The A’s Have It

Given the small-market restraints of a $22-million payroll and the six consecutive losing seasons of a painful rebuilding project, the Oakland Athletics have emerged as the wildest of baseball’s wild-card contenders, the longest of longshots. They are the little engine that could, except that the young A’s have become a homer-powered diesel refueled by an aggressive series of recent trades.

“Our expectations have changed,” General Manager Billy Beane said of his preseason hope that the 74-88 A’s of 1998 might improve to .500 in 1999. “We want to make the playoffs. To shoot for anything less would have been malpractice.”

Trying to build on the momentum and accelerate the emergence, Beane responded to the July 31 trade deadline by first acquiring the mandatory payroll flexibility by trading pitchers Kenny Rogers and Billy Taylor in separate deals to the New York Mets for relief pitchers Greg McMichael and Jason Isringhausen. He then shipped three young pitchers to the Kansas City Royals for Kevin Appier, an experienced and potential ace to take the pressure off rookie sensation Tim Hudson, and sent three more young players to the Angels for Omar Olivares, another experienced starter, and second baseman Randy Velarde, who continues to express his gratitude.

“I was rescued from a sinking ship,” Velarde said of the Angels. “Everything that was said and written about that situation was only half as bad as it really was. Guys were at each other’s throats constantly. There was no control, no stability in the lineup. The atmosphere was totally miserable.

“Any time you pick up 8 1/2 games with one phone call like I did, it’s a lot of weight off your shoulders. It’s easy to come to the park now. I went from a team that was picked to win to a team that wasn’t picked to do anything, and it’s as if there has been a complete role reversal. There is no way in my mind that a team with the talent of the Angels should have struggled the way it has the last three or four years, but it goes to show that you can have all the talent on paper and you still have to do it on the field, which is what the A’s have done.”

The A’s are 16-8 in August, 26-14 since the All-Star break and have the second-best record in baseball at home (44-22), which may come as a surprise in Oakland, since the A’s continue to play before sparse crowds. They are 69-58 overall, 6 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West and tied with the Boston Red Sox for the wild-card lead. They are a game ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays.

“It’s a young team traveling uncharted waters,” Velarde said, “but each day you can see the confidence grow. Each day you can see the younger players believe that much more in how good they are. I think it’s up for grabs. If we can avoid the dry spell that Boston and Toronto have already gone through, I think we can be there.”

Said first baseman Jason Giambi: “Right now, we’re only focused on what we’re doing, not Toronto or Boston. Besides, we don’t want to limit ourselves to thinking that we can only win the wild card when we still have a chance to win the division.”

Since 1991, when the Minnesota Twins won the World Series, the playoffs have been dominated by teams with high revenues and high payrolls. San Diego was a small-market exception as the National League champion last year, but the Padres’ $53-million payroll ranked among the top third of the 30 teams. Only Kansas City, Montreal, Minnesota and Pittsburgh have a lower payroll than Oakland’s $22 million, but the Cincinnati Reds, at a modest $33 million, are in contention for a division or wild-card berth in the National League and could help create an October confrontation of Haves vs. Have Nots in both leagues.

“Given the economic disparity, to be leading or tied for the wild card is certainly groundbreaking,” Beane said. “I don’t think a team with our payroll has been in the race this late in five or six years. It’s the best story of ‘99, as far as we’re concerned.”

The story is still being written, of course, and the A’s could be excused if they were to be feeding off that Cinderella theme. They insist, however, that isn’t the case, although Manager Art Howe isn’t sure. As he put it: “If you have one competitive bone in your body, all you need is to have someone say you’re not good enough or you can’t do something.”

Said Beane: “I think for a time that was a motivation. Now there is a feeling we can compete with anyone. I don’t think there’s any inferiority complex, if one existed previously.”

Giambi agreed.

“We don’t need to feed off anything except what we’re doing,” he said. “We have great chemistry, and we’re growing as a club, having a ball. I mean, no one expected us to be here, so we’re loving every minute of it.”

The A’s won four division titles in a five-year span ending with a division title in 1992. Spiraling salaries and diminishing returns led to an ownership change and rebuilding commitment. Jose Canseco, Walt Weiss, Carney Lansford, Dave Stewart, Terry Steinbach, Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson and Mark McGwire were among the familiar names who left through trades, free agency or retirement. Tony La Russa opted to become manager of the St. Louis Cardinals rather than wait out the reconstruction. Former general manager and club president Sandy Alderson put the program in place and left to become an executive vice president in the reorganized commissioner’s office. Beane, who tutored under Alderson, was 35 when he succeeded Alderson as general manager in October 1997.

The A’s were 403-503 from 1993 through 1998, but Andy Dolich, a former A’s executive who fronts a group hopeful of being approved as the club’s new owner in September, said that the decision to reposition and rebuild the organization took “guts and foresight.” So far the A’s have made it work, as evidenced by a 1999 team that is the result of good scouting, patient development and economically judicious trades and signings.

Said Beane: “For the past two or three years we’ve been seeing flashes of something special. Maybe one out of every three games we’d see something that would make you sit up and say, ‘Wow, that’s great.’ It’s just that the flashes weren’t there on the consistent basis they are now. We’re seeing them day to day now, and it’s a situation where you can safely say the present is fun but the future is even brighter.”

Beane’s optimism is based on a minor league system that leads baseball in overall winning percentage and a home-grown nucleus at the major league level that includes Giambi, shortstop Miguel Tejada, third baseman Eric Chavez, catcher Ramon Hernandez, outfielder Ben Grieve (the American League’s 1998 rookie of the year) and the 24-year-old Hudson, a sixth-round selection in 1997 who is 8-1 since his June recall and of whom Beane said: “He’s the type pitcher who comes along once every 10 years. Unless you’re the Atlanta Braves, who seem to have one come along once every two years.”

Veteran catcher Mike Macfarlane refers to Hudson as “lightning in a bottle” and said that his arrival, coupled with the acquisition of Appier and Olivares and the emergence of veteran Gil Heredia (10-5), would influence him “to take our staff against any in the league. I mean that.”

Said Beane: “We’ve never had enough pitching before and never been in a position to afford it. It’s so expensive, but you can’t win without it. There were times in the past we could match up offensively against most teams, but now we have a legitimate chance to win every day because of the pitching.”

With the addition of Appier and Olivares, the A’s are hoping to get more innings out of their starters, relieving the pressure on the bullpen. The departure of Taylor in the Mets trade has left Howe to fill the closer role by committee.

In the meantime, the A’s are tied (with the Angels) for last place in the league in team batting but are first in walks, second in home runs and fifth in runs scored.

A predominantly left-handed-hitting lineup has taken advantage of a scarcity of left-handed starting pitchers--the A’s have faced 30 compared to 97 right-handers--and the overall cozier dimensions since the Raiders returned to an enclosed and reconfigured Coliseum. Designated hitter John Jaha has 30 homers, Giambi, Grieve and Matt Stairs have more than 20 with a shot at 30, and Tejada is closing in on 20--a family of Bash Brothers.

Jaha is the major surprise--to himself, as well as others.

He was released by the Milwaukee Brewers after two injury-riddled seasons, signed a minor league contract with the A’s and now, with 30 homers and 88 runs batted in, probably will win the award for comeback player of the year after also representing the A’s in the All-Star game--”the most rewarding year of my career, and I don’t just mean statistically,” he said. “I’ve never been with a better group of guys or had more fun. After the last two years, if someone had told me in spring training I’d be contributing like I am to a team in a playoff race, I’d have said they were crazy.”

Jaha has delivered the unexpected production that is often characteristic of playoff teams, and the A’s also continue to receive it from Stairs, the round right fielder who was signed as a minor league free agent in 1995 and has hit 26 or more homers in each of the last three seasons, including his current career high of 29, with 84 RBIs.

For Stairs, his adrenaline has been pumping since Beane delivered the deadline package of Appier, Olivares, Velarde, McMichael and Isringhausen, but he insisted that the surprising A’s aren’t trying to prove anything or feeding off the skeptics.

“I know we’ve shocked some people because I know we’ve shocked some teams, but I don’t care what people think,” he said. “I don’t care if people think we’re out of our shoes, doing this in a bubble. We’re in the race and that’s all that matters. There is absolutely no pressure, no expectations and no egos involved. We’re a young team having a great time. We know that we have something special going, and we’re all trying to do the little things to keep it alive.”

Can the inexperienced A’s survive September?

Third baseman Chavez, having an impressive second half to his rookie season, was lost for at least three weeks recently because of an ankle injury, and two key veterans and clubhouse leaders recently went down for the season--Tim Raines with lupus and Tony Phillips with a broken leg.

Phillips, however, thinks the A’s will handle the pressure.

“They’re young, but they can play,” he said. “When I came to Oakland [at the start of the season] they were eating baby food. Now, they’ve moved on to meat and potatoes.”

The menu has changed for the manager as well.

The imperturbable Howe is in line for a contract extension after his status was considered in jeopardy a year ago when the 1998 expectations became “a little askew and unrealistic” and “I was prepared for the worst.”

Now, he said, the A’s are probably “a couple years ahead of schedule and capable of winning every time we go on the field. We’ve taken our lumps the last few years and it’s nice to give a few back. We have the type pitching now that allows us to compete, and I give [Beane] a lot of credit. He’s done things within our [financial] constraints that must have left other general managers wondering how. He’s got to be the executive of the year no matter how this turns out.”

No matter how it turns out, the future would suddenly seem to be now for the young A’s.

American League Wild-Card Race

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W L GB Boston 69 58 -- Oakland 69 58 -- Toronto 69 60 1

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Winning Approval

Since the trading deadline, the Oakland A’s have the best record in the American League (through Tuesday):

Oakland: 16-7, .696

New York: 15-8, .652

Tampa Bay: 13-9, .591

Cleveland: 13-9, .591

Texas: 14-10, .583

Boston: 13-10, .565

Seattle: 12-10, .545

Chicago: 12-11, .522

Baltimore: 11-11, .500

Toronto: 10-12, .455

Angels: 8-15, .348

Detroit: 7-14, .333

Minnesota: 7-15, .318

Kansas City: 6-16, .273

Super Statistics

Oakland doesn’t have any superstar problems, but they are close to the top of almost every team hitting and pitching category (through Tuesday):

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HITTING

BATTING AVERAGE

1. Cleveland: .291

2. Texas: .288

3. Baltimore: .284

13. Oakland: .256

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RUNS

1. Cleveland: 775

2. Texas: 740

3. Oakland: 712

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HOME RUNS

1. Seattle: 197

2. Oakland: 187

3. Texas: 175

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ON-BASE PERCENTAGE

1. Cleveland: .375

2. New York: .364

3. Baltimore: .360

5. Oakland: .353

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SLUGGING PERCENTAGE

1. Texas: .470

2. Cleveland: .468

3. Seattle: .468

8. Oakland: .448

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PITCHING

STRIKEOUTS

1. Cleveland: 844

2. Boston: 843

3. New York: 821

12. Oakland: 715

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EARNED-RUN AVERAGE

1. New York: 4.10

2. Boston: 4.32

3. Oakland: 4.58

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HOME RUNS ALLOWED

1. New York: 115

2. Oakland: 116

3. Tampa Bay: 135

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FEWEST WALKS ALLOWED

1. Boston: 373

2. Minnesota: 391

3. Texas: 410

5. Oakland: 434

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SAVES

1. New York: 41

2. Texas: 38

3. Boston: 37

4. Oakland: 36

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MILWAUKEE 9, DODGERS 7

Brown has one of his worst games, squandering a three-run lead with Valentin hitting a grand slam. Borbon again provides no relief. Page 3

TORONTO 7, ANGELS 2

It’s merely the latest inoffensive performance for Anaheim, wasting another good start by Finley, and Tavares is steaming. Page 5