Billy Beane's Non-Genius Moves

At the request of our host, I'm converting this comment into a diary.

• Don't you think the A's could use a slick-fielding 1Bman hitting .274/.392/.597? Yet the A's gave up Carlos Pena and Jeremy "56 wins by age 24" Bonderman for ... 200 innings of league-average Ted Lilly. Which Beane then flipped for ... 900 ABs of league sub-prime Bobby Kielty. Who Beane then ... released. Genius!
• Ramon Hernandez, as a 27-year-old catcher, hits .273/.331/.458 with 21 home runs in 2003. So Beane packages him with outfielder Terrence Long for Mark Kotsay. Kotsay -- with well-publicized back problems -- has a terrific 2004, hitting .314/.370/.459 and playing a great CF. But then the back problems kick in, and his OPS+ marches down from 114 to 95 to 89 to this year's 55, as he misses more and more games each year. Hernandez, meanwhile, posts OPS+s from the catcher's position of 116, 109 and 107 from 2004-06. What does Beane do to replace that production? Why, he makes a smart trade -- minor league reliever Bret Price for the 27-year-old Michael Barrett. Only Beane then flips Barrett for 31-year-old Damian Miller. Barrett goes on to post OPS+s the next three years of 105, 113 and 121. Meaning two of the best-hitting catchers in baseball from 2004-06 were recent Beane properties in their prime seasons. Miller? He posts an average-for-him season w/ a 92 OPS+, then files for free agency. Now catcher-less, Beane trades SP Mark Redman and RP Arthur Rhodes for 31-year-old Jason Kendall, who had led the majors in games caught for most of the previous decade, and had slugged higher than .390 just once in the previous four years. Kendall -- who also has a massive contract -- proceeds to post OPS+s of 77, 89 and a half-season of 46, before being traded for 26-year-old .220-hitting catcher Rob Bowen, and 23-year-old minor league reliever Jerry Blevins. Oh -- and you rember the draft-pick star of "Moneyball"? The fat catcher who didn't look good in Levi's? He's now 27 years old and at AAA. The Angels have two major league catchers two years younger than him. Genius!
• You think the A's could use a sweet-swinging 25-year-old outfielder with a career .298/.360/.464 line? Or maybe even a guy who for the last month and change has hit .336/.434/.639 in freakin' Petco? Nahhhh! Instead of either, Beane is left with a 26-year-old rookie reliever named Andrew Brown, and the ghost of whatever happened to Antonio Perez. That's the result of trading a good prospect for injury-prone, mercurial outfielder Milton Bradley, and then watching Bradley get injured, and then DFA'ing him before he gets mercurial, while insisting (absurdly) that he couldn't get playing time in Oakland's crackerjack outfield. Genius!
• Choosing, among all the All-Stars that team was spitting out (Tejada, Giambi, Damon, Zito, Mulder, Hudson), to lock up long-term ... Eric Chavez! While overpaying for bad production from the likes of Jermaine Dye.
• Then there were the large contracts to proven mediocrites -- Esteban Loiaza! Mark Redman! Terrence Long! I'll always treasure the reverse mind-bend required by Beaniacs to prove that these contracts were "what the market was giving up" that year or whatever.
• Standard disclaimer: I-think-Beane-is-great-and-I-loved-Moneyball-yadda-yadda. But if he deserves credit for success, he deserves a kick for failure, and I just wonder how many times over the next six months I'm gonna read stuff like this:

A's general manager Billy Beane is reportedly a student of Silicon Valley business practices, and his player moves this season seem to reflect Kelley's aphorism. The A's come into the season with hopes of defending their AL West title. It's not too overly simplistic to say that  Rich Harden got injured and the A's could not realistically contend without him.

As the A's have fallen out of contention over the past couple months, they have quickly rid themselves of veteran players whenever possible to free up cash and clear the path for promising youngsters. Jason Kendall? Move over for Kurt Suzuki. Esteban Loaiza? Meet Dallas Braden and Dan Meyer. Long time A's Bobby Kielty and Joe Kennedy have also been shown the door. So as the A's limp to a hopefully .500-ish finish, they're at least quietly laying the groundwork for next season's success.

They still don't necessarily have enough to challenge the Angels next season, especially if Harden still isn't healthy, but at least they'll know what they have. The A's like to acquire a lot of players and see who sticks, and part of that is giving those players playing time. Sure, you might end up with some Loaizas and Kendalls, but at least you also get the occasional Jack Cust or Chad Gaudin. In contrast with the seemingly comatose Giants front office across the Bay, and that doesn't sound half bad.