Time to Introduce New Hill of Beane’s

There was the fellow who said Oakland Athletic General Manager Billy Beane should be a heart surgeon because he “tears the hearts out of A’s fans.” Even the wife of the executive who engineered the controversial winter trades of pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder had difficulty comprehending the moves.

“It wasn’t fun being me for a week or so,” Beane said at the A’s fan-fest in February. “My wife woke up one morning and said, ‘I can’t believe you did that.’ I got grief at home too.”

While celebrations rang out around the American League West -- “It’s nice to get those two guys out of the division,” Angel pitcher Jarrod Washburn said -- a white flag seemed to go up at McAfee Coliseum.

Oakland remained competitive despite the departures of Jason Giambi after 2001 and Miguel Tejada after 2003, but surely the loss of the two starting pitchers who combined with Barry Zito to form the vaunted “Big Three” would send the small-market A’s spiraling toward the bottom of the division.

But a strange thing could be happening on the eve of destruction: The A’s might be a better team without Hudson and Mulder, who were traded during a whirlwind 72-hour span of December, Hudson to Atlanta and Mulder to St. Louis.

“In some ways their pitching staff got better because they’re stronger in the bullpen, they have more power arms there,” said Manager Mike Scioscia, whose Angels begin a three-game series against the A’s tonight. “They lost two terrific starters but gained better pitching balance. And when you can build a staff around Zito and Rich Harden, that’s still a pretty good rotation.”

The feeling in Oakland is that the rotation is not quite as good as it was in recent years, but it will be in a year or two, once the youngsters gain experience.

The starting staff is headed by Zito, a 26-year-old left-hander and 2002 AL Cy Young Award winner who will take the mound tonight looking to lower an earned-run average of 11.57.

Harden, a 23-year-old right-hander with a 96-mph fastball and nasty split-fingered fastball, will start Saturday, and Kirk Saarloos, a 25-year-old right-hander and sinkerball specialist, will start Sunday.

Rounding out the rotation is Dan Haren, a 24-year-old right-hander who was acquired in the Mulder trade and has a 2.77 ERA in his first two starts, and Joe Blanton, a 25-year-old right-hander who has a 2.45 ERA in his first two starts.

“It’s going to be different because you always had the Big Three in the back of your mind -- are we going to get two of them? Are we going to get all three?” Angel bench coach Joe Maddon said.

“We’ll have to see what it feels like when we get there, but their replacements aren’t bad. And I think Harden has surfaced as maybe the most talented of all the pitchers they’ve had.”

The biggest impact of the trades has been felt in the bullpen, where a relief corps that had 28 blown saves in 2004, second most in the AL, has been bolstered by right-handers Kiko Calero, a slider/changeup specialist who was acquired from St. Louis, and Juan Cruz, who brought a 96-mph fastball from Atlanta in the Hudson deal. Calero did not give up a run in spring training and has thrown five scoreless innings this season.

Combined with closer Octavio Dotel and rookie Huston Street, who mixes a 94-mph fastball with a slider and changeup and is considered the team’s closer of the future, the A’s have a collection of power pitchers who are all capable of throwing multiple innings.

They also have a left-handed specialist in veteran Ricardo Rincon and two capable long relievers in Justin Duchscherer, who has a 1.29 ERA in seven innings, and Japanese veteran Keiichi Yabu. Gone are Arthur Rhodes, Jim Mecir and Chris Hammond.

If the formula seems familiar, there’s a reason: Beane tried to model his bullpen after the Angels, who have had success with power and length in the bullpen, a combination that eases the burden on the starters and the closer.

“In a lot of ways, we’re better,” Oakland first baseman Scott Hatteberg told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We have a few unknowns, but the bullpen has been dynamite -- I’m not used to seeing those high-velocity guys. The defense will be solid, and we’re every bit as good as we were offensively. I know we’re not picked to win the division, but if we play as well as we’re capable of playing, I think we’ve got a shot.”

Beane may be the best in baseball at rebuilding on the fly, and many think he fleeced the Cardinals in the Mulder trade -- in addition to Haren and Calero, the A’s got highly touted Class-A first baseman Daric Barton. Mulder faded at the end of 2004 and is 0-1 with an 8.18 ERA in his first two starts for St. Louis.

The Hudson trade didn’t yield as plentiful a bounty -- the A’s got Cruz, reserve outfielder Charles Thomas and left-hander Dan Meyer, who struggled in spring training and opened the season at triple-A.

But Beane has an impressive track record in trades, and the A’s have learned to trust him.

“I thought me and Huddy would be around and they’d build around that, but obviously Billy had a different approach to keeping us competitive,” A’s third baseman Eric Chavez told the Oakland Tribune.

“He says things and computes things that none of us even think about. Afterward, you think, ‘That was a great move.’

“That’s how I feel now. It was the best thing for this organization.”