Trades A Plenty Paying Off for Athletics

by
June 9, 2008

The Oakland Athletics organization has received a lot of ink over its drafting philosophies, but Billy Beane’s trades tend to get overlooked. The general manager brought a number of highly-touted (and not-so-touted) prospects into the struggling minor league system this past off-season. As such, now is the perfect time to spend the week taking a look at how those transactions have worked out for the Athletics and the club’s trading partners.

Along with a couple larger trades, the Athletics made two smaller trades: one with Toronto and one with Atlanta. On Nov. 18, the organization traded super-sub Marco Scutaro to the Jays for right-handed pitchers Kristian Bell and Graham Godfrey. On Jan. 14, the Athletics sent oft-injured outfielder Mark Kotsay to the Braves for pitchers Joey Devine and Jamie Richmond.

In an effort to save some cash with the arbitration-eligible Scutaro, Beane sent arguably the team’s most valuable position player to the Jays. Yes, Scutaro, who was originally acquired by the A’s on waivers from the New York Mets, filled in admirably for the club’s injured infielders:

2004 filled in for injured second baseman Mark Ellis (123 games at 2B)
2005 filled in for injured shortstop Bobby Crosby (81 games at SS)
2006 filled in for injured shortstop Bobby Crosby (69 games at SS)
2007 filled in for injured shortstop Bobby Crosby (43 games at SS)
2007 filled in for injured third baseman Eric Chavez (36 games at 3B)

Scutaro has already proven his worth in Toronto this season. He has filled in for injured shortstop David Eckstein (21 games) and injured third baseman Scott Rolen (20 games). Scutaro has posted his typical offensive numbers with a line of .268/.356/.346 with two homers and five stolen bases in 179 at-bats.

Bell, 24, throws in the low- to mid-90s in the bullpen but has below-average command. After a good spring, he was assigned to Double-A despite posting a 5.33 ERA in the Florida State League for Toronto in 2007. Bell struggled for the A’s in Double-A and posted a 9.45 ERA in 11 games. He was then demoted to High-A ball in mid-May, made one appearance and was placed on the disabled list.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Godfrey, 23, was a starter in the Jays system but he has spent time as a swing man in the A’s system due to his lack of a quality third pitch to accompany his low-90s fastball and slider. So far this season in High-A ball, Godfrey has posted a 4.92 ERA in 56.2 innings. He has allowed 57 hits and 16 walks. Godfrey has struck out 45 batters but allowed six homers.

It was no secret that the A’s wanted to get rid of center fielder Kotsay and the organization found a taker in Atlanta. He rewarded his new club with a solid performance so far this season. Kotsay currently has a line of .294/.344/.435 with four homers and two stolen bases in 170 at-bats.

The Athletics, on the other hand, received a couple of interesting arms in return for Kotsay. Devine, a former first round pick, struggled with his command as a member of the Atlanta Braves and walked 22 batters in 20.1 innings over parts of three seasons. So far with the A’s, though, Devine has walked only seven batters in 22 innings. He has also struck out 28 hitters and allowed 16 hits. He has yet to give up a homer and could eventually move into the closer’s role if (and when) the Athletics trade current fireman Huston Street.

Richmond, 22, started his A’s career by struggling after being send back to A-ball to begin the year despite modest success at that level last season for Atlanta. He currently has a 3.79 ERA in 69 innings and has allowed 64 hits and just eight walks. The right-hander has struck out 48 batters and has induced two ground balls for every fly ball out.





 

Marc Hulet has been writing at FanGraphs since 2008. His work focuses on prospects and fantasy. Follow him on Twitter @marchulet.

Comments are closed.