Linking A's stadium with ability to sign players is flawed

There is nothing particularly new about Billy Beanes interest in the Athletics stadium issue. Hes been telling this one for awhile now, since he has started publicly linking the illusory San Jose stadium to his ability to signing players.Theres also nothing particularly useful about it. Baseball budgets are set by owners, not general managers, so Beanes claim that he cannot make bolder forays into the market has always been true. The owners determine what goes out based on what comes in, and that has always been the case.The intriguing thing is the claim that the As lost money last year, which one can only assume does not include the revenue sharing check the As annually receive from Major League Baseball. And assuming that, we can assume that once again, John Fisher and Lew Wolff didnt actually lose real money.So lets remove that as the reason for the As new P.R. push for stadium action, and that they are becoming more strident in their impatience for a report from the largely mythical blue ribbon panel studying the San Jose market. Why this fiction continues is a marvel of modern mythmaking, as the issue isnt about San Jose as a market.The issues are in fact these: Do the As have the money to do this? Wolff says yes, but as there is no independent way to know, there is no reason to believe or disbelieve him. There is no shovel in the ground, and that is sufficient information. Do the Giants have a way to prevent the As from moving? No. They can lose territorial rights with a simple owners vote, and they cannot sue Major League Baseball if the vote goes against them. So the Giants have no leverage whatsoever. None. At all. Does baseball want to screw the Giants? Sort of, yes. What Bud Selig is actually trying to do is what he does bestback-channel everything so he can find a dollar amount that the As would be willing to grease the Giants with to buy their acquiescence and silence. The As are standing with their original offer of nothing, and the Giants are insisting that no amount of money actually exists because their long-term plan has always been for the As to be nowhere near them.And no blue-ribbon panel can decide any of those issues.This is what it always has beenan exercise in politics and arm-twisting, with Selig trying to find the middle ground that makes everyone a little bit unhappy but not so unhappy that theyll start bitching out loud.Bud likes peace and quiet that way.This is why all the screeching about territorial rights has always been nonsense, and why the blue ribbon committee has been a joke, and why every assumption based on either of those two things is erroneous and even silly on its face.Whats actually important to know is this:MLB can live with the status quo, right up until the day that Fisher and Wolff decide to sell, or simply get out. There are those who believe the Dodger settlement issues are tied to the As because Wolff and perhaps even Beane are casting covetous eyes southward, though that seems something of a stretch at this point.If the Dodgers and As are not linked that way, then the urgency to solve the issue isnt baseballs but Fishers and Wolffs. And in baseball like every other sport, there are owners with throw-weight within the organization and owners without throw-weight. They are among the withouts, and so, frankly, are the Giants group. Theyre just guys fighting over a piece of property, and neither side has the leverage to bully the other one aside.And Billy Beanes role? Hes largely involved at ownerships behest now to put a public face on this otherwise faceless issue, as in, We wanted to keep Gio Gonzalez but Buds been mean to us.Yeah, thatll work. One, Bud barely cares about Gio Gonzalez, and two, this isnt about baseball. This is about a haggle over hush money traveling westbound on the Bay Bridge, pure and simple, and the political issues involved in either making that happen or ignoring it altogether.And you wont be seeing any press conferences about that.