Still winning on the cheap

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Posted on Mon, Mar. 08, 2004

SPRING TRAINING TOUR

Still winning on the cheap

With a rock-solid rotation -- and a low-cost one at that -- the A's succeed despite losing stars.

BY MIKE PHILLIPS

mphillips@herald.com

PHOENIX - They lost Mark McGwire, and the Oakland Athletics were just fine.

Then they lost Jason Giambi, and the Oakland Athletics were just fine.

Now, they have lost Miguel Tejada, and the Oakland Athletics are just . . .

Well, they are one of the favorites to win arguably the toughest division because they still have the best pitching staff in the American League West and one of the best in the majors.

They keep doing it the Oakland Way.

''Losing Jason was big, and losing Miguel was big,'' said Oakland general manager Billy Beane as he sat in his spring training office.

'But what it comes down to is that it's a credit to the four guys behind him -- Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Eric Chavez. I said four or five years ago that at some point people are going to say, `I can't believe those guys are all on one team.' ''

Beane has been able to keep Mulder, Hudson and Zito -- the heart of one of the Athletics' rotation -- and Chavez, who has emerged as a top third baseman.

A'S SECRET

Oakland's success has nothing to do with big spending. Had the A's been in a large market, they might have been able to afford to keep Giambi and Tejada. But as the antithesis of the big-spending Yankees, the Athletics have won by making savvy personnel moves.

Beane is considered baseball's genius, a man who has defied the small-market/big-market gap that has buried the likes of Milwaukee and Pittsburgh and nearly buried the Marlins.

Beane's philosophy, as described in the book Moneyball: Draft pitchers out of college (Mulder, Hudson and Zito) rather than take risks on high school phenoms.

Both strategies apparently work. After all, the Marlins won the World Series on the arms of Josh Beckett and Brad Penny, both drafted out of high school and developed along the way. But Penny and Beckett together still don't have as many victories as Zito, a former University of Southern California star who won 65 games before age 26.

''I didn't write the book,'' Beane said. ``I never said this is the way to do it, and I've never told anybody else to do it this way. In fact, I prefer they don't.

``We just want to make sure that when we spend $1 ? million [on a draft pick] that we get some kind of return on it. There are very good high school pitchers, but by the time they become as good as they are going to be, a small-market club can't afford them. They will be 25 or 26 and ready for free agency.

``Using college players, you are going to get some immediate return while you're paying them $300,000 [the major-league minimum]. Young players are only good because they're cheap, not because they are young. A 25-year-old player making $7 million a year is no good to us even if he is young.

''Young players are only good if they're cheap if you're a small market,'' he said. ``Otherwise, you are just developing them for a big market.''

That's what happened when Giambi and Tejada became free agents.

Beane said they survived these losses because the A's still had enough young -- and relatively cheap -- talent.

PITCHING IS KEY

Beane has learned what Texas owner Tom Hicks, who lavished millions on Alex Rodriguez when he brought the superstar shortstop to play with one of the worst pitching staffs, apparently failed to realize: You win with pitching.

''We have some great young pitchers,'' Beane said, ``and as long as they are here we should be relatively competitive.''