The Futility Infielder

Yikes!

Oakland general manager Billy Beane has tried to shake up the A's in the last couple of weeks, making some very questionable roster decisions in the process--most notably, sending down highly-touted rookie first basemen Carlos Pena and trading outfielder Jeremy Giambi. Beane's track record in creating a viable contender out of the small-market A's has bought him some slack (and some wishy-washy defense) regarding these puzzling moves from some of his most ardent proponents--ESPN's Rob Neyer and several writers on Baseball Prospectus, most notably. He's caught a bit more grief over at the discussion boards of Baseball Primer, and yours truly has spent his share of time yapping along as well.

Though the details are murky, the Giambi trade and probably the farm-outs seem to be assertions of authority related to non-baseball issues; how else to explain for getting abolutely nothing of value for Little G in the stuffed uniform of John Mabry? I've already hashed this deal over, so I'll move on.

Just in case I'd started thinking about cutting Beane some slack, a quote of his in Sunday's New York Times had me recoiling in horror. In discussing pitcher Mark Mulder's injury troubles (a strained forearm), Beane said:

"That cost him a month of pitching. On a bigger market club, you'd send him down for some rehab starts, make sure he's in shape and ready to go. We're not in that position, so Mark sort of had rehab on the fly."

I couldn't believe my eyes. Here's a GM talking about a pitcher who won 21 games last year, one of his three aces (along with Tim Hudson and Barry Zito), a guy he's got locked up under contract for the next four years--in short, a pillar of the franchise's future. And Beane is playing the "small market" card to justify rushing back Mulder from an injury (to a rocky 3-4, 6.10 ERA record) in a season that's looking with every passing day as a harsh lesson in reality.

Look, despite my previous burial, the A's aren't completely dead, not even with a 27-28 record, eight games back of Seattle and a view of the Anaheim Angels' taillights. And though they're not the team I ultimately root for, I do have more than a passing interest in them, as a fan, an analyst, and a roto-head (with Hudson, Mecir, Hernandez, Chavez, Justice, Piatt and pre-trade Little G, my fantasy team looks like a dotcom-busted portfolio full of tech stocks). Mulder did win on Sunday, throwing 5 2/3 innings at the mighty Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But if Beane continues to follow that rationale in handling his important players, his priorities for the organization are seriously out of whack, and something will come back to bite him on the ass eventually. Riding the whip to assert his authoritah, Beane could either turn the A's into your worst Dan Duquette I'm-in-charge-here nightmare or into a self-fulfilling (and sefl-immolating) prophecy straight out of Bud Selig's wildest dreams.

Either one will be a sorry-ass sight.