The Oakland Athletics are close to tying up general manager Billy Beane and team president Michael Crowley through 2019, as Susan Slusser writes. But these contracts are probably somewhat like those $100 million deals that NFL quarterbacks get: Nobody is sure, at the moment they are signed, whether the terms of the deal will actually be executed.

Oakland owner Lew Wolff has stated flatly that if Beane decides to pursue a job elsewhere, he's free to go. Beane could've gone after the Chicago Cubs job, and the Baltimore Orioles GM job was probably something he could've landed if he had gone all-out to get it.

There will be more opportunities to come. The incoming Los Angeles Dodgers ownership will decide whether to keep Ned Colletti, who has ably navigated the team and kept it competitive despite steep cuts in the payroll. If a change is made, Beane could be a president of baseball operations for the Dodgers and bring in somebody to be his general manager, like the Tampa Bay Rays' Andrew Friedman, in the same way that Theo Epstein hired Jed Hoyer. The future of the New York Mets is uncertain, although it's hard to imagine Beane diving into the challenge of remaking a New York franchise, given the fact that he steered around the Cubs' opening.

But so long as the future of the Oakland Athletics is murky -- and we are swiftly coming up on the three-year anniversary since Major League Baseball announced the formation of a committee to study the team's ballpark and territorial issues -- nothing can be ruled out.

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