At a time when Major League Baseball can best be defined by $200 million payrolls, $100 tickets and a class division between baseball teams, it is refreshing to see what the Oakland Athletics have done this season.
No, I am not talking about them overcoming a 13-game deficit over the Texas Rangers in the AL West. No, I am not going to get into a debate about the socioeconomic structure of the league as a whole or the San Francisco Giants claim to territory rights in San Jose. No, I am not going to get into revenue or the lack of respect many have for Oakland owner Lew Wolf. Those mind-numbing issues are better left for a later time...Most notably the offseason.
Instead, let’s just celebrate a team that Santa Rosa Press Democrat blowhard Lowell Cohn recently called “The most irrelevant organization in professional sports.”
Just how irrelevant are they now, Mr. Cohn? Of course no one saw this coming. Skeptics of Billy Beane and this organization, including myself, discounted Oakland last Winter when they traded away Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill and Andrew Bailey for what seemed to be pennies on the dollar. Hell, Gonzalez might end up winning the NL Cy Young this season after a monster performance with the Washington Nationals.
It is a broken record. Oakland builds a strong farm system, grooms elite players and trades them away when they are about to explode onto the scene. We have seen this in the past with the likes of Tim Hudson, Dan Haran and Carlos Gonzalez. Why would we expect anything different? They are just not in the fiscal situation to be able to take on large sums of money on the payroll....But, I digress.
The return that Beane received for those three “elite” pitchers have been nothing short of amazing. Of course we are all able to utilize hindsight following a disastrous initial response to these trades, but let’s take a look.
Andrew Bailey and Ryan Sweeney to the Boston Red Sox for Josh Reddick and two prospects.
Bailey recorded 75 saves and earned two all-star appearances for Oakland in three seasons from 2009-to-2011. He was one of the most dominating closers in MLB during that span. Needless to say, there were many different teams looking to acquire his services.
Beane, looking for immediate outfield help, decided that Reddick would be the best option in terms of a return and boy has it paid off. Reddick recorded 32 homers and 66 extra-base hits in his first full Major League season. To put that into perspective, those 32 homers would have represented about 28 percent of the A’s entire 2011 output.
Meanwhile, Bailey struggled with injuries in Boston this season and recorded a 7.04 ERA in 19 appearances. In a trade that seemed to be lopsided in the Red Sox favor, it is pretty obvious that Beane got the best of this deal.
Gio Gonzalez to the Washington Nationals for Tommy Milone, Derek Norris, Brad Peacock and A.J. Cole.
This is a trade that worked out for both sides. Gonzalez tore apart the National League to the tune of 21 wins, a sub-three ERA and over 200 strikeouts. He is one of the front-runners for the Cy Young this season as well. When a player you acquire in a trade becomes the ace of a team with a league best rotation, you did damn good for yourself.
Meanwhile, Milone tied a team-high in wins for Oakland with 13 while leading the club in innings pitched. He is one of those crafty pitches in the mold of the great Greg Maddux. Derek Norris took over as a part-time starter in Oakland about mid-season and came away with some huge hits.
Though Peacock and Cole never saw action in the majors, both have top-of-the-rotation type of stuff. Cole finished with a 3.75 ERA and struck-out 133 in as many innings in two stops with the A’s organization.
Peacock finished with a lofty 6.01 ERA in the hitter-friendly PCL for Sacramento, but struck-out more than one batter per inning and won 12 games. Whenever you can get three possible starters and an everyday catcher for one pitcher, that is a damn good trade.
Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Jarrod Parker, Ryan Cook and Colin Cowgill.
This was definitely a lopsided trade in the A’s favor. They did trade a former All-Star pitcher for two unproven prospects and a solid utility outfielder, but in the end Oakland got the better end of the deal.
Cahill won 13 games and finished the season with a solid 3.78 ERA. Meanwhile, Parker matched his counterpart in wins while putting up a lower 3.49 ERA. The former top prospect of the Diamondbacks had 20 quality starts. Meanwhile, Cook made the All-Star team for Oakland before losing his closer job to Grant Balfour. Overall, Cook finished with a 2,09 ERA and a 0.94 WHIP. His performance against the Texas Rangers in the A’s division-clinching series this week was nothing short of amazing.
Do you see a theme here? Of course Oakland gave up some solid MLB players, but they replenished a weak farm system and provided more depth at the majors. This is something that Beane has been able to do throughout his tenure with Oakland.
Then you have the heart-warming stories..There were plenty of those.
Veteran minor-leaguer Travis Blackley had not pitched in a Major League game since a brief call-up with the Seattle Mariners in 2004 prior to showing up with the cross-bay rival San Francisco Giants in May. He did so after stints in independent leagues from coast-to-coast here in the United States as well as a stop in Melbourne, Australia, his motherland. He only pitched in four games for San Francisco before being given his unconditional release. Blackley recorded a 3.86 ERA, 1.18 WHIP in 24 appearances (15 starts) with Oakland this season.
Sean Doolittle, a former top hitting prospect in the A’s organization, made the switch to pitching just last year. In fact, he was in an Arizona Instructional League less than a calendar year ago. The former top-10 prospect, was called-up in June and has dominated ever since. He recorded 60 strikeouts in just 47 innings pitched, cementing his status as one of the best left-handed relievers in MLB.
Both Dan Strailey and A.J. Griffin were in Single-A ball this time last year and working at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Oregon, the home of Oakland’s lowest minor league affiliate. They ended up combining for nine wins and an ERA under 3.25. As it relates to Griffin, he is a likely starter candidate for Oakland’s rotation during the postseason.
In total, all five of the A’s starting pitchers ending the regular season were rookies that combined for a total of 14 career starts prior to the 2012 season. Those five pitchers combined for 41 wins and just 22 losses.
This wasn’t Oakland’s ideal scenario. They had Brett Anderson, Bartolo Colon and Brandon McCarthy, three damn good starting pitchers, slated to play an important role this season.
McCarthy dealt with some injuries and then was struck in the head by a line-drive in what ended up being a life-threatening injury back in early September. Colon was suspended for using PEDs and Anderson continued to be plagued by numerous injuries, the most recent being a strained oblique.
Consider this. The A’s starting infield against Texas in their division clinching win consisted of the following.
3B- Josh Donaldson (a converted catcher)
SS- Stephen Drew (waiver wire trade pickup)
2B- Cliff Pennington (former starting SS)
1B- Brandon Moss (former OF that played in Japan last season)
That is simply crazy if you ask me.
Overall, Oakland relied on a total of 14 rookies to make impacts this season to get them 94 wins and the AL West title.
At a time when MLB is mired in a fiscal issue between the haves and the have-nots, it is refreshing to see a group of youngsters come through and have this type of success. At a time when all we hear about on a never-ending cycle is PED’s, a group of wide-eyed rookies with no expectations took on some of the toughest teams in baseball.
Even MLB officials who set the schedule didn’t expect Oakland to contend in September and October. They set the A’s to play a total of 16 games against playoff teams in their final 19 outings of the regular season. One’ would expect a rookie-laden roster to fold under the pressure. Not this team. They played loose, looked like they were out on a Sandlot field and just didn’t seem to have a worry in the world. Meanwhile, other teams in the AL West with former MVP’s Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols folded under the pressure.
Does this mean that Oakland is going to win the World Series? No! Instead, it just brings us back that era in baseball that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents told us about growing up. A time when baseball was indeed the national pastime. A time when actually stepping onto the field,under the lights could actually be fun. A time when there weren’t any worries about the millions of dollars on the line with a swing of a bat, or billionaire owners who were cast to sign those checks.
No, it brought us back to “The Sandlot” or a movie like “The Natural”. Heck, maybe even some of us had visions of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson showing up on cornfield in Iowa. This is why we love this game. This is why we grew up understanding that baseball was so damn special.
I long for those days when I was a kid playing stickball on the street with other kids while our parent were having block parties. At the very least, this group of Oakland A’s players brought us back those memories, even if it was just for a couple days in October.
I for one appreciate that!