Billy Beane, what art thou thinking?

I sincerely believed that Jason Giambi was a longshot. I mean, it would be too much to hope for the guy to come back to Oakland, especially considering we have about forty billion 1B/DH/DL types. I really wanted him, too -- for purely sentimental reasons which don't make sense because I've been an A's fan since the 2006 season and Giambi's been a Yankee for quite awhile -- and that's always a deathmark for any deal. If Skye wants the dude, Beane and Wade either don't pursue or trade the guy in question. (Wade because he's an idiot, Beane because he loves to make people hurt.)

So when I read the scroller on ESPN lounging on my bed in Nokomis, Florida, I was truly stunned.

Turns out that Mark Mulder, my favorite headcase/perpetually injured lefty (Barry Zito's my second favorite cause the guy can't even come up with a physical injury to explain his awful pitching), has been working out in good ol' Arizona and has his arm angle almost to where it was in the height of his career. What was that, 2003?

Could Billy sign Mulder to one of those low-risk incentive-laden contracts he likes so much? Are we looking at another Frank Thomas '06 in Giambi and a .... well, Billy hasn't picked up a pitcher he used and abused as much as Mulder, but there's a first for everything, right?

At the very least, the guy's got a love for drama, it seems, and is putting together a team that'll get seats filled. What better way to do that than to re-sign a true fan favorite? Mulder didn't get to walk like Giambi and Zito and Tejada ... he got traded before he could "betray" the fanbase. Oakland fans still love the guy, even if they are more wary of players who are magnetically attracted to the disabled list.

But of course, I very much like watching Mark Mulder pitch for a dozen or so reasons (one of those being his ass, but that's neither here nor there), and since Billy's given me a free agent signing AND a blockbuster trade this off-season, I should probably just prepare myself for him to trade, like, Suzuki and Sweeney or some shit like that.