Something in the Oakland Athletics' clubhouse over the past half-dozen seasons has altered conventional thinking. How else do you explain a franchise that adds by subtracting, that grows younger as it ages and improves with inexperience?
Numbers validate their beguiling small-market success, but do not fully explain it. Managers and skilled players are vital to it, but in the ever-churning A's system, they are ultimately expendable and interchangeable.
Since 2000, the club has traded or lost Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Jason Isringhausen, Keith Foulke, Terrence Long, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. During all that rearranging, they won three division titles, one wild card and averaged nearly 97 victories.
For one position alone -- closer -- the Athletics have passed the ball from Isringhausen to Billy Koch to Foulke to Octavio Dotel (who had elbow surgery in June) and now to Huston Street. Street, a first-round draft pick last year, had 21 minor league appearances before his promotion. But he has posted 14 saves, two more than the Oakland rookie record set in 1969 by the Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers.
Over the winter, Billy Beane, the A's dynamic general manager, traded two of the starting rotation's Big Three, Mulder and Hudson, for six players. The club paid for that apparent recklessness. The team was 17-32 on May 29, 12 1/2 games behind the first-place Angels in the American League West. Oakland has since gone 49-16 -- including Thursday's wild 5-4 comeback victory over the Angels -- to take a one-game lead in the division.
The A's won in the ninth inning on Thursday when reliever Francisco Rodriguez missed a routine throw back from catcher Jose Molina. That allowed Jason Kendall to sprint home from third.
If the A's reach the postseason, they will be the second team to do that after being at least 15 games under .500. The 1914 Boston Braves, who were 16 under at their low point, won the World Series. (Houston, the National League wild-card leader, could accomplish the same feat this season.)
Beane has built a reputation for evaluating, elevating and trading for young players on the cusp of success. Six of the A's first-round draft choices are on the roster. The weight to succeed falls on rookies and second-year players. Again this season, youth is at the team's core.
Danny Haren, a second-year right-hander who came from St. Louis in the Mulder trade, has fit nicely in the rotation. He is 10-7 with a nine-game winning streak, and the A's have won all 14 of his starts since May 31.
The rookie first baseman-designated hitter Dan Johnson has stepped in for Erubiel Durazo, who is out for the season after elbow surgery. Johnson has a .371 average since the All-Star Game break. Right fielder Nick Swisher's 16 homers lead all rookies in the league. The right-hander Joe Blanton, Hudson's replacement, has won six of his past nine decisions.
Beane said the belief that young players would wilt down the stretch was a misconception.
"I have a contrarian position," he said. "The mental grind is what they are talking about. But young players just establishing themselves have a better chance of improving than just staying status quo. Ultimately, it depends on the players you have. You have to establish that you are good enough to get to the point to wilt.
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