With a cat recovering from an ailment by my side, here are the A's links for the day.

Jack Blanchat in the Stanford Daily asks whether Billy Beane is a genius or a madman. Apparently Mr. Blanchat has never been on the internet before because his "genius" theory is that Beane is intentionally tanking the A's so that MLB will let them move to San Jose. The ability of someone in February to write this is mind-boggling for at least two reasons. First, it's been said. Like, repeatedly. Over and over and over again. It's been said resignedly, it's been said happily, it's been said neutrally, it's been said angrily. But it's been said. Second, dude. They signed Cespedes. They want Manny. They signed Coco Crisp. They signed Bartolo Colon. None of these guys are necessary -- each fills a position that the A's already had a warm body for. The point of each move was to upgrade from where the team was on the previous day. How is that ever going to work as a tank maneuver?

I wouldn't be so riled up if I saw this on some random Bleacher Report blog or what have you, but you're repping one of the most well-regarded universities in the entire country, Jack. Step your game up!

Joe Lemire has a Cespedes piece at Sports Illustrated. There are a few snippets from an interview with a Cuban-baseball historian -- that's the main thing in Lemire's piece that I haven't seen elsewhere.

I'm only posting this Toronto Sun bit about Coco Crisp because it claims that he wants to play "centre," which, as we all know, isn't a thing. Silly Canadians. I'm surprised they didn't call him Coucou Crisp while they were at it.

Amanda Rykoff has an introduction to some moderately advanced stats on ESPNw (ESPNW? I don't know how to style it). I could quibble ("was assigned a different weight" makes it sound like linear weights are arbitrary rather than empirically derived; UZR is in there), but whatever, advanced stats on a main ESPN page are probably a Good Thing. (I'm posting it here because Moneyball is in the title of Rykoff's piece.)

Episode 10 of Tarp Talk is here.

David Wishinsky tries to diagnose Kila Ka'aihue's major-league struggles from his PITCHf/x strike zone data. No answer is apparent. I wonder if there's something in pitch types? Has he hit the bender, that bane of minor-league sluggers since Old Hoss's day?

In the "me elsewhere" category, I was on the Over the Monster podcast with Matt Kory and I have an A's-relevant (sorta) bit at The Platoon Advantage about Ray Ratto's "Yoenis Cespedes is the new Jeremy Lin" column.