Seasonal Transitions

It's been a busy summer and I have not been blogging a lot. I can't believe summer is already over and we are transitioning to fall. This time of the year means the sports calendar is pretty busy- not that the sports calendar is ever barren for us serious sports fans anytime of the year! We got our collective national obsession called the NFL in full throttle right now, college football is ramping up, and the MLB playoffs is flowing fine. We love the playoffs in any sport, but major league baseball probably has the highest bump in terms of edge-of-the-seat drama from the regular season to the playoffs. And especially this year, every other playoff game seems to be going extra innings. The drama started rather painfully for me with the Oakland A's blowing a 7-3 lead late in their wildcard contest against the Kansas City Royals and losing the game and the season in extras. That game was a microcosm of the last two months of the A's season and not a happy one at that. Their sudden and ugly reversal in fortunes can be directly traced on the calendar to the Lester for Cespedes trade - a trade I supported whole heartedly. Whether or not that's what caused the disastrous slide, we will never know. But I am ready to at least accept that the trade did not work. It was still a good gamble, but sometimes gambles don't work. Thats why its's called a gamble.

As controversial and equally loved and criticized as Billy Beane is, this season and that trade is the biggest blot on his resume to date. GMs, coaches, and other leaders will never publicly accept failure or that they made a wrong call, but I am surprised Billy is still defending the trade and is saying he will do it all over again. That's where I separate from Billy. I liked his effort and I supported his trade, but I will NOT do it all over again given that we now know what happened since the trade. If I am allowed to rewind time, I would rather try and see what happens with Cespedes. It can't be worse than what we saw since July. Billy says he saw both the Angles and the A's problems coming and thats why he did the trade. He maintains the A's would have missed the playoffs without Lester and the trade. I don't buy that only because the A's were not just a little different since July, they were flat out horrible. Sure, Billy and everybody else saw the Angles surging, but you can't tell me he predicted the A's would be this bad all of a sudden and you can't convince me that they would have been worse with Cespedes. But we will never know and the season is now over. Regardless of what Billy says, his resume is a little uglier because of this trade - fair or not. The harder truth to swallow for the A's fans is that this was their best chance to win it all and next year figures to be a lot more challenging. 

The Kansas City Royals, who put the A's out of their misery, continued their post-season brilliance on the road at Anaheim as if they do this playoff thing every year. Thats pretty impressive for a team that has missed the big dance for 25 straight years! I am totally on-board with them putting the Angles to rest in the ALDS. At least the A's fans don't have to deal with the Angels celebrating. The team across the bay from Oakland, San Francisco Giants, have won both their road playoff games as well much like the Royals and are back home to host and possibly eliminate the Washington Nationals. The Giants had a couple of horrible months much like the A's, but they picked a slightly better time for that bad stretch. They righted the ship towards the end of the season and are now rolling in the playoffs. They won a 18-inning game yesterday that they were trailing 1-0 in the 9-Th. You just can't put the Giants away that easily in this Brian Sabean era. A Giants-Dodgers NLCS will be epic, though the St. Louis Cardinals might have something to say about that. In any case, looks like we might have two wildcard teams in the championship series. The playoff games have been greatly entertaining and hopefully, the trend continues rest of this playoffs.