[The Elephant Walk is my somewhat regular column on Oakland Athletics baseball. Results, performances, transactions or other thoughts I might have about the A’s]

Can you tell I can’t wait until baseball season?

This time around I’d like to start where I left off. Since last time, the A’s have signed Emil Brown, traded away Mark Kotsay, and picked up a huge bill for Chad Gaudin in 2008.

Emil Brown

To me, this was a good deal. For $1.45 million, the A’s get a stopgap for right field until Carlos Gonzalez is ready to take over… which should be 2009 at the latest. This one is so simple, there’s not much to say: when you are rebuilding your team with phenoms, it’s important not to rush them to the bigs. Good stuff Billy.

Mark Kotsay to Atlanta for Joey Devine and Jamie Richmond

I’m really not sure how I stand on this one yet.  When I first saw the trade, I was a little appalled that we agreed to pick up $5 million of Kotsay’s 2008 salary.  See, to me, dumping Kotsay was about the money.  But when I started to see how livid Braves fans were that they gave up Joey Devine.  The fans online seemed to think that Devine was a top closer for sure… as fans sometimes do seem to overvalue prospects in general, especially their own prospects.  Baseball America seems to think he has setup man material.  Either way, he had the best slider in the Atlanta organization and a pretty nasty sinker.  Basically, if Devine right now is a right-handed specialist.

As for Richmond, he doesn’t appear to be anything more than a minor league arm.  He has good control, but nothing nasty that would indicate major league success.

So what this trade comes down to is: will Joey Devine ultimately be worth his $5 million price tag?  Considering the quickly rising cost of pitching in baseball, chances are that he just might be worth the cost.

Speaking of Overpriced Pitching…

The A’s Chad Gaudin settled in arbitration to a one-year, $1.775 million contract.  Now, I am an A’s fan, so I should probably be talking about Gaudin’s minor league stats.  I should probably see how much cheaper he is than any other player on the market.

But what I can’t get over, as a fan, is why I have to pay $50 for a decent seat and a guy whose 2007 WHIP/ERA line of 1.53/4.42 and a career line of 1.57/4.46 gets nearly $2 million to basically be a AAAA player while people work their butts off 40-60 hours a week for less than 5% of what he makes.  A-Rod’s salary?  I get that.  He’s unbelievably good.  Gaudin?  Even as an A’s fan I’ve got to question if these guys are really worth that kind of dough.

How ’bout some cheaper seats instead?