I told Billy Beane I guess if I would have sucked you would have kept me."

No, Billy, had you sucked they still would've traded you, they just wouldn't have been able to get Keith Foulke and Joe Valentine for you. You should be happy that you keep bringing back more in trades than you're worth. But way to burn your bridges there.

I've liked Frank Wren ever since his unhappy days as Orioles GM under Angelos The Arrogant. When he was finally cashiered by the O's, he told the story of how a few weeks earlier, his young son came home from school crying because the other kids were all saying his dad was about to be fired by the Orioles. Wren tried to comfort him by saying that if that happened, Dad would be able to spend a lot more time around the house with him and his mom. This cheered the kid up immensely, and he ran around the house happily shouting, "Fired! Fired!"

I don't see what's so wrong about Koch's comments or how he's burning any bridges. He was traded because of the season that he had this past year, which will bring him a contract in the next 2 years of arbitration that the A's weren't willing to pay.

I'd bet that Beane told Koch that the reason that he's being traded is that the A's can't afford him. While that's partially true (it's more of a case of not getting the most bang for the buck with Koch) you're not going to tell Koch anything but they can't afford him, which leads to that comment of his.

If Koch sucked last year he would have been more affordable to the A's, although that doesn't mean that they necessarily would have kept him.

Pistol, in the limited context of this quote, I see your point. But Billy's been yapping first and thinking later for quite a while now. For example, saying he wanted to kill himself after bombing in the A's last playoff game. He's a loose cannon.

The Hendry line, "I thought this was a real good situation for us because our people don't think these guys don't still have some baseball in them," referred to Karros & Grudz, but today the Cubs continued their inexplicable off-season by giving Alfonseca the key to the vault, so I think it applies to him, too.