Interview with Billy Beane

I wish I had the access to the A's front office like Blez does, but since I don't I'll simply have to enjoy the great interviews he does with Billy Beane and others. In this latest interview, Blez and Beane discuss the A's off-season moves.

Beane more or less skirts around the question of Ken Macha's hiring, despite pushing by Blez. The most interesting comments by Beane were on the hiring of new hitting coach Ty Van Burkleo:

We kept hearing his (Van Burkleo's) name come up from people who didn't know each other. As we were putting together a list of potential hitting instructors, we put his name on the list because we'd heard his name in several different places who all rave about this guy. So I knew the first indication that we'd hit on something when I called Assistant GM Ken Forsch and I said, "Ken, I'd like to ask for permission to speak to Ty Van Burkleo for our major league hitting job." He just groaned like I was afraid you were going to say that. To me that was a validation of what their own organization thought about him and the last time that someone had that reaction when I called to ask about another person is when John Hart had that reaction when I called about Paul DePodesta. His reaction and John's and the fact that Paul ended up being as great as he was, I figured we hit on the right guy.