I like the Oakland A’s this year, I think their young pitching might make the leap and I like the offensive pieces they’ve assembled too. The additions of Matt Holliday, Orlando Cabrera, Jason Giambi and even his brittle-ness himself, Nomar Garciaparra should add some much needed pop and depth to the lineup.
So, it was disappointing, although not that surprising, to see the news that A’s third baseman Eric Chavez was a late scratch from his spring training debut on Monday. Having played in only 113 games the last two seasons due to injuries, Chavez hasn’t performed particularly well even when he has been on the field. After his last good season, in 2005, Chavez was signed to a 6 year $66 million contract, with the A’s making a noteworthy commitment to, at the time, one of the best third baseman in the game.
The deal was particularly interesting because of who was and WASN’T offered a long-term contract. The A’s made little effort to sign either Jason Giambi, the 2000 AL MVP or Miguel Tejada, the 2002 MVP when their contracts were up, despite both putting up prodigious numbers. While both men commanded extremely high salaries, a major reason for why no long term deal was offered, I wonder if there wasn’t something else to it.
Most baseball fans would agree that Billy Beane is one of the top GMs in baseball (in fact, we’ll have an excellent guest column on this very subject coming shortly) and that he chose to NOT lock up either of these stars is very interesting to me. Also, at the time, the Chavez deal helped set the market for his position, so it wasn’t as though the A’s were completely adverse to spending money on their homegrown talent.
Of course, since both Tejada and Giambi left the A’s they have been linked to and investigated for using steroids. Currently, Chavez has never been mentioned in any manner regarding performance enhancing drugs.
“It’s why we win,” David Ortiz admitted.
The Slanch Report 
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