Tim Britton of the Providence Journal has an excellent break down of how the Oakland Athletics became a quality team.
He acknowledges that the A's operate on a smaller budget than
most major league teams due to their market and stadium deal. Oakland opened the season with the game’s 25th-highest payroll at
$85 million, and its seven All-Stars — including recently
acquired Jeff Samardzija — will make a grand total of $28.55 million
this season. The Athletics have acquired those seven players in very
different ways, most of them highlighting superior evaluation of
unknowns — and of course a healthy dose of good fortune.
The A’s
have built through the draft. All-Star closer Sean Doolitte was a
first-round pick in 2007 out of the University of Virginia, albeit as a
position player. Doolitte shifted to the mound after his development
stagnated at the plate, and he’s quickly evolved into one of the game’s
best late-inning relievers.
The A’s have built
through the international market. As fewer big-name stars hit free
agency — and the ones that do hit it at a more advanced age — the
international market has grown in significance. Fifteen different
All-Stars signed with their current teams as international free agents,
including seven who were into their 20s and played in the majors almost
immediately. That includes pitchers from Japan in Yu Darvish and
Masahiro Tanaka, and multiple sluggers from Cuba, like Yasiel Puig, Jose
Abreu and Oakland’s Yoenis Cespedes.
Cespedes was 26 and known
mainly for an over-the-top workout video when the A’s inked him to a
four-year, $36-million deal shortly before the 2012 season — a
surprising outlay of cash from the Athletics. Cespedes’ production has
exceeded that expense already — something that can rarely be said about
free-agent outfielders these days. (That same offseason, Michael Cuddyer
signed a three-year deal in Colorado for $31.5 million; he’s been about
60 percent as valuable as Cespedes since.)
The A’s have built
through other teams’ farm systems. Oakland has long had to deal
established players in order to get something of value in return before
they departed in free agency. Catcher Derek Norris and third baseman
Josh Donaldson both came to the Athletics as minor-leaguers in deals for
veteran pitchers — Norris from Washington for Gio Gonzalez, Donaldson
from the Cubs for Rich Harden. It’s rare for a team to hit on that kind
of return more than once. Just look at how little Cliff Lee brought back
each of the three times he was traded as an ace.
The A’s have
found value in the free-agency clearance aisle, snatching Brandon Moss
on a minor-league contract after the 2011 season. At the time, Moss had
been a replacement-level player; in five seasons for three different
organizations, he was worth exactly 0.0 wins above replacement. Since,
he’s slugged 71 home runs and been worth seven wins to the Athletics.
Finding
that kind of value on the cheap allows room for the occasional expense,
like shelling out $22 million this past winter for Scott Kazmir. The
approach of using free agency to find complementary pieces obviously
worked quite well for the Red Sox last season.
In a pool of 81
All-Stars overall, Kazmir is one of just 15 who signed with their
current team through the regular free-agent market. The Zack Greinkes
and Robinson Canos are increasingly the outlier among All-Stars, not the
rule.
Drafting well will always be the best strategy for building
a consistently competitive team. But compensating for poor drafts in
the free-agent market has become harder and harder as more and more of
the game’s best players stay home with long-range extensions. Creating a
talented roster demands a varied approach to collecting that talent —
something the A’s have excelled at in recent years.
I call this a balanced approach tempered by the financial realities of the club. Draft well in June and sign good international players; make good trades to acquire other teams best prospects; find value in second tier free agent market; and make occasional big trade or premium free agent signing. But that is easier said than done.
Unlike the Cubs, the A's went into the international market to land major league starters. Finding gold in toss in players in trades like Donaldson are quite rare. But once you get new players into your system, a team needs to finalize their development which the A's have an excellent track record in doing, especially with their pitching staffs.
