So I've been thinking it over for the last hour, and it comes down to this.

Grady Sizemore's team isn't going anywhere — the Indians are long-shots to finish as high as third place in their own division and will fare no better in the Wild Card race.  And Grady Sizemore himself isn't going anywhere — his youth, talent and long contract all made it extraordinarily unlikely he'd be traded by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and beyond unthinkable after that date.

That being the case, is there really any good reason that Grady Sizemore wasn't competing in the Olympics?

LINEUP		ROTATION		BENCH		BULLPEN
2B Brian Roberts		Jake Peavy		IF Ian Kinsler		Trevor Hoffman
CF Grady Sizemore		Cliff Lee		IF Brandon Phillips		Brandon Morrow
RF Josh Hamilton		Tim Lincecum		OF Nick Markakis		Mike Adams
1B Lance Berkman		Justin Duchscherer		OF Nate McLouth		Jeremy Affeldt
DH Raul Ibañez				C Kurt Suzuki		Brad Ziegler
3B Ty Wigginton
LF Brian Giles
C Kelly Shoppach
SS Michael Young

IOC President Jacques Rogge came right out and said it today; without major leaguers, there would be no point in bringing baseball back to the Olympics:

"We have Federer, Nadal in tennis, LeBron James in basketball.  We have the best cyclists. Ronaldinho is here in football.  We want these guys at the Games.  We're not saying it should be an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics."

This raises the important question, "Who is Ronaldinho?"  And also other questions, like:

• Do we really need to hold back from the Olympics every last one of the 1,200 players on the 40-man rosters of all thirty major league teams?
• Would it really be so bad if some players who aren't competing for the playoffs took a little break to compete in the Olympics, August 13-23?
• If there are sixty All-Stars every year, couldn't we put together a hell of a 23-man roster for Team USA, even while excluding players still competing for playoff spots?
• By the time the Olympics start in mid-August, don't we already know which players are still competing for playoff spots, and which ones clearly aren't?

Yes, there are logistical issues, contractual issues, lots of little details to work out.  There's the messy matter of officially declaring a team's season lost before it's officially eliminated.  There are incentive clauses in player contracts that would be affected, downstream roster and service time and options affected, and eligibility for batting and pitching titles.  There are all the issues that already make the WBC messy.

I submit to you that these things could all be worked out without too much trouble.  I submit to you that the players would want it.  I submit to you that the owners wouldn't lose any significant amount of money, and they all stand to gain immensely by expanding the international marketing of their sport, their Major League, and their players.  I submit to you that in a lost season, Indians fans would rather see Grady Sizemore trouncing the Netherlands in the Olympics for two weeks, even if it means that he'll play in only 140 Indians games that season.

So let's set some reasonable ground rules.

1. Team selections take place on August 1, after the non-waiver trade deadline, and players report sometime August 5-10.  All eight Olympic qualifying countries would be allowed to substitute major leaguers on their rosters, of course.
   
2. Any team within 10 games of a playoff spot can exempt any or all of their players.
3. Any team can exempt any player who's been on the DL this season.
4. Any team can exempt one additional player just because they want to.
5. Any player can exempt himself, of course.
6. As an incentive to the teams to send players, any player sent to the Olympics can be traded without passing through waivers, within 24 hours of that player's final Olympic game.

Take a look at the standings as of the morning of August 1, and you'll find that fully twelve teams out of 30 were more than 10 games out of a playoff spot, and three others were also genuinely hopeless.

AL:  Orioles, Royals, Indians, Rangers, A's, Mariners.

NL:  Nationals, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Giants, Padres.

Also hopeless:  Blue Jays, Braves, Rockies.  (They can exempt their whole rosters, but we might just sweet-talk them out of Halladay and Holliday.)

Of course by August, Sabathia had already gone to the Brewers, and Bay to the Red Sox, and so on, but literally dozens of great players remained on non-contending teams.  The Indians would have exempted Carmona due to his injuries and taken Paul Byrd as their one general exemption, since they would have expected to move him in a waiver deal, and other clubs would have made similar exemptions.  Could we still have built an impressive Team USA out of those teams' healthy players?  Hell, yes.

We'd need four starters for seven games in the preliminary round,  and then two for the medal round.  (You'd probably start your #1 guy in Games 1 and 5 and the Gold Medal game, but you'd probalby hold back your #2 guy to Game 4, so he could start the winner-take-all semifinal on full rest.  The other games aren't as crucial.)  Of course we'd need nine starting everyday players (including a DH), and I imagine we'd go with five bench players and five relievers — with absolutely no roster substitutions, better at least consider a third catcher.

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2007 At-A-Glance

The Oakland A's last year were again hampered by major injuries, including Rich Harden, Milton Bradley, Eric Chavez, and most of their key relievers.  Oakland finished the season at 79-83, but GM Billy Beane decided to blow the team up and rebuild. Essentially, that meant anyone with more than 3-4 years of service time was traded or not re-signed, with a couple exceptions.

Important Offseason Transactions

11-1-07: Traded IF Marco Scutaro to Toronto for RHP Kristian Bell and RHP Graham Godfrey

12-14-07: Traded RHP Dan Haren and RHP Connor Robertson to Arizona for OF Carlos Gonzalez, et al.

1-3-08: Traded OF Nick Swisher to Chicago for LHP Gio Gonzalez, et al.

1-11-08: Signed OF Emil Brown to a one-year contract ($1.45M)

1-14-08: Traded OF Mark Kotsay to Atlanta for RHP Joey Devine and RHP Jamie Richmond

2-8-08: Signed RHP Keith Foulke to a one-year contract ($700K)

2-11-08: Signed 1B Mike Sweeney to a minor-league contract

Mike Piazza and Shannon Stewart also left via free agency.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The Oakland bullpen was left mostly intact, though Justin Duchscherer has been moved to the rotation. If everyone stays healthy, the leads Oakland do take into the late innings should stay intact.

The rest of the team is a big question mark. The rotation beyond Joe Blanton is pretty shaky; Rich Harden is healthy but the last time he made more than 20 starts in a season was 2005. There's a couple of gaping holes in the lineup as well - Bobby Crosby was awful at the plate in 2006 and 2007, and left and center field are being manned (for now) by Emil Brown and Ryan Sweeney, respectively.

2008 Outlook

The A's, thanks to all the trades, have brought in a lot of young talent, but most of that young talent isn't going to help this season. There are however, a couple of young players who grew up in Oakland's farm system ready to contribute. Daric Barton, who came over from St. Louis in the Mark Mulder deal, is Oakland's starting first baseman. And Kurt Suzuki, who took over for Jason Kendall mid-way through last season, is entering his first full season as starting catcher.

In many ways, this season looks similar to what the Indians went through in 2003: some youngsters, but also a lot of stopgaps to hold things down until the next wave of prospects are ready. Bobby Crosby, though he was once a key player for Oakland, has to been considered a stopgap, at least until Oakland can unload the rest of his contract. Emil Brown shouldn't be Oakland's starting left fielder for long. Mark Ellis, who's been a very valuable player for several years now, will be a free agent after the season, so he may be dealt in July. So even with all the trades last winter, there's still more turnover to go.