brewhavingaball

It started when A’s GM Billy Beane traded super-utility player Marco Scutaro to Toronto for pitchers Kristian Bell and Graham Godfrey last November.  Then in December, he got pitchers Brett Anderson, Dana Eveland and Greg Smith, outfielders Aaron Cunningham and Carlos Gonzalez and infielder Chris Carter allfor Dan Haren.  Thenin January they acquired outfielder Ryan Sweeney and pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Fautino De Los Santos for Nick Swisher.  Later that month, the A’s received pitchers Joey Devine for Jamie Richmond for Mark Kotsay.

In case you lost count, that is 13 players for 4.  Clearly, Beane could not have gotten much in the way of talent too, could he have?  He did.

Eveland is 4-4 (3.82 ERA) and 2nd on the team in innings pitched.  Smith is 3-4 (3.56 ERA) and 3rd on the team in innings pitched.  Devine is 3-0 with 3 holds out of the pen with a 1.23 ERA (not a misprint) in 18 appearances. 

Sweeney has hit .293 and has 22 RBI’s and 15 runs in 46 games.  Gonzalez has only played 7 games with the big club, and while he has hit under.200, all 5 of his hits have been doubles, driving in 5 runs.

 So he got talent too, eh.  No way he got youth.  Wrong.

All three of the pitchers are 24…and they are older than the hitters (Sweeney is 23, Gonzalez 22).

They are cheap too.  None of them are earning even $500,000.

Compare that to what he gave up:

Haren, 27, is 6-4 (3.40 ERA in the NL) and making over $4 million.  In fairness, he is excellent.

Scutaro, 32,  is hitting .267 with 22 RBI’s and 25 runs in 55 games and making over $1.5 million.  Nothing special.

Kotsay, 32, is hitting .295 with 21 runs batted in, playing in 47 games and making over $7 million.  He is currently on the DL with back problems.

Swisher, 27, is hitting .205 with 16 RBI’s in 60 games and making over $3.5 million.  He has been a huge disappointment to the ChiSox.

So if we just look at this trade in the short term, Beane got 5 players for 4, is getting almost as much use out of them (you could make an argument that 2 starters makes what he received better TODAY than what he gave up), and for about $13 million less.  And these trades weren’t made for today.

But really, it didn’t start with the moves in the off-season.  It started when Beane sent Jason Kendall to the Cubs for another catcher, Rob Bowen, last July.  Kendall, who is having a great season defensively, is hitting .245 with 18 RBI’s in 55 games.  Bowen is hitting .258 as the back-up.  Kendall makes over $4 million, Bowen just over $400,000.  The A’s starting catcher, Kurt Suzuki makes less than Bowen and is hitting .260.

Then Beane acquired infielder Jack Hannahan from Detroit.  Then he signed Emil Brown.  He brought Keith Foulke out of retirement.  All three have major roles on the team this year.

Beane also needs to be commended on his low risk, high reward pick-ups in the first 2 months of the season.  Rajai Davis, 27, was cast off across the Bay by the Giants.  He makes near the league minimum, plays great defense, and gives them an element of speed on the bases in late inning, close game situations.  Frank Thomas, 40, was let go by the A’s in the off-season, but re-signed after the Blue Jays signed him to a $12 million deal, and then had to release him.  Thomas gives legitimacy to the middle of the order of a team that is way too young.  Even if he is not vintage Big Hurt, his reputation changes the approach when facing the A’s, and at low cost. 

All of this, and he has created the 2nd youngest roster, and the 3rd lowest team salary.  Oh yeah, they are only 4.5 games behind the Angels and ahead of most of the pre-season favorites for the wildcard.

There will be no miracles for Beane and his A’s this year.  They will fade in August. 

Beane and the A’s will have no need for a miracle in not so long though. 

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