As an A's season ticket holder, I'm going to suck it up and go to about 20 games in 2008. (They'll win about seven, I imagine. Ouch.)

What will I enjoy? Tailgating with my amigos, and the first full season of Daric Barton. Travis Buck, a pretty good outfielder. Figuring out which new Gonzalez is which. Wondering whether they have to re-shape the mound before Dana Eveland stands on it. It's going to be a long season.

That said, I already like Barton more than any young Giants hitter -- but not more than Lincecum and Cain, because I'm like that with young pitchers. Come to think of it, that's why I enjoyed watching Haren, Blanton, Harden, Street, etc. so much. It's possible that none of those people will be on the team when the first pitch is thrown in Japan, so despite my numerous trips to the East Bay in 2008, I'll be a little more excited about the Giants' young arms. Mostly, I'm hoping both teams' young nuclei start to come together after the All-Star Break, and the promise of an exciting future of baseball in the Bay Area starts to reveal itself.

That's because you don't know Villalona, else you wouldn't say that about Barton. :^)

I prefer the Giants, natch, but that goes without saying. If I must give a reason, it would have to be Lincecum and Cain, and hopefully Wilson, Correia, Frandsen, Schierholtz, Sanchez, and Misch, in about that order.

Are you expecting Villalona in 2008? I was thinking of the players they'll actually have on the field this year (since the question was about 2008). Barton will be at 1B on Opening Day in Japan.

No, you don't understand rebuilding -- it's not about eating the one or two good-tasting peanuts in the jar, it's about stuffing the whole jar-full into your mouth and then enjoying that all-around good taste...make sense, Grasshopper? The A's will be back over .500 in 2009/10 and the Giants won't, even if Villalona shows up. He needs 12-15 other decent-to-good players around him, and you can't get those numbers by onesy-twosies. Beane is a genius.

Well, Reeky, have fun in Fremont in three years. Both teams suck but at least the Giants dont wear white shoes. Forget otherpeople, beane has his own head up his ass, and enough to say about himself that he wrote a book.
GO GYROS '08

>>he wrote a book

Joe? Is that really you?

err...does it make me a slavish follower of fashions that I actually like these trades?

I am a diehard Giants fan but I'm also a baseball fan. I can hardly wait to watch the A's youngsters in action, mistakes and all.

Billy Beane is right, as a MLB team your not try to finish at .500 your trying to win it all! Unlike previous years I think Beane and Wolfe can see a light at the end of the tunnel and it's called Fremont. I think they really believe that once they move into their new stadium they can generate enough money to hold onto their players(I'm not sure I believe it).

I liked Haren and Swisher but they were good players with some questions. If your the A's and you know your not gonna win it all, why not revamp the team with an eye to the future. Hey, they were pretty good until last year and still they weren't getting great attendance.

Frankly, I wish the Giants could do the same thing. But Sabean can't or won't. He'll try and get younger by trading away what little veteran value he has and getting more marginal prospects(than the A's) in the hopes that eventually they can get enough players to be decent. The Giants winning percentage won't suck as bad as the A's percentage but they'll probably be more boring to watch and the Giants will probably be a non-winning team for a longer period.

Watching Rich Aurilia start games at first is not something that's got me all goose pimply.

#99,

40% of the The Giants games will have Cain or Lincecum pitching. How can this not be more exciting then anything the A's have to offer. The Giants have already completed the rebuild of the pitching staff and are now working on the the offense. How are the Giants not further along then the A's in the rebuilding process?

The Giants have my heart, but the A's will have my money.

The A's part has more to do with my wife, her law firm, and shared season tickets.

At the same time, I think I'd rather watch the A's in 2008. Part of it is cognitive dissonance, part of it is the perception that 1) the A's seem to know what they're doing to win, and 2) the Giants seek only to maximize their cash flow.

Watching the A's next year is like seeing the Quarrymen in 1959 Liverpool; these guys might be good, and I saw them before they hit it big. Watching the Giants next year is like seeing yet another Eddie Money/ZZ Top double feature at Konocti Harbor.

The Giants will always break my heart, but Magowan and Baer still get richer.

"Watching the Giants next year is like seeing yet another Eddie Money/ZZ Top double feature at Konocti Harbor" -- excellent! Can somebody do the Photoshop?

giantsrainman,

'How are the Giants not further along then the A's in the rebuilding process?'
But rebuilding to what, decent, a .500 team? I would respectfully disagree that the Giants have completely rebuilt their pitching staff. I seem to recall that their relief pitching last season was pretty bad; sure they've replaced a few pitchers but there is no guarantee that Wilson will be a good closer or that they have a consistent lefty in the pen or that Walker will be good set up man and/or stay healthy.

As far as the offense goes, they have NO impact hitters coming from their minor leagues and they have very little to offer anyone to get an impact hitter unless they trade Cain or Lincecum.

I think Cain and Lincecum are a good start but really who else do they have that's young and good. If Sabean were smart, he'd tear down the rest of the team trying to get what he could for everyone else. Give some of the kids the Giants have a shot (i.e. Schierholtz (sp?))and rebuild the minors.

i think sabean's problem is he can't tear down the rest of the team b/c no one wants it! the only trading chips the giants have that compare to haren and swisher are the untouchables, cain and lincecum. who else is tradeable? lowry, and no one wants him. molina maybe, winn if someone is desparate for an OFer, but he has 2 years of 9 mil and a no trade, maybe hennessey, but he probably won't bring much back. durham? roberts? aurilia? Giants best trades will come if one of these guys has a career half and he can be dealt at the deadline. otherwise, just need to avoid messing up the future, and we've already taken a step in the wrong direction with the rowand signing, but it could have been worse.
I am more of a giants fan, and i'd rather see cain and lincecum than anything the A's have to offer, but the giants management are such idiots, i'd rather spend by $$ on the A's, especially if they signed barry, but i agree with lefty that its not likely to happen.

I've tried watching the A's in the past, but I dunno. They just seem... bland to me. Maybe it's the white cleats. I like the team, but I don't think I'd watch them on a regular basis like the Giants. At least with the Giants, the pain is a familiar one.

If the A's sign Barry Bonds they will get half my ballpark attendence this year. The A's normally get about 20% of my ballpark attendence (3 much cheaper Giants games and another 3 or so when my A's fan brother is in town).

Elbo, you were the one who made the comparison unclear: why bring up Cain and Lincecum if you are comparing only prospects who haven't come up yet? Hence why I brought up Villalona.

Yeah, for 2008, I can go with Barton over the Giants position player, though I think that Schierholtz can give him a good run for the money if the Giants would give him the chance.

#99, if you are going to make that sort of comment about the Giants bullpen, then, still, how can the A's be as rebuilt as the Giants? Barton's nice, but he wouldn't be the first nice looking prospect to come up and be shown what it means to be a major leaguer. Who are the obvious stars? Cain and Lincecum, barring injuries, look like they will be the stars leading the way for the Giants for the next 10 years. And the bullpen, as unremarkable as they were in 2007, still was middle of the league in ERA and they dumped their worse performer, Benitez, already. Did you know he was responsible for the third most blown saves with 7 and the most relief losses with 8?

Who do the A's have, now that Haren and Swisher are gone? Blandton? Please. Street? First he has to stay healthy. Everyone else is on the same level as the bullpen, they haven't proved anything yet at the majors. I'll admit there's more potential, but the players the A's got for Hudson looked pretty good in terms of potential too, where are they now?

And at least Wilson has done something good at the major league level, last season, all the A's got in the trades were potential and question marks (or big question marks with potential like Eveland :^).

I still believe that it is building your pitching staff with high performers like Cain, Lincecum, or Haren that will help you rebuild quickly, plus waiting for good free agents, like a Rowand, instead of shelling out dough for mediocrity.

People may laugh, but the Giants are not that far away from .500, maybe one good hitter or one pitcher taking a giant step in development, solely because of how good their pitching staff is. If you believe Pythagorean works, look at the Giants runs allowed last year, assume some development because of their youth and lack of "career" seasons and look at how bad Durham was batting 5th (or any Giant). The 5th hitter probably costed the Giants 0.3-0.5 runs per game while Bonds was starting, particularly after he was IBB with a RISP.

But we now have Rowand hitting 5th, so that together would help counteract the loss of Bonds. In fact, if you compare his RC or WS in Bill James 2008 HandBook, Bonds and Rowand were about equal, so while Rowand would never replace Bonds, he could replace a large portion of his production so that it's not as dire a loss as people predict when they see Bonds out of our lineup.

To put too fine a point on it, since you're asking: Barton's not a prospect who hasn't come up yet. He's a young player on the 2008 A's, whom I was comparing to young players on the 2008 Giants -- not to Grizzlies or whoever. Barton's a better young hitter than anyone the 2008 Giants have. But the 2008 Giants will have young players I'll enjoy watching more, i.e. their young pitchers, because I'm like that. Nothing false about that comparison.

To me, Barton is a prospect who hasn't proved anything yet, much like Cain didn't prove anything with his short call-up in 2005. But that's on me for not getting my point clear enough, plus I can see where I misunderstood your initial point.

Lancellotti, Lowry is apparently wanted by the rest of the NL West (Sabean noted at some point that only the NL West has acknowledged Lowry's worth in trade talks).

I'm also sure other teams would be very interested in Sanchez and Villalona. And if we were to empty our farm system like Arizona did, we probably could get one good to great player but then we'd still be lousy but would then have no farm system.

FYI: Winn's no-trade clause is over now, I think he has limited no-trade in 2008 and can be traded to anyone in 2009.

since both teams will suck out loud this year here's what i want from MLB. I want the players to strike until congress pulls its collective head out of its collective ass and indicts the current corrupt administration on charges of purgury, instead of going after washed-up ballplayers. what a joke congress has become, even by congressional standards.