Not to trample all over Taj's excellent prospect-watching story from this morning, but feel free to use this as your all-purpose "Matt Holliday traded to the A's" freak-out thread.  John Heyman files this report:

The Oakland Athletics have acquired star outfielder Matt Holliday in a trade with the Colorado Rockies, SI.com has learned.

I'm scared.  My hands are sweating.  Hold me.

Updates as they happen.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 2:32 PM EST ] DKNJ and TroyNeelorBust broke the news on AN first.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 2:35 PM EST ] Oh yeah: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 2:46 PM EST ] For those of y'all that wear fanny packs, a few numbers: Holliday was 54 runs above replacement last year (52 offense, 8 fielding, -6 for position), between Brian Giles and Jose Reyes in the NL.  A quick projection gives me about +40 for offense next year (although I didn't adjust for park) and Sean Smith projects him as +8 fielding in a corner and +0 in center.  That's a good player, folks.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 3:03 PM EST ] Robothal reports:

Over the weekend, the teams discussed A's outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, left-hander Greg Smith and reliever Huston Street, according to one source, but it is not known if any or all of those players will be included in the package for Holliday.

...

The A's are not acquiring him with the intention of flipping him or even trading him in July. The team is in position to increase its payroll to as much as $80 million, and plans to contend next season.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 3:31 PM EST ] Yahoo's Tim Brown is reporting Street, Smith, and CarGon.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 4:08 PM EST ] Beat-writer extraordinaire Susan Slusser says the same. 

The A's are working to complete a trade with the Rockies that would bring Matt Holliday to Oakland in exchange for reliever Huston Street, starter Greg Smith and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, major-league sources said Monday.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 4:10 PM EST ] Hey Geren, thanks for killing Huston's trade value last year.

[Note by salb918, 11/10/08 4:11 PM EST ] Oh yeah.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

It's not official yet, but it appears that the gold glove winners in the AL will be:

P - MIKE MUSSINA - YANKEES
C - JOE MAUER - TWINS
1ST - CARLOS PENA - RAYS
2ND - DUSTIN PEDROIA - RED SOX
3RD - ADRIAN BELTRE - MARINERS
SS - MICHAEL YOUNG - RANGERS
OF - TORII HUNTER - ANGELS
OF - GRADY SIZEMORE - INDIANS
OF - ICHIRO SUZUKI - MARINERS

At least Dustin Pedroia isn't the worst pick of the lot; that honor belongs to the statue-eque Michael Young.  The longer the rangers run Young out to shortstop, the better it is for the A's.  Keep the gold glove, sweetheart.

The gold gloves aren't based on statistics, nor should they be.  They are based on the impressions of the electorate, which in this case happens to be managers.  They watch games, and tell us what they see..

In Tango's Fan Scouting report, fans do the exact same thing, but instead of the votes of 14 managers, you get the votes of dozens of fans.

Those fans - including Red Sox partisans - rated Ellis as superior to Pedroia in the following categories: instincts, first step, speed, hands, release, and accuracy.  Fans rated them as equals in arm accuracy.  Fans rated Pedroia as superior in: .  Oh, there's nothing on that list?  Huh.

Anyway, we've got Mark Ellis and nobody else does.  That counts for something, right?  Here's to you, MaEl:

via farm2.static.flickr.com

Most of you know that Ellis is a very good defender. Can't hit much, but he's good with the glove. What a lot of you don't know is that Ellis is not just "very good" with the glove, he's one of the best defenders in the majors, and his defense is worth a whole heck of a lot.

I've heard people on AN say that the A's need more offense, not defense. That's such an ignorant statement it makes me cringe. A run saved is a run saved. The balance between offense and defense is overblown. You win games by scoring more runs that your opponent runs. You can do that just as well by preventing runs as you can by scoring them.

Okay, let's get down to numbers. According to MGL, Ellis has saved 23, 12, 26, and 21 runs with his glove from 2005-2008. Based on this, it's not unreasonable to guess that Ellis is worth +20 runs with the glove alone. Almost no players are actually that good with the glove, so let's say Ellis got lucky and that he's actually +15 with the glove.

Ellis wasn't much of a hitter last year, and his endless parade of popups was positively Byrnesian. But his Marcel projection suggests that he will be an exactly league-average hitter going forward. (Those of you who say, "but he hit .233 last year!" will be subject to Nico and his goat. Staturdays are for intelligent discussion, and if you can't keep up then I'd rather you not participate.) Ellis is positively average with the bat.

So, offense and defense combined, Ellis is +15 runs compared to all other players, or +1.5 wins. But that's not all: Ellis is a secondbaseman. I've talked before about positional value before, so I won't rehash it again, but that adds another 0.25 wins to his ledger. And I've talked about replacement level before as well, which adds another 2.5 wins. That means that, all told, Ellis is worth about 4.25 wins above replacement over a full season.

Now, Ellis is coming off surgery and he's getting older, so let's say that his defense and offense both fall off and he misses time next year. Knock over a win off that 4.25 figure, and you get 3 wins above replacement. I'm kicking him down a lot of notches, but I'm being pessimistic here.

Players who were worth about 3 wins above replacement this year: JD Drew, Jack Cust, Miguel Cabrera, Derek Jeter, Justin Morneau.

The A's just signed Justin Morneau to a two-year contract for $11 MM. And, if it works out, the A's have an option for a third year at $6 MM. And I'm being pessimistic about Ellis's future performance. What a ridiculous steal.

Did you know that the going rate for a win on the free-agent market is about $4.8 MM dollars? The A's should be tryin to pay less than that, obviously, since they keep a small payroll. Let's say the A's want to target $3.5 MM per free agent win. They should be paying Ellis at least $10 MM next year.

Assuming Ellis gets worse every year from here on out (to the tune of -0.5 wins per year), assuming no salary inflation over the next three years (almost certainly untrue), Ellis would be worth at least $36 MM on a three year contract in the open market. The A's got him for less than a third of that, and hedged their risk by making the third year a team option. This is almost unfair to Ellis.

How could this go wrong for the A's? Well, let's find the breakeven point. I'm already assuming that Ellis is a +15 run fielder instead of +20, and that he's -5 runs as a hitter instead of +0. So, starting from this pessimistic viewpoint, let's assume that Ellis is even worse.

Knock his fielding for 2009-2010 to +10 and +5 (from +15 and +10). Knock his hitting down to -10 and -15. So, by 2010, he's one of the worst everyday hitters in the majors (like Willie Bloomquist bad) and just barely above average with the glove. That gives the A's 4.5 wins above replacement for two years. Now say Ellis misses a third of the games the A's play. That's now 3 wins above replacement over two years. That would cost, on the free agent market, $14.5 MM, or about $7 MM per year - less than what the A's signed Ellis for.

So - if Ellis is terrible with the bat, sees his fielding fall off a cliff, and misses a third of each season, the A's come out even.

One final thing. There was discussion that the A's have depth at this position because of Cliff Pennington, Eric Patterson, Adrian Cardenas, and Jemile Weeks. The former two are ready for the majors now, but don't project to be anything close to Ellis as a player. Ellis is a star player. Even at the major-league minimum salary, there's no way that Pennington and Patterson are worth playing over Ellis. Cardenas and Weeks are no locks to stay at second base, and while both might be stars like Ellis one day, that day is certainly not until 2010, after which the A's have the option of terminating MaEl's contract.

To his credit, Ellis likes it in Oakland, apparently likes the fans, and is showing loyalty to the organization that stood by him while he rehabbed a potentially career-ending injury. He's throwing away tens of millions of dollars to do that. Whether it's because he's stupid or noble, I don't know. All I know is that A's fans get to benefit.

I'm so happy that I'll get to watch Ellis for the next few years, and you should be too.

Another evening, another Sox pitcher tattooed.  Another evening of Red Sox fans streaming out of Fenway in the middle innings.  Another evening of Rays hitters taking the ball over the monster time after time.  Another evening of the Red Sox looking old, tired, frustrated, and outmatched.

Another evening of this, and we'll the Rays - yes, the Rays - in the World Series.  One more to go, boys.  The whole country is rooting for you.

David Ortiz BJ Upton, postseason clutch god: .303/.378/.818.

This is no ordinary ALCS.

This is your ticket to baseball heaven.

Sometimes, it feels like you have to be a baseball blogger in order to open a game thread.

Luckily for you, I am one.

Don't be fooled: in their last two trips to the ALCS, the Red Sox rallied from 3-0 and 3-1 deficits.  That's not to say that they have an uncanny ability to win with their backs against the wall.  It's just that Red Sox teams of recent vintage have been really, really good.  This series won't be over until the final out is recorded.

LET'S GO RAYS!

Hey, I finally figured out how to put the lineups in the story.

Just for your reference, the losers are on the left and the winners are on the right.

Also, it's a little scary how quickly the commercials go from FloMax-Viagra-Sprint-John Hancock to "PediPaws."

...so finally I told the mouse "Look, just win the damn game."

And then the mouse was like, "Well screw you, I don't care if you have to get up early tomorrow."

But then the second mouse forgot how to pitch.