EMPLOY THE ENTIRE ARMED FORCES LIKE EMPLOYING A SINGLE PERSON.
EMPLOY THEM WITH ACTUAL TASKS.
DO NOT TALK TO THEM.
MOTIVATE THEM WITH BENEFITS, DO NOT TELL THEM ABOUT HARM.

- The Art of War -

The string of closer feats has ended in Oakland. The A's had a string of four different closers in four consecutive years with at least 30 saves. They also had two closers with at least 40 saves over the last two seasons.

CLOSING TIME (click me)

Season	Closer	G	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	W	L	SV	HLD	BLSV	ERA
2000	Izzy	66	69	67	34	29	6	32	57	6	4	33	0	7	3.78
2001	Izzy	65	71.1	54	24	21	5	23	74	4	3	34	0	9	2.65
2002	Koch	84	93.2	73	38	34	7	46	93	11	4	44	0	6	3.27
2003	Foulke	72	86.2	57	21	20	10	20	88	9	1	43	0	5	2.08
2004	Rhodes	37	38.2	46	23	22	9	21	34	3	3	9	3	5	5.12
2004	Dotel	45	50.2	41	23	23	9	18	72	6	2	22	0	6	4.09

Sheesh.

That's a scary roller coaster if you plot some of those numbers on a graph.

Let's go a bit beyond the numbers. Let's look at acquisitions and mergers. Or, as some fans of a certain General Manager quip, "bread and butter".

Jason Isringhausen	July 31, 1999	Traded by the New York Mets with Greg McMichael to the Oakland Athletics for Billy Taylor.
	November 5, 2001	Granted Free Agency.
	December 11, 2001	Signed as a Free Agent with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Billy Koch	December 7, 2001	Traded by the Toronto Blue Jays to the Oakland Athletics for Eric Hinske and Justin Miller.
Keith Foulke	December 3, 2002	Traded by the Chicago White Sox with catcher Mark Johnson, minor league pitcher Joe Valentine and cash considerations in exchange for closer Billy Koch and two minor leaguers (December 12, 2003 Chicago White Sox acquired minor league pitcher Neal Cotts and outfielder Daylan Holt from Oakland as players to be named in the Koch-Foulke deal)
	December 8, 2003	Keith Foulke Offered arbitration by the Oakland Athletics
	December 13, 2003	Boston Red Sox signed free-agent RHP Keith Foulke to a three-year deal that includes a vested option for a fourth year.
Arthur Rhodes	December 22, 2003	Signed free agent LHP Arthur Rhodes to a three-year contract with the Oakland Athletics
Octavio Dotel	June 24, 2004	The Oakland Athletics acquired RHP Octavio Dotel and cash from the Kansas City Royals in exchange RHP Mike Wood and 3B Mark Teahen. The Royals acquired Dotel from the Houston Astros along with C Jon Buck in exchange for OF Carlos Beltran.

Now, any of you who are watching the Houston Astros in the playoffs and thinking the same thing every time Carlos Beltran comes to the plate; "hey, there's that A's outfielder who doesn't wear an A's uniform"...

Anyway.

The Oakland A's front office stands at a crossroads.

They have several options available, and several options not available to them. Let's look at each in kind...

TO BE CONTINUED...