December 14, 2010; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (right) smiles while addressing the media as designated hitter Hideki Matsui (left) looks on during a press conference following Matsui signing with the Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE

With the 2012 season officially underway, all eyes—especially mine—will be focused on Billy Beane and the rest of the Athletics’ management as the team enters yet another rebuilding phase.

The Athletics are not expected to compete this year given their demolition of their starting rotation this offseason and because of their unproven offense.

Instead, this season feels destined, really, to be another chapter in Billy Beane’s painfully-penned rebuild.

Oakland has been in this position before, namely back in 2007 when the team sent fan-favorites like Nick Swisher and Dan Haren packing in various trades that landed the A’s plenty of young prospects.

Beane’s inconsistencies in addition to the A’s ever-growing stadium problems have made the team’s rebuilding attempts extremely difficult to watch.

This touchy topic has been covered religiously on this site, especially by our very own Staff Writer Jason Leary, but the A’s rebuilding attempts serve as a reminder that not all clubs succeed in building a winning product. Beane has done a fine job in recent years of acquiring young talent, but holding onto that talent and having the patience with those prospects are another thing.

Perhaps the biggest mistake Beane has made in recent years was the decision to trade for outfielder Matt Holliday prior to the 2009 season. The A’s certainly thought they’d get a lot from Holliday, but for the amount of talent the team gave Colorado in exchange for Holliday and the overall timing of the deal didn’t make complete sense.

For one, the A’s gave up the talented young outfielder Carlos Gonzalez as a way to acquire the older Holliday. In hindsight, that was not a great decision on Beane’s behalf. It should speak volumes of Beane’s abilities to scout young hitting talent.

I just never felt that the A’s gave Gonzalez much of a chance in Oakland. He was shipped out of town essentially for a rent-a-slugger. Holliday, as you’ll all remember, didn’t last in Oakland and was traded by the 2009 trade deadline to St.Louis.

That was the biggest mistake the A’s GM made, in my opinion, anyway, as it disrupted his rebuilding efforts. The A’s were kidding themselves if they thought they could compete in 2009.

Guys like Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill were barely bursting onto the scene and even with an offense that featured Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar Garciaparra—all of whom with the exception of Holliday, were old and inexpensive sources of veteran leadership acquired by the A’s—the pitching staff wasn’t up for the task of competing.

I think the A’s learned during the 2009 season that rebuilding is harder than it seems. You have to scout well, draft well, and more importantly know how to develop young talent once you have it in your minor league system. Looking at this season, the A’s have yet again laid out a solid foundation of young pitching.

Pitchers like Jarrod Parker, Brad Peacock, Sonny Gray, and A.J. Cole are just a few of the names the A’s are currently waiting for to emerge onto the big league scene. The A’s turned their focus onto their rebuilding efforts this past winter with the Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey trades, but their commitment is still relatively unknown.

One minute they’re wheelin’ and dealin’, and then the next minute they’re forking over $14 million to Coco Crisp and $36 million to an unproven outfielder named Yoenis Cespedes. The A’s are trying, I think, to build a winning club, but Beane’s recent attempts may not matter in the end.

The A’s are still waiting around —for three years now—for MLB and Bud Selig to deliver their findings about the Athletics’ stadium situation in Oakland. The team is desperately fighting for a spot in San Jose, a territory that the Giants claim as theirs. San Francisco isn’t budging on those territorial claims and the A’s are stuck in the vortex called O.co Coliseum.

So, citing Beane’s inconsistencies during the last few rebuilding years is only part of the organization’s problem. The A’s do need to have better consistency when it comes to evaluating talent and developing talent, but they also need MLB and Bud Selig to step up to the plate and finally deliver their decision regarding the San Jose mess.

Selig has kept the A’s waiting long enough. These past few years have made Beane’s job a little harder and have definitely put a strain on the ever-thining fan-base. No one likes to lose, but the A’s are not in a position to go out and sign a bunch of free-agent talent.

Instead, the team has been forced to tear down, rebuild, assemble, tear down, and rebuild. Will MLB deliver a decision before the A’s are forced to give up on their new crop of young talent (I’m talking about you, Parker, Peacock, Gray, and Cole)?

It’s become an excruciating process.

Beane can assemble all the young talent he wants. Heck, he can even have the patience to develop all that young talent in a way that produces a few wins here and there. But without a place to play, those wins won’t matter, will they?

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Fuentes, as most of you will remember, was highly critical of ex-A’s manager Bob Geren during the season. At the time, the A’s were struggling, and Fuentes was experiencing his own share of struggles as well. Geren, who was fired mid-season this year, was criticized by not only Fuentes, but ex-A’s closer Huston Street as well. Fuentes argued that Geren had unorthodox managerial skills.

Overall, it’s been a frustrating season for the A’s and Fuentes. In 56 innings of work this season, the veteran lefty has gone 2-8 with 12 saves and a 3.86 ERA. While most will agree with Fuentes’ evaluation of Geren, most A’s fans will probably admit that Fuentes hasn’t had that great of a season, and had no business throwing his manager under the bus like that. (more…)

It definitely got the attention of catcher Kurt Suzuki he commented that. ”New York and Boston, they get it every day.  Little stuff for them is big stuff for us.”  Meaning, this is not the kind of drama that occurs in Oakland.

In fact, this was high drama for the A’s when Fuentes complained how Geren was taking advantage of him, not communicating with him and did not understand in Fuentes”s words, “why Geren continued to summon him in late innings with the score tied.”

These comments by Fuentes apparently opened a 4 year can of worms about Geren’s managerial style.  However, on the flip side of this story, there were those who supported Geren and had no problem putting Fuentes in his place.  Former A’s Dennis Eckersley practically ripped Fuentes apart when he went to the airwaves and told Bay Area Sports Radio 95.7 the following;

“Weak. If you fail, you fail. You don’t throw the manager under the bus. ”You can’t say  what he said. Period … He’s been around the big leagues too long to act like that … He makes a ton of money, and he’s not the greatest closer in the universe. So zip it … It makes him look bad. It just does. At the same time, it doesn’t show a lot of respect for the manager … If I’m the manager, he’s in my office. If that was La Russa, are you kidding me? He’d chop my head off. I would make a formal apology … Geren’s got to do something.”

Then there are those who back Fuentes up like Colorado Rockies Relief Pitcher Huston Street. Street agrees with Fuentes.  He sent a text to the San Francisco Chronicle‘s A’s beat reporter saying, “Bob was never good at communication, and I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but it was a sentiment reflected in many conversations during the two years I spent in Oakland, and even recently when talking to guys after I left.”

Whatever,  happens or has happened since this incident, one thing is for certain the A’s organization has no intentions of getting rid of Bob Geren.  His relationship with Billy Beane is rock solid.  While Fuentes future will remain uncertain because he is a player and players get traded and sent to other team or back to the minors.  Do I think Fuentes is in jeopardy of being booted off the team?  No, it is not likely.  It is possible though that this drama may continue, or perhaps this will make the team stronger.

After this debacle, the A’s were able to play good baseball against the Angels and then went on to sweep the Orioles in Oakland, which puts them within a game of first place.

Well, it put them within a game of first place.  The Yankees are giving them a run for their money by beating the A’s in both Monday’s game and today’s game 10-3.  No drama here!