Elephant Rumblings: A’s conduct poll asking Nevada residents about potential move

MLB news roundup

Welcome to Thursday, Athletics Nation!

Yesterday the results of a ‘poll’ were released to the public. The poll asked 700 Clark County (where Las Vegas is located) whether or not they support the A’s moving there. The results were about as expected: 61% of respondents expressed support for acquiring the team for their city while only 16% opposed the idea (14% were undecided).

There are a couple big caveats to that poll however: the poll was conducted before the announced change of stadium sight to the Tropicana Hotel. Would that change the poll drastically? Probably not.

The thing that honestly might have made a dent in support for the move is the omission of the use of taxpayer funds. That is a huge piece of information to leave out of something like this.

For example, The Nevada Independent ran their own poll similar to this one, but explicitly told respondents about the required use of taxpayers’ money. The results were much less shiny for John Fisher and co. as the public was much more split on the project after learning of that little tidbit.

The bottom line results aren’t encouraging for those of us who want the A’s to stay in Oakland but when you read between the lines it’s kind of clear that this was always going to be the result of the poll. Just ask Casey Pratt:

Don’t put too much stock into this right now. It’s likely a piece of information that the A’s lobbyists are going to use to try and sway Nevada’s lawmakers to get on board with forking over public funds. Fingers crossed they stand their ground and refuse to pay for anything.

A’s Coverage:

• Gallegos: Luis Medina making it known that he belongs
• Randhawa: Have the A’s found the next Big Mac?
• Kawahara: Medina strengthens hold on starting rotation job
• Willis: A’s come up short in 5-3 loss to DIamondbacks

MLB News & Interest:

• Franco: Dodgers’ Dustin May to miss 4-6 weeks
• Hoch: Yanks’ Doming Germán suspended 10 games
• Perry: Padres’ Manny Machado breaks hand, day-to-day
• McDonald: Walker Buehler targeting September return
• ESPN: D-Backs’ Gallen kills bird with throw during warm ups
• Rogers: MLB memo warns hitters not to skirt timer rules
• Franco: Twins place Nick Gordon on IL with broken shin
• Denton: Nolan Arenado records 1,000th career RBI
• Franco: Reds’ Nick Lodolo has stress reaction in leg
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter:

Adding to the bullpen depth:

Some stats on the new guy:

Brownie could be a big boost to this team when he returns:

He’ll be up any day at this rate…