A Home for Adam Dunn

Billy Beane is interviewed at the Athletic Nations Blog. Think anybody from the Redleg Nation could get an interview with OB? hahahahah I doubt he knows what a blog is.

One thing I did pick out of the interview was Beane’s desire for more power, Dunn is the perfect fit for Beane. I hope when Dunn gets traded its to a team that understands his talents.

Don’t look now, but after a horrible start the A’s are 3 games below .500 and 6 games out of the WC. This will be six straight winning seasons, with payrolls less than the Reds. Yep all the “baseball people” are right. Billy Beane is an idiot.

Blez: Yeah. Have you ever seen a team go into team-wide funk all at once like this team did? And how tough was it for you to be patient and not run out and throw a band-aid over it?

Beane: I was patient because you take someone like Chavy. You know he’s going to come around, it’s just a matter of when. And his impact on the lineup is huge. You knew when he picked it up, well, it’s as simple as looking at his good days. When he has good days, everyone else does. So you knew he was eventually going to come around. He’s only 27 years old, remember. The offense, in fairness to them, when guys are hurt, each guys have a tendency of trying to be the hero with each at-bat they have. We got in a very bad funk there and there’s no explanation except to try and be patient. One of the things that we are severely lacking in, and it’s due to the erosion of losing some guys, is the power. It’s an area we need to address going forward. Not just short term, but long term. When you don’t have power, each game you have is likely to be a close game, even when you win, it’s a tight game. Like the game in Seattle the other night when we won 5-0. You add power and those games become 7-0 or 8-0 games, as opposed to every game being a 3-2, 4-2 game.

Power is the great separator. You can manufacture your butt to one run, but after a while, luck is going to hurt you.

Blez: Moving forward then, you’d say power is one area where you’d like to upgrade?

Beane: Yeah, but it’s not easy to find and it’s expensive. That’s why we no longer have it. Because when we develop it, we lose it through free agency. We lost Jason (Giambi), a 35-40 home run guy and Miguel (Tejada), the same thing. Now, there’s going to be power developed from some of the guys within, like from Crosby. But he’s a second-year player. You don’t expect him to go out and hit 30 homers. It’s going to come over time, but in the short term, waiting for it is going to be difficult. You go to the team stats of every team and the teams that hit home runs are going to score runs. The one consistent thing for scoring a lot of runs is getting on base and slugging. You can have 1,000 stolen bases, but if you don’t have power to go along with it you’re not going to be bringing those guys home. And that’s why Boston is so deadly. You look at those two games there. Home run. Boom, boom, game over, see you later. You’re never out of a game if you have the ability to hit one over the fence.