The writer whined that Billy Beane traded Scott Kazmir because the season was going nowhere and blamed that season going nowhere on Beane trading "five All-Stars." One of those All-Stars, Yoenis Cespedes, was traded last year for a better player in an attempt to push deep into the playoffs with a team that should have been able to withstand the loss of offense in trade for an ace pitcher.

All-Stars 2 and 3, Brandon Moss and Derek Norris, have 92 and 89 OPS+'s this season for their new teams. Ike Davis is outhitting the former and the Josh Phegley–Stephen Vogt combination is absolutely crushing the latter. (Phegley of course benefits from platooning, but his line also destroys Norris' even when limited to vs. LHP.)

All-Star 4, Jeff Samardzija, has a 95 ERA+. He's been outpitched by, among others, Jesse Chavez, Kendall Graveman, and Jesse Hahn.

All-Star 5 is the only All-Star Ostler mentioned by name, Josh Donaldson. He's having another marvelous year, another MVP-candidate year, and if you think Donaldson's marvelous MVP year would, especially when paired with the aforementioned weak performances of the other All-Stars, would turn the A's from 11 games under .500 to 11 games over, leaving them tied with the Astros for first in the West, you should probably stick to writing about something other than baseball.

And so it goes, 'round and 'round, the San Francisco Chronicle's great Wheel of Emptyheadedness.