Since the beginning of the month, I've been back in the Oakland area. (Right now I'm in Alameda.) I still don't miss living here, but now that I'm not here 100% of the time, it's easier to appreciate it on regular visits -- especially in the winter, when I don't hate the weather so much.

A few days ago I happened to drive past the Grand Lake Theater, which has a habit of posting things other than movie titles on its marquee. This week the message is:

Clearly, the owner of the theater has strong opinions. Still, where but in Oakland could he put up something like that and not go out of business? Mind you, this isn't some freaky theater near the University where they show foreign art films. It's a mainstream theater where they show the usual Hollywood blockbusters, and it's in a pleasant commercial district not far from downtown on one side and respectable middle-class neighborhoods on the other. This is mainstream for Oakland. This is the land of Barbara Lee.

Those who follow sports news know that the Oakland A's have traded two of the "Big Three" star pitchers. Trading Tim Hudson, although I didn't predict it, was not really a surprise. Trading Mark Mulder caught me completely by surprise, as it did most people. As I said both in TAP and here on Benzene, I expected we'd keep our star pitchers through the ends of their current contracts and then let them go after that.

Aside from just being plain wrong, my error seems to be in concluding that our farm system is so rich that we have no need of "prospects". It turns out that's not quite right. Our best minor leaguers have now arrived, and further down the pipe we have some gaps. Crosby was our latest rookie of the year. (Although only one actually played for the A's, the past three AL ROYs have all come out of the Oakland system: Bobby Crosby, Angel Berroa, Eric Hinske.) Swisher and Blanton are pretty certain to be on the team this year, though not necessarily as opening-day starters, and we have two relief pitchers who look to be ready later this year (Jairo Garcia, Huston Street) and one more 1B/DH (Dan Johnson).

Beyond that the system isn't so full. About two or three years out, we have a decent collection of outfielders, several catchers, and one infielder (Omar Quintanilla, currently playing SS but likely to end up at 2B if he comes to the Oakland team). Notably missing is starting pitching.

For many years, the Oakland farm system was so full of starting pitchers that we couldn't even use them all. After Hudson, Mulder and Zito, there were Harden and Blanton. Alongside them were several others who were traded away, with varying records of success -- Jeremy Bonderman, Mario Ramos, Jesus Colome. Ramos didn't pan out, and eventually he was traded back to Oakland. Colome was a starter in the minors but converted to a closer. Also converted from starter was Justin Duchscherer, who stayed with the A's and became a long reliever last year. At the time I thought that was just because there was no room for him in the rotation, but it now appears to have been an intentional decision, based on the observation that he does well the first time through the lineup, not so well the second time, and terribly the third time. Projecting forward, this glut of starting pitching abruptly becomes a dearth. Beyond Blanton, we have almost none. Filling that gap has been Beane's primary goal in the recent trades.

Looking back on it now, I see that trading away Hudson and Mulder fits the Moneyball pattern of "buy low, sell high". Beane seems to have reached the conclusion that big-name starting pitching is overvalued in today's market. The ridiculously high contracts being given to successful starters reflects the conventional wisdom that solid starting pitching is the key to winning. In spite of running a team which got most of its recent success from starting pitching, Beane believes otherwise. Yes, it's good to have great starters, but it's not that much better than having OK starters. Given that the rest of the league feels otherwise, it makes sense to trade off the big-name starters now while the gap between their perceived value and their actual value is at its highest. It's essentially the same concept as was described in the book Moneyball as applied to closers.

What Beane is looking for in return is value which is underrated. He still needs someone to pitch the games, so he went out looking for the best starting pitchers he can find who (1) don't yet have a big-name reputation and (2) are young enough to have a low salary for a few years to come. And then since the new starters won't pitch as deep into games as Mulder and Hudson did, he looked to beef up the A's traditionally weak bullpen with some middle relievers.

The other pattern I'm seeing in the trades is that Beane seems to have concluded that power hitting is overrated. The OPS stat has become fairly standard now in evaluating hitters. OPS ("on-base plus slugging") is a sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage, but it is a matter of debate among statheads exactly how the two addends should be weighted. Beane seems to be taking the position that the slugging component is overrated, a pattern no doubt reinforced by the emotional fascination with hitters who get a lot of home runs. Throughout the off-season, and even before, Beane has quietly been collecting hitters who look good in all of their numbers except slugging and home runs (Hatteberg, Kotsay, Kendall, Ginter, Charles Johnson).

As a result of all this, the overall profile of the A's team is going to be markedly different in 2005. In recent years, we've been a team with great starting pitching, a good closer, and very little middle relief. Hitting has been secondary to pitching, and it has traditionally relied on a lot of walks followed by a few home runs. In 05, the pitching will be OK but not great, relying a lot less on the starters and more on a strong bullpen; last year's trend toward more hits but fewer home runs will continue; and scoring will be a little higher for both the home team and the visitor.

As usual, the statheads and the Moneyball-savvy observers are aware of all this, while the general public is not. Among the ignorant mass of local fans -- and I include about 80% of sportswriters in that group -- there is a whole lot of screaming about how Beane has dismantled the team and the A's are going to be terrible. The largest disagreement is whether to blame Beane or blame the team owner for being such a cheapskate.

These people have it all wrong. First of all, the A's are no longer a low-budget team. Partly as a result of the increased revenues from five years of fielding a playoff contender, the "cheapskate" owner has doubled the total payroll in five years, at a time when many teams' payrolls are holding steady and a few are even going down. When Moneyball was written, the A's payroll ranked second to last (above that of Minnesota, which has followed a similar pattern). In 2004, the A's payroll was right in the middle of the list -- one-third that of the Yankees and half that of the Red Sox, true, but also double that of the Brewers or Devil Rays.

More important, the A's aren't going to suck in 2005. In an interview, Beane mentioned that he was thinking of the future, and the sportswriters jumped all over that to claim that he had given up on 2005. The truth is that if moves were not made, the team was headed for a crash in 06 and 07, similar to what the Mariners just experienced. Beane has diminished the 05 team by five or ten wins from what it might otherwise have been in order to ensure that the team stays competitive for years to come.

That means that the A's aren't likely to win the World Series in 2005, as they might have been with a different strategy, but it doesn't mean they won't be competitive. I see the AL West standings looking not too much different from 04. There's been a lot of talk about Anaheim's and Seattle's big-money signings. The suggestion is that those teams have dramatically improved themselves, but I don't see it. Seattle will be a little better than last year, but that's just a continuation of its late-season recovery from a dismal first half. I'm not at all impressed by the Mariners habit of signing former all-stars to big contracts just in time to see them decline. If the Mariners improve, it will be in spite of the big signings more than because of them.

I also don't see that Anaheim is any better. There's been some rearrangement, but all told it looks like about a wash to me. Texas didn't change much, but they've got as many guys who are likely to get better as the reverse, so that's about a wash, too. Oakland is taking some risks with young players who may or may not pan out. Anaheim has about equal risk but for them it is in health, with several older players who are potentially fragile. You often hear about how good a team might have been if it weren't for key injuries. To a certain extent that's just a matter of luck, but one can adjust the odds. Anaheim and Seattle are clearly more at risk for key injuries than Oakland or Texas.

I see the division being another tight race, with Seattle winning about 75 games and the other three bunched with about 85 wins each. At this point I'd say Oakland has about a 50% chance of winning the division, and I'll be very surprised if we don't at least finish better than 500. That's far more optimistic than the conventional wisdom, which places us at the bottom of the heap. If we do win the division, Beane can hope that he's correct in his saying that it's just a crapshoot after that, because we'll very likely be the weakest team in the playoffs.

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