6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Beane's unloading of two of his three big guns has the baseball blogging world all a-twitter, and rightly so; it's arguably the biggest pair of moves he's made since Moneyball came out, and probably the biggest since they started winning, for that matter. One interesting comment on this subject came today from this AN thread:

I listened to a Billy Beane interview on KNBR this afternoon. He stated that you cannot always assume that players will perform as well in the future as they did in the past. He went on to say that the A's have to take risks to stay competitive. The implication to me is that if the two Aces he traded would have recurring injury problems next year, their trade value would be greatly reduced. He was not willing to take the risk that these pitchers would have problems for the third year in a row. It was a better risk to trade.

This was in response to a Hardball Times sidebar post by Studes, which I will quote in full here:

You're sitting around your Oakland office, looking at all the shenanigans in the Free Agent market. Now, you don't have enough money to pay a free agent, but you've noticed that starting pitchers seem to be in high demand this offseason -- overvalued, even.

Plus, you currently have three of the best young starters in baseball on your staff, and you know you're likely to lose at least two of them in the next two years. What do you do?

The real life Billy Beane has decided to move boldly and take advantage of the situation. Beane traded Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder within the space of two days this week, picking up two good young starters (Dan Meyer, who could be an ace, and Dan Haren), a good bullpen arm (Kiko Calero) another fine young arm who still could develop into a star (Juan Cruz) a nice young outfielder (Charles Thomas) and an "A" prospect in catcher Daric Barton. Seems to me that this is another example of Billy Beane taking advantage of market inequities, proving that there are many ways to play Moneyball.

Indeed it does. Brian Gunn of the defunct Redbird Nation writes a guest column at THT loudly decrying the trade from the Cards' perspective:

The Cards gave up a lot of talent -- a future #3 pitcher in Danny Haren, a live bullpen arm with a lifetime ERA+ of 149 in Kiko Calero, and a teenage hitting prodigy in Daric Barton. If you're going to give up all those goodies, you better make sure you get someone sturdy and dependable in return -- if not a sure thing, then a reasonably sure thing.

Mark Mulder is not my idea of a reasonably sure thing. Before August 2003, he certainly was. In fact, from 2001 to 2003 he was one of the ten best starting pitchers in baseball. But he hasn't been able to finish out either of the last two seasons. He went down with a stress fracture to his hip two years ago, and then last year simply fell apart. His ERA after the All-Star Break was 6.13, and only one of his starts down the stretch could be called even moderately decent.

That's a curious fit for a team like the Cardinals, who seem to be building primarily for October. Even more curious is why Walt Jocketty would trade one of his two best pitching prospects (Anthony Reyes being the other), his best hitting prospect, and one of his best relievers for a guy who looks to me like Matt Morris' twin brother.

Count Aaron Gleeman among those who approve of the deal -- though you might not know it to listen to him right away. He thinks Beane has set the team back six years -- but six years ago was 1999. The A's started their extended run of wins the very next year. Similarly, Bryan Smith at Wait Til Next Year is enthusiastic with his praise from the opening title of his blog entry "Grade 'A' Rebuild", quoting Peter Gammons latest column (which I can't find) as claiming Beane now has enough cash to make a run at J.D. Drew.

But as with yesterday's Murray Chass column in the New York Times, there's lots of dissenters, especially once you leave the ranks of A's fans. Mike Carmanati of Mike's Baseball Rants comes down hard on the trade as Billy Beane finally jumping the shark:

So what the net result of what the A’s done? They have traded three-fifths of their rotation for a single-A catcher, one unproven starter, one proven to be not that great, an overpriced 30-year-old catcher who’s good but not great, a swingman, and a backup infielder. Thomas for Cruz is a push. Calero’s a decent upgrade over Lehr. Rhodes for Cruz may even be an even-up trade.

I think Beane is just getting a free ride from the sabermetrically minded. I think of the four postseason transactions he’s made each is worse than the last. I see now justification for the Mulder one when he has two years left. The only question I have is if it’s worse than the one the two teams made to bring McGwire to the Cards. It’s all especially bad when you consider how close they were to contending in 2005. I guess he could turn it all around with a few more key pickups but it seems that he is still strapped for cash, so he’ll have to get creative.

My verdict is that Beane has jumped the shark, at least that’s how it looks so far.

This opinion, while in the minority, is essentially my own, though I view it to mean Beane thinks he can go back to contending in 2000 -- er, 2006 -- than next year. But everyone waits for the king to fall off his horse. Only one game separated the Angels from the A's at the end of the season. After last year's finish and this year's offseason, I write off no team in the AL West.