Happiest of birthdays to my beloved nation. We’ve had our ups and down, but I don’t know what I would do without you.
I was going to get my requisite work done to make up for the craziness this week early in the morning, relatively speaking, but a certain apartment event took me away from that. It wouldn’t be altogether appropriate to write about it on these public pages, but suffice it to spawn your imagination to say that it was stressful and unpleasant.
That being dealt with, we all piled into the car and headed out towards Culver City to attend a 4th of July pool party. And, by “we” I mean the Ho, myself, Kristen, and Abbey. The party was being hosted by Dayna and Matt, two of our fastly-becoming very good friends (friends for a long time, mind you, but recently seeing more of each other) and the empty house of Matt’s sibling. See, they’ve gone and moved back to the east coast to be closer to family, but their house isn’t sold yet, and their pool is still in the ground…working perfectly. It was awesome. The pool was delicious. The weather was perfect. The alcohol was plentiful and tasty. The food was scrumptious. Oh, and I got introduced to a wonderfully country new game called Bag-O, which is like a cross between horse-shoes and a bean-bag toss…with a little bocci ball mixed in there for good measure.
Then, we came home, gave the Coops a bath (because he made himself filthy while at the party, rooting around in the dirt and all), and then the Ho watched R.I.P.D whilst I did the work I was supposed to have done in the morning.
And now, I lay in bed, sunsoaked and tired, reading about how the A’s pulled off the first blockbuster trade of the year, nabbing two premier starting pitchers in a deal with the Cubs for our top prospect, and likely the best position player to come through our farm system in the last 10 years. I honestly don’t know how to feel about this trade. What I do see it as is a vote of confidence for a club that could really be something special this year. If Samardzija helps the A’s win a World Series this year, then I’m a fan of this trade. Or, even if he helps us win one NEXT year, I’m a fan of the trade. Otherwise…and Addison Russell proves to be as good as everyone says he’s going to be…it’ll be the latest addition to a long tradition over the past decade of trading away position prospects who go on to be incredible players (read Ethier, CarGo) and getting short-term nothing in return.
My fellow A’s aficionado Joe has already declared he hates the trade. I’m not even close to ready to say that. Samardzija is a legit top of the rotation arm, AND we get him for next year too, AND we get Hammel in the meantime, who has been just as good this year. That’s a haul. No bones about it.
But, man…if it doesn’t get us where we want to go, and Russell turns out to be a star…it’s going to hurt just as much, if not more than trading away an All-Star outfielder and a batting champion for a couple players that DIDN’T help us win a pennant or the series.
I do have to say, however, that this one DOES look different to me. Our team is already one of, if not THE best teams in baseball. And adding two pitchers of the caliber we just did drastically changes how we match up in the postseason….those other aforementioned trades were in the offseason, adding pieces to a team that didn’t make the playoffs the year before. That’s a HUGE difference.
I hope it works.