pursue younger, more versatile free agents.

25 - I didn't have that in mind when I posted, but I don't disagree with what you wrote there - although we should distinguish between the Mueller-type signings and the Erickson-type signings.

22 - LOL

A team is always greater than one player. However, there is a bone in GMs that makes them want to take a chance on guys like Eric Karros while others could play better but either have not performed as well in the past or are condemned with a AAAA label. Karros is a good example of that happening, and - whether they lost the division for it or not - it did cost them a number of very poor at bats when they could have found average at bats for the same amount of money or less.

There are a lot of veterans in the FA market right now: Thomas, Piazza, Sosa, Palmeiro, etc. Which are declining and which have already declined?

And I don't think we need to worry about Alomar Jr., he's declined. For that matter, so has Lance Carter.

Should my players be quick? Yes, but that's only if they don't hurry.

Will practicing more make perfect? In a sense, but I believe that if you practice as close to perfect as possible, you will be in a position to succeed.

http://post-gazette.com/pg/06016/638811.stm

This is the second article I've seen that mentioned that here in L.A. we called it "Tracy-ball".

I seem to remember they coughed up a big lead in the standings late. The A's went 3-9 in the two weeks before they were caught and eliminated by the Angels that September. Eric Karros had nothing to do with that.

31 I'm all for cautionary tales about GMs who sign washed-up "proven veterans", but Neyer is mud-slinging to make his point here. His language should have been couched a little more carefully. (At least based on the bit of the article posted here; the rest of his piece might be a little more fair and even-handed.)

But, Neyer doesn't do that.

Look, it's pretty simple. An excerpt is an excerpt. I published the excerpt to launch a discussion on personnel moves. If you want to make a judgment on Neyer's article, you have to read his whole article. If you can't read the whole thing, then don't judge.

Because of this, it was cost the Dodgers at least five million to sign Piazza. For what? A guy who will play 25% of the games. We already have three first baseman, we don't need another one.

41 I don't subscribe to ESPN Insider, so I guess I won't be reading the whole article. If Neyer does not ascribe the A's 2004 on-field failure exclusively to Karros, then fine. That, however, is not at all apparent from the excerpt you posted, which is all I have to form my opinion on. I alluded to the possibility that I might be taking Neyer's comments out of context, and if I did, then I retract all.

Karros went into that season having hit .366/.441/.545 against lefties in '03. So you can make the case that he was worth the gamble to find a platoon partner for Hatteberg. It just didn't pan out, and it cost them.

http://tinyurl.com/dasg8

All in all, it is a very strange article, with a very easy-to-misinterpret point. Kind of reinforces the notion that hindsight is 20/20. Not to mention the awkwardness it may generate at the ESPN Christmas party next year when Karros and Neyer happen to be at the chocolate fondue fountain at the same time.

Sure it should seem fairly obvious the post was to spur discussion on personnel moves, but it wasn't.

But I don't believe this is real. According to many out of town newspaper reports, Colletti's supposed to be doing a lot of things that he actually isn't. And then the Edwin/Tiffany-for-Baez deal comes along without any foreshadowing. If you want to get concerned about Colletti's moves in advance, you need to have more imagination.

Once I realized that people, I believe, were misinterpreting Neyer's article, I stepped in. I'm sorry for the confusion - but again, I'm not trying to make people feel bad about it.

Good one. Although I don't remember too many ballplayers running away from Morganna, unpleasant as she might have been.

I too would love to see Martin get a shot, but is anyone on the team suggesting he might be ready? If so, I've missed that. If they think he's still a year away, then Molina could be a pretty nice stop-gap.

The only way I'd prefer Molina to Navarro would be if I were convinced that Navarro's trade value is at a maximum right now, which would, in turn, require that I believe he performed over his head last year. Since he's young, that's unlikely.

I truly dislike Boras and perhaps he thinks Jeff is Cy Young or perhaps most teams are tiring of his hard ball negotiating skills. I almost hope Jeff is forced to take a bad one year deal at the last minute and then he & his brother fire that bloodsucking Boras!

So disregard. Sorry for posting crap.

70 - No harm done.

Those saying the Molina money could be spent better elsewhere, I'm just afraid the FA pool is getting a little thin. And the marginal difference wouldn't be the difference between Molina and Navarro, which might be fairly minimal, but between Molina and Alomar, I figure, since Navarro will be here regardless.

Like the Karros poster above, I didn't expect to become a Molina apologist. But I can see the logic in signing him for a year.

Bill James
Molina/13/274/315/405
Navarro/7/263/335/371

Hard to see how the increase in slug that Molina will give us is worth the 3-5 million it would take to sign him. At this point they are about the same value with Navarro giving up power but gaining in OBP and the fact he is not glacier slow. Unless Ned is planning on signing Molina for one year while Martin percolates and then trading Navarro in combination with someone else for a significant player I can't see signing on for the deal even though in the beginning I thought one year of Bengie would have some value.