Why Is Billy Beane Buying Relief Pitchers?
Over the last decade or so, the A’s have traditionally been out in front of the undervalued asset markets. They were buying on base percentage before it was cool, then transitioned to putting good defensive teams on the field once the market’s focus shifted too heavily to hitting. Oakland was also one of the first teams to do the Rent-a-Type-A strategy, making moves for guys with one year left on their contract in order to collect the draft picks when they walked. Given the moves that Billy Beane and company have made over the last few days, should we assume that relief pitchers are the new market inefficiency?
Last week, the A’s gave Grant Balfour a two year, $8 million contract, and because he was a Type A free agent, the A’s surrendered their second round pick in order to sign him. Yesterday, they agreed to terms with Brian Fuentes on a two year, $10 million contract, and the combination of moves gives the team a pair of new setup men to bridge the gap to closer Andrew Bailey. Given that they have also signed Rich Harden and Brandon McCarthy earlier this winter, stating that one or both could end up in the bullpen if they don’t make rotation, and the A’s have brought in a hefty dose of relief pitching this winter despite the fact that they already had a strong, deep bullpen.
Returning to the team from last year’s group are Bailey, Brad Ziegler, Craig Breslow, Michael Wuertz, and Jerry Blevins. Those five already offered the A’s a strong bullpen, including a quality closer and two good setup men from each side. In fact, it’s hard to distinguish between Breslow and Fuentes, as they essentially have the same skillset – extreme flyball lefties with mediocre command who miss enough bats to strand a bunch of runners. Fuentes duplicates what they already had, and Balfour is pretty similar to Wuertz as well.
So, what’s the deal? Why are the A’s spending so much time and energy on their bullpen?
It looks like they didn’t have much of a choice. They began the winter by winning the bidding for Hisashi Iwakuma, but couldn’t agree to terms with the Japanese hurler. They then made another run at Adrian Beltre, but once again he showed little interest in joining the A’s. They shifted their attention to Lance Berkman, but found out that he really didn’t want to DH, and lost out on bringing him to the Bay Area as well. All three of these players would have required a fairly significant financial commitment, but the A’s had money to spend and a desire to improve their roster.
Being spurned by their top choices simply forced the A’s to move on to Plan D, so they turned their attention to Josh Willingham and Hideki Matsui, cheaper alternatives who they could actually acquire. Having gone cheaper on the position player side of things left the A’s with money to burn as the winter began to wind down, and the only area with much talent remaining on the market was relief pitching.
To me, this looks much more like the A’s are determined to spend their allowance to upgrade the roster this winter than a premeditated shift towards relievers as an undervalued asset. If the A’s had their druthers, they’d have spent their cash on Iwakuma and Beltre and likely headed into 2011 with a similar bullpen to what they had last year. They couldn’t get Plan A to come together, and even Plans B and C fell apart, so they moved down the list and eventually decided to spend money on bullpen depth. I’d guess this isn’t how Billy drew up the off-season when it started. Stocking up on middle relievers is likely to be one roster management trend that doesn’t catch on everywhere else, I’d imagine.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Speculation, but maybe Beane is simply gathering tradeable assets? Relievers are (anecdotally) in pretty high demand around the trade deadline.
I think you’re on to something. If the A’s are competitive, they can keep the relievers. If not, they can be traded to help them compete later on. Sure, you could do this with non-relievers, but it tends to be a lot more expensive. And when you trade away a reliever, it generally turns out that you didn’t lose much, so you’re often in better position to take a chance on prospects.
Ditto. Plus extreme flyball pitchers are going to look even better in an A’s uniform, which would inflate their value in a trade situation or free agency in a couple of year’s time.
I don’t know if the strategy of buying extreme flyball pitchers and then flipping them will work for the A’s. I thought the sabermetrics revolution made teams smart enough not to fall for that trick; teams would at least look for strong peripherals such as strikeout rate, walk rate, and K to BB ratio. Of course, looking at HR/9 wouldn’t tell us much since the A’s play in a park that depresses home runs.
Some teams still don’t follow Sabermetrics much. I can’t recall the name of the team, but I heard a year ago there was at least one team who laughed at them.
Aki, not all teams are in on the movement yet, and when you’re desperate to add to your bullpen for a stretch run you’ll look for any good relievers you can get. I mean, the Yankees signed a FB pitcher in Soriano for big money.
@ John: I doubt the Twins “laughed” at sabermetrics, but they do appear to be a team that doesn’t embrace them. Good example was when Parker Hageman of Over the Baggy did an interview with Twins assistant GM Rob Antony, and Antony either didn’t know some of the stats or admitted that the Twins don’t focus on them very much. http://overthebaggy.blogspot.com/2010/03/twins-and-statistical-analysis.html
The interview seems to paint Antony and the Twins organization in a poor light, but I know that wasn’t Parker’s intent.
The market has been somewhat defined by the Reynolds trade, and the Maybin trade.
Bryz,
The Twins have been a pretty successful team in a small market, no?
Bryz, that interview looks incredibly reasonable. Basically he says that the Twins value their scouts opinions over pure statistical analysis, which should not be surprising since scouts are specifically hired to evaluate players based upon metrics that teams develop.
This holds water for Fuentes but they surrendered a pick to get Balfour. Sure the return for Balfour could be higher than the worth of their second round pick but it would be a marginal upgrade and you’re not quite getting two in the bush.
But it doesn’t have to be Balfour or Fuentes who go. There’s 5 other talented relievers in that unit capable of providing high leverage relief. The A’s may seek to maximize their return by dealing Bailey or Wuertz at the deadline for example.
It would seem that these moves put the A’s in a good position to mimic the Padres.
Balfour is signed for two years at a reasonable contract.He provides immediate help to this and next year’s teams.It would seem counter productive to try and find ways to get other DP”s or prospects.Why not let him be the bounty, here and now.He and Fuentes will provide the quality and depth to the A’s,who should make a run at it.
Hey, I would rather see these funds end up on the payroll then the owners pockets.I approve of the Balfour/Fuentes signings.You can never have enough pitching. A cliche worth repeating.How many times has your team gone into extra innings and you wished you had a deeper pen. It also allows for the young starters to give it all for five or six innings and turn it over to the pen. Beltre would have been a waste of money for the A’s as the park would have cut into his numbers.Also, he has never proven to be able to perform well beyond one year.Matsui brings a winners pedigree from the NY. Still, a scary hitter. Should be able to match last year’s numbers.Great moves, making the A’s legit contenders this year.
I suppose on some occasions, it might be worth taking the loss instead of paying millions on good relief pitchers to give your team a fighting chance in extra-inning games. If both teams exhausted any good relief pitchers, and all they have are middle relievers, I suppose the outcome of the game is just matter of luck.
If one has to use three relief pitchers to win an extra-inning game whose salary is $5 million, then it would cost $15 million to win that game. I don’t see the cost-effectiveness of have too much relief-pitching that can give a team a quality performance for many innings. Three quality innings a game a satisfactory; in the case of the 2010 Padres Gregerson, Adams, and Bell were able to carry the Padres into a playoff run despite the team’s offensive deficiencies. Often, inadequate relief pitching results in extra-innings since mediocre relief pitchers are more likely to relinquish leads and blow saves.
yes but the thing is, he also made a comment about letting the bullpen come in earlier. by having so many quality relievers, they can afford to pull a starter earlier, before he makes a mistake or when he just starts to get tired because they dont need to worry about the 6th or 7th inning guy blowing it. also, there have been a couple of articles on fangraphs about how the As starters are all due for some pretty big regression to the mean after incredible 2010 performances. if the As are as statistical as we think, then they can probably see that coming too and are preparing a solution if the starters falter. i think its just prudent planning by a team with money to kill that knows that their rotation got massively lucky last year and arent simply taking that for granted.
When your team goes into extra innings and you find yourself wishing for a deeper pen, you’re usually wishing for a 26th roster spot. When you’re paying for “quality” in relievers you’re primarily paying for stuff, not endurance. It’s great if your high-priced pen can shut down the other team, but if the other guy’s relievers are doing the same to your hitters, then you end up in the same place, expensive quality or not, and it often comes down to which team has the worst 25th man (7th reliever, or whatever).
We’re all speaking in rather sweeping generalities here, so I’ll say the obvious: Regarding the 26th roster spot; that isn’t necessarily so.
Many time managers work themselves into these kinds of situations because they had to burn through relievers in the mid-late innings, because their relievers are just not good, or their good ones are unavailable, forcing them to play the endless L/R switch game.
So, while you aren’t necessarily paying for an 2 IP reliever, you may be paying for reliever you’re happy to leave in against a decent opposite handed hitter in a high leverage situation.
For example:
Balfour vs RHB: 3.58 FIP 3.89 xFIP
Balfour vs LHB: 3.07 FIP 3.82 xFIP
Now, not all Oakland relievers show such an even split, and certainly not Fuentes even. But many of them are good enough that even after their platoon disadvantage you’re not going to take them out as often as lesser relievers.
More often than not, if a manager had a ” 26th” roster spot, wouldn’t they be benefited from carrying an extra bat?
ref: see “12 man” pitching staff on 25 man roster
I think he’s planning to unload them for prospects at the deadline. With lots of relievers he can get favorable matchups for each one and they should have good stats for trade bait.
Can you really get an interesting set of prospects for a bunch of setup men? Yes, teams will trade for it, but you’d be lucky to get a B- prospect for them. A group of C grade guys is more like it. It doesn’t seem like it’s enough to motivate this much buying.
Isn’t this one of Beane’s fortes, finding players that are undervalued?
Matt Capps landed Wilson Ramos. Certainly not a franchise player, but a relief ace should net either an intriguing youngster or a decent role player like Ramos.
I imagine Beane will flip these guys for even more prospects at the deadline if the As aren’t in it.
These two are cheap, short-term contracts with little downside risk.
It’s an easy way to spend extra cash, knowing you can convert it later to prospects.
Both those relievers are quality guys, and Beane’s probably drooling considering what the Pirates got in exchange for a similar arm from the Dodgers last year.
Billy watched from across the bay at what the Giants did with a pitching staff that went 12 deep.
I don’t know the value of closers or relief pitching, but the Padres ’10 season seems to be a testament of the importance of relief pitching. Essentially, truncating a game two or three innings, especially when you have a narrow lead, is good.
’10 Padres a nice blueprint for ’11 A’s. Solid young pitching, strong pen and limited offensive potential.
I think the upturn in salary for relief pitching is evidence that the advantages of having a deep talented pen are many.A Balfour,who can post a 2.29 ERA in the AL East is a good pitcher who can get hitters out.Period. That why all the GM grousing. Many have not gotten this concept yet.
Usually, you flip a reliever who is on a one year contract, so the buying team has the benefit of a Type A free agent at year end. 2 year deals, especially for these two, doesn’t make sense.
Maybe Billy Beane just isn’t that great of a GM anymore… He hasn’t done dick since 2006 and he’s in the easiest division in MLB.
Or we could just keep searching for reasons to believe that Billy is still a good GM. If any other GM had made the exact same moves over the past four years they would have been included with DM and Minoya in “The Competition.”
“If any other GM had made the exact same moves over the past four years….”
actually, Neal Huntington did pretty much the same thing last offseason, signing/stockpiling relief pitchers and then dealing almost all of them at the trade deadline. at least one of those trades (Dotel to the Dodgers) is a clear win for the Pirates right now.
+1!!!
Billy never was a good GM. Everybody just swallowed the Moneyball hype hook, line and sinker.
Because the A’s five/six year stretch of dominance happened how? By accident?
The A’s stretch of dominance came about because they had a long stretch of rebuilding with high draft picks due to horrible losing prior to their stretch of dominance.
Big black marks on his record now includes trading away Ethier, Hudson, and Car-Gon. Think they couldn’t use them now?
And I guess “dominance” is all relative, because he never even made it to the World Series.
And according to BP and THT research, he didn’t really focus on the keys to doing well in the playoffs: pitching and defense. He has moved towards defense in recent years, but BP’s research says that teams that do better in the playoffs have closers with high WRXL and a high strikeout pitching staff.
Beane’s behavior is that closers are easily replaced and his staffs have never really been strikeout staffs. In fact, BP’s research was covered in a chapter of their book titled, “Why does Billy Beane’s s**t don’t work in the playoffs?”, trying to answer that famous question. Though the book has been out for years, he still does not have that strikeout staff.
Ironically, the Giants basically have the components of what BP and THT said that a team needs – pitching and fielding – but BP wanted Sabean fired last season (I wonder if they have the guts to repeat that prognosis in 2011).
obsessive,
Those studies showed pretty weak correlations however. It was more like a “sure X helps, but not enough to practically matter” kind of thing. This is particularly true when you realize you still have to get to the playoffs in the first place.
I’ve had it with you clowns.
1) The A’s went to the playoffs four times in a row from 2000-2003.
2) EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SERIES went to 3-2.
3) Two of those series were against THE F&@%ING YANKEES.
4) One of them was against THE GOD D@*& RED SOX.
5) Their 5th playoff appearance last decade came in 2006, when they SWEPT THE TWINS in the ALDS.
6) They then got clobbered by a white hot Tigers team in the ALCS.
These simple, obvious explanations are routinely ignored in favor of saying “Beane’s sh!t doesn’t work in the playoffs!”
It boggles the mind how much information people choose to drown out in favor of their insipid, biased narratives.
I don’t think Beane’s gotten worse. He’s just been lapped. He was made out to be more than he was back when he was one of the only front office guys who realized there was a there, there when it came to sabremetrics. Now that 2/3 of the league have wised to it and started hiring wunderkinds to staff their analytical departments, Beane’s no longer the one eyed man in the land of the blind, and he hasn’t been able to game the system anymore.
I think he’s still a solid GM whose vets-for-prospects swaps the past few years haven’t really panned out. It’s just that with his limited resources he needs to be more than solid to stay ahead of the much wealthier division rivals.
Agreed.
He was made out to be more than he was.
He’s still a good GM.
Very few GMs have to operate with his margin of error.
He cannot afford to sign players that are “mistake erasers”, in other words, stars that can carry a team when all else fails.
Prospects are a gamble. When they pay off you like great. When they don’t, you don’t.
We also have to look at the “supply”. Now, that other teams are looking for “bargains”, there aren’t as many available to all teams. Not every team can sign a 7 WAR player, because there aren’t enough to go around. Same deal with “bargains”. Similar to how last yeard DDJ was the “solution” for every playoff team. That’s great, except that 7 teams need him, and there’s only one of him. Only 1 GM is going to “look smart” in that situation.
If you can continually “outsmart” everyone, then that is more of a reflection of those in the league than it is of a single GM. As an analogy, look at the New England Patriots.
Even without “Moneyball” teams would have eventually dissected what OAK was doing and applied some of the strategies to their own organization. Moneyball may have had just as large of negative effect as positive effect in terms of acceptance of those ideas. Winning is the thing that has lasting effects. If TB is able to keep up their pace, doing what they do, then there’ll be no denying the effectiveness of the strategy.
But, like Alderson said of the Mets … there’s no need to apply a Moneyball approach to a situation that does not require. That doesn’t mean they can or should be dumb with their money, only that you don;t need to operate in such a small margin of error type of environment.
I’ll clue you in, since you clearly don’t follow the A’s.
When he traded Haren, it was a rebuilding move.
We all KNEW it would take a few years before the A’s were a strong team again (while the prospects got acclimated to MLB).
Your complaint does not come close to reality.
That would make sense if he didn’t trade Car-Gon to get Matt Holliday.
Jump in your time machine and find a scouting or sabermetric report that predicted Gonzalez to be an elite player. Optimistic reports thought he would be an occasional all-star performer at best. There was a very real chance he’d be a fourth OF. Turning him into Holliday was a matter of controlling risk.
Beane’s biggest failure as a GM is trading for a legit superstar in Matt Holliday and then having people (unintelligent ones) still say he flips all his stars for prospects. Giants fans are still 3 rings behind Oakland, and cannot talk about running a team. Oakland was the best team in baseball in 2003, and was a top 8 one from 2000-2006.
PL,
The best team in baseball in 2003? It seems like I remember them losing to some team called the Twins who don’t know anything about sabermetrics.
They lost to the Twins in 2002… in five games… in a five game series… in which they outscored the Twins.
Pretending that the postseason says anything about how good a team is (certainly as compared to the regular season) is laughable.
CarGo is probably still closer to a 4th outfielder than the MVP candidate type season he had last year.
6.4% BB rate, 23% K rate, a BABIP of .384 and 20.4% HR/FB? I smell some serious regression.
Come on Paul, the Giants won their first WS since ’54, and first EVER in SF. They MUST be the best team in baseball, right? I mean, other than having the worst offense of any team with a .500+ record…
And Wally, yeah the walk rates are a little low, but his pre/post ASB splits show that he was walking much more in the second half of the season. Also, 23% K rate for a guy who hits 30+ HR?! That’s more than acceptable! If he had absolutely no HR value then yes, 23% is too high for a high contact high speed type player. And most people agree that a .280 80-25-80-20 line is his floor, If that’s my fourth outfielder then I must have gone back in time and brought back some HOF players from their prime years, because that line starts on almost every team, especially when he’s got plus defense to go with it.
PL,
The A’s were the best team in baseball in 2003?? By what metric? By any reasonable opponent-adjusted power rating system, the Braves and Yankees were better than the A’s in 2003.
Chris,
Please, don’t bother me with pre/post-ASB splits, they don’t mean anything.
Also, those 30+ HRs are happening in Coors, and he benefited from a 20+% HR/FB rate, which was a huge jump from last season, and last season was a huge jump as well. Yes, younger players get better, but like everyone else, younger players are subject to luck and regression as well.
Also, please reread my post. I didn’t say he was a 4th outfield, I said he’s closer to 4th outfielder (maybe a 1 WAR player) than an MVP (at least >7 WAR) candidate. Reading comprehension is your friend.
“…and Balfour is pretty similar to Wuertz as well.”
Isn’t Wuertz the guy that comes out of the pen and says “here is my slider, try to hit it” on every single pitch?
Yes Finch, and Balfour does the same with a four seamer, coupled with inconsistent velocity.
I don’t think any A’s plan/move is one-dimensional. There always seems to be a layered plan to it.
[1] Given the A’s situation and roster, they have to win the games they should win. In other words, when they have a lead late, they have to win those games. So, quality relievers are going to be very important. They aren’t a team that’s going to overcome late deficits due to being an inferior offensive team.
[2] They can always trade players if they fall out of contention. Teams that are contending, are almost always going to be looking for “little additions” they can add that solidify their playoff chances or advancement. The bullpen is almost always a need for every team, and one that can be had without giving up major prospects or money.
The A’s margin of error is small. They aren’t going to be a big offense team. So, they rely on pitching and defense. This is where it plays into them having to protect leads. That is certainly important for all teams, but moreso for teams that aren’t big run scorers and/or teams that don’t project for 90+ wins.
San Diego in 2010 is a good comparison, as others have mentioned.
Really,”they have to win the games they should win?” I would have never guessed that to be in contention a team needs to win the games they need to win. And to win games teams can not lose them late in the game. Billy Beane, you have proven your genius again!
As for point two, this sounds a lot like the argument made last year justifying the Sheets deal. Or the Matt Holliday trade, because Billy Beane always wins in trades, right? Actually how many examples of a team signing a free agent and then trading them for meaningful prospects?
*grin*
The comment was not intended to be a great revelation, but rather more of the “stating the obvious”.
It really is just an extension of “run prevention”.
I could have just said, they need their relievers to be a little better at preventing runs than their starters are.
They need to shorten the game to 7 innings or whatever other cliche one wants to use.
It’s, obviously, a good overall strategy for every team, but more important for a lower scoring team.
The being able to trade them is the lesser point. To me, the Sheets signing was big risk v. medium reward, and that did not work out.
I also wonder what % of a GM’s moves work out. My guess is the majority do not, but that you hope that some of the moves work out to such magnitude that overall, you are a big plus.
I simply stated that he was a good GM and that he seems to have a plan B for such things, even though not all moves work in his favor.
I don’t think the standard for any GM is perfection or domination. The only way that happens is if the rest of the league is dumb.
I’ve read through all the comments and ^this post is closest to my thoughts.
It has been posted that Balfour’ and Fuentes’ 2 year contracts won’t be trade-able at this trade deadline, which may be true. It allows other relievers to be traded. Assuming enough relievers remain healthy, Beane can trade from the bullpen. The bulk of the existing bullpen are still cost-controlled (McCarthy and Harden are one year deals, as is Wuertz who has CO for ’12). Bailey, Ziegler, Breslow, Blevins, Devine all have at least a couple of years of protection remaining and could be decent trade pieces.
This allows the A’s to simultaneous make the team better in the short-term and by buying assets (albeit, at slightly above market contracts), it creates depth. If their relievers are relatively healthy and productive, they’ll have a few trade pieces, need be.
As stated by Dave Cameron, this is plan HIJK for the A’s.
Sorry, my post was in response to circlechange11
I’m not sure I’d call $8 million and $10 million “cheap.” Cheap compared to Rafael Soriano, sure, but not cheap compared to the general universe of available relievers.
These guys are probably flippable for C/C+ level prospects, but not much more.
Reply fail. That was supposed to be a reply to Jeff in So. Indiana above.
If Dayton Moore made this signing, you would have verbally raped him Dave.
1. The A’s are trying to legitemately make the playoffs.
2. Compared to the 3 year deals being thrown around neither Balfour’s or Fuentes’ deals look that bad.
The AL West has been the toughest division in the AL in 9 of the past 11 years–despite what ESPN may be telling you.
um… no?
Um, yes.
The AL West has had the best record of any AL division in 9 of the past 11 years. Look it up.
you realize that the last… i want to 15 years, but it’s at least 13 years… the AL east has been won with no fewer than 95 games right? also, most years, the wildcard AL team comes from the east. so i’d say its a pretty good division. if memory serves, the 4th team in the division had an above .500 record, the 3rd place team won 89 games, and it was again won by 95+ wins. also the wildcard came from the east again.
i meant 95 wins* in the second line.
I wouldn’t look at wild cards for which divisions are harder or easier. I’d rather just look at the combined out-of-divison records for each division.
Things like 95+ win champs, WC, etc., can all be a product of playing the orioles 219 times each year.
For what it’s worth, here are the non AL divisional opponent records for those two divisions for the last half decade:
AL East 2010: 206-154 0.572
AL West 2010: 156-192 0.448
AL East 2009: 189-171 0.525
AL West 2009: 191-157 0.549
AL East 2008: 203-156 0.565
AL West 2008: 162-185 0.467
AL East 2007: 183-177 0.508
AL West 2007: 175-173 0.503
AL East 2006: 160-188 0.460
AL West 2006: 190-158 0.546
AL East 2005: 184-166 0.526
AL West 2005: 178-174 0.506
Four of six years have been in the East’s favor, although it’s probably safest to declare that one year a tie. As an aggregate, the East wins as well–0.526 versus .503.
Why would you exclude interleague? It’s not as if they play the same intraleague schedules, either.
Is there any scenario in which the A’s move Andrew Bailey? Theoretically, such an accomplished, cost controlled talent could command quite a bit in return. I’ve been combing my memory for a similar trade, but nothing comes to mind.
Given the high year-to-year variation in relief pitching performance isn’t this just Beane aiming for the portfolio effect? That is, by diversifying your portfolio (bullpen) you can reduce the variation of returns from a combination of assets (relief pitchers) compared with the average of the variations of the individual assets. This effect measures the extent to which variations in returns on a portion of your assets (rp’s) are partially canceled by variations in returns on your other assets (rp’s) in the same portfolio (bullpen). The more relief pitchers you have, the more likely you are to reduce the likelihood of having the bullpen perform badly over the course of the season.
I’ve always thought of Billy Beane as God of the sabermetric world. I may not always understand his moves, but I never question them. Rather, I just assume he has a grand plan that is beyond my mortal comprehension.
That’s a poor thought: he’s not a god. He’s a real good GM who arguably saved a dying franchise. Thats all.
My view is that he’s a logical, and worthy, successor to Sandy Alderson, but that if hadn’t been him, the A’s would have gotten someone else pretty good because Alderson’s system was already well-established.
I’m wondering if these moves aren’t an indication that Andrew Bailey’s elbow ailments aren’t more serious than the team is letting on. Everything in the media has been pretty positive regarding Bailey’s recovery (he missed the last several weeks of the regular season), but the A’s are notoriously covert about player injuries.
Reading that Fuentes’ deal includes several “closing related” incentives seems curious considering Bailey (IIRC) doesn’t have the kind of L/R split issues that would necessitate a 9th inning appearance from Fuentes.
that is curious about fuentes. it might have just been something they had to include to sign him because he wanted a chance to close. but you may be right.
What a delightful Occam’s razor argument. Thank you Mr. Cameron. I’ve been shouting this same argument since Balfour became an Athletic. The other teams have bought out the FA shop. There’s no-one left to spend money on. The A’s were well positioned to add a huge contract this year. But the Red Sox, the Nats, and the Rangers all went insane dolling out the astronomical money and Beane just couldn’t pull the trigger on such drastic overpays.
Now Beane has money to spend and no-one to spend it on. Maybe Beane can flip a RP for power bat trade, but there’s no master plan here. Once again the A’s are buying up the table scraps. At least the theme this year changed from injured vet to relief pitcher.
Maybe they plan on limiting the workload of the starters more often. They have a rotation of youngsters and potentially damaged goods. Take a 3rd/4th/5th starter out after 80 or so pitches, and then bring in a setup-quality pitcher instead of the typical middle reliever. Completely unlikely, but 3-5 innings of Rich Harden backed up by Jerry Blevins could keep Harden healthy and make for a potentially solid “5th starter.”
Makes more sense to me than having some of these very good relievers tossing 30 innings over a season. Just a thought.
This is my thought.
It might be that the 5th, 4th and even 3rd, starters will be on ridiculously short leashes, and pulled before they face the opponent’s best batters even a 3rd time.
Cahill, Braden and Harden are particularly awful their 3rd time through the order, but are still pretty darn good their first two times. Maybe this is the rational behind plan D?
Could it be that Beane is currently overrated, and therefore his whims are not to be automatically construed as indicators of new market inefficiencies?
Name another GM-level exec in any sport who has lasted 13+ years on the same team without even making it to his league’s championship game/series.
“Elgin Baylor was hired by the Los Angeles Clippers as the team’s vice president of basketball operations. He stayed in that capacity for 22 years before resigning in October 2008 at the age of 74. During his tenure, the Clippers managed only two winning seasons and amassed a won loss record of 607 and 1153. They also won only one playoff series during this time.”
Wow. Learn something every day..
The best part is his claim that he was unfairly discriminated against once they summoned the balls to fire him after 22 miserable years:
“In February 2009, Baylor filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the Clippers, team owner Donald Sterling, and the NBA. He alleges that he was underpaid during his tenure with the team and then fired because of his age and race.”
He flips prospects before he even signs them…
Players ask *him* to attend their kids’ birthday parties…
He once wrote on Bernie Madoff’s Facebook wall: “Too willing to admit failure.”
He is…
the most interesting GM in the world.
In scanning the comments I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this, but wasn’t there some talk last year about the A’s moving towards an “all reliever” staff, where the starter only goes 3-4 innings and then a procession of relievers take over (regardless of how well the starter is doing)?
How many pitchers can you think of that go one time through the lineup, and then get lit up?The game has plenty of bad starters that could be effective relievers.It also has to many good pitchers on the disabled list.Having a tired pitcher out there does not make sense for a team trying to win,or a pitcher hoping his arm won’t fall off.. Under this new way of thinking, there would always be a fresh arm on the hill. This winter,with all of the good relief pitchers available, any team could have tried this.
You guys have been in a rebuilding mode for so many years that you don’t realize these moves might have put you into contention.Texas is your only opponent. A bullpen like this in the early Aught’s would have had you beating those S.O.B Yankee’s. Beane had two building blocks in Swisher and Haren while they were still young and signable, and traded them.For what? More prospect’s.I have never understood those trades. With Cargon,who knew? Beane is no genius. He has made his share mistakes by reading to many of his own press clippings. But, in the last year he has brought in DeJesus,Crisp,Matsui, the two relief pitchers,and others.Not bad.He see’s that Arte Moreno is in siesta,and Seattle is run by frauds.This is an unexpected window.Now, try to be the buyer at deadline and not the seller.