A's Interim Home Sets Lofty Expectations
TIm Keown of ESPN wrote an exceptional article yesterday, detailing the A's negotiations with Oakland over the past few weeks as the two sides attempted to come to terms on a lease extension. You should definitely read the entire thing, becuase everything is laid out so well and it gives you a great understanding of why the two sides didn't come to an agreement.
But today, I want to talk about my favorite part of the piece, which involves Barry Broome of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, who has some fantastic quotes.
"The only thing I asked of the Fishers is when they win the World Series in the next three years, they put that parade right in the middle of our town."
The A's have lost 100+ games the past two years, and there is concern over them being able to reach the postseason anytime in the near future with the way that John Fisher operates, but to think that they'll be title-worthy in the next few years is borderline lunacy. This is especially true when you consider that Fisher said that one of the draws of playing in Sacramento was to be able to watch Aaron Judge take his pitchers deep. It's going to be hard to win a World Series when Judge "and others" are just cranking dingers.
Then Broome plays GM for a moment in discussing the couple of moves the A's need to make in order to make that World Series run.
"All we need is a 19-year-old kid named Vida Blue, a 20-year-old guy named Reggie Jackson," he said. "We just need three, four, five guys. We need to look in the Dominican Republic for a shortstop, for Omar Vizquel." Keown noted that Vizquel is actually Venezuelan.
So the list of things the A's need is somewhere between 3-5 players, at least one of them being a Hall of Famer, another an MVP and a Cy Young, and then Omar Vizquel--but Dominican--and then maybe another player or two. I wonder if front offices around the league have ever tried just signing Hall of Fame players or if Broome is onto the next Moneyball.
I get it, he's excited and wants to see the A's contend in their time in his city. That makes sense. Nobody wants to think that they're going to be hosting a bad team that the fans will sour on immediately, but it's worth noting that the biggest contract that Fisher has handed out and paid in full was given to Billy Butler in 2015 at three years, $30 million.
This video from three years ago rings a bit hollow after recent events.
"Communities need identities. Here in Sacramento we kept our beloved Kings. It catalyzed a complete rebirth of our community." Three years later Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé offered the A's a place to play baseball for three or however many years the team needs at his minor-league ballpark, rent free, completely undercutting the negotiations happening in the Bay Area.
Oakland was looking for expansion assurances in their negotiations, and the Kings owner is just hoping for the best. One way or another we could be looking at a showdown between the two cities for a future baseball team.