Oakland Athletics rebuilding with new stadium in mind
The A’s hope to have a new home in Oakland in the near future, and Billy Beane wants to put together a competitive team before they move.
Billy Beane is committed to building the next great Oakland Athletics team. That goal hasn’t changed, and it certainly hasn’t been easy. After two decades with the organization, the general manager turned executive vice president has seen his club go through plenty of peaks and valleys. With the A’s headed toward their third consecutive last-place finish, this is a definite low point for the franchise.
However, a new stadium is (hopefully) on the horizon, and with it a new era in Oakland. In an interview with Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle, Beane assures fans the talk of a new venue is not the same old “lip service” they’ve been hearing for years. The organization is committed to moving out of the Oakland Coliseum it has inhabited since its relocation to the Bay Area in 1968.
Naturally, Beane wants to have a worthy product on the field by the time the A’s move into their new digs. That will mean pulling off something that has been a constant challenge during his long tenure with the team: developing – and keeping – their own players. The first part hasn’t been much of a problem. It’s the second act that has tripped up the traditionally small-market franchise. Beane explains:
“Really, what’s been missing the last 20 years is keeping these players . . . The frustration isn’t that we’ve had success; the frustration is that after success, we haven’t kept them. And we need to change that narrative by creating a good team and ultimately committing to keeping them around, so that when people buy a ticket, they’ll know that the team is going to be there for a few years.”
“There’s only one way to open a stadium successfully,” he continues, “and that’s with a good, young team.”
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That all sounds great, but in order to “change the narrative,” the A’s will need to change their spending habits. Oakland has consistently ranked near the bottom of the league in payroll, which has forced them to jettison key players before they hit free agency. The whole “Moneyball” philosophy gave rise out of a desire to field a competitive team on the cheap.
On the rare occasions the A’s have signed a player to a long-term deal, it typically hasn’t panned out. Case in point, the Eric Chavez situation. The club can’t let past disappointments deter future risks, though.
If the team on the field is going to take the leap into a new stadium, the team in the front office will have to back them up accordingly. The A’s have already begun working to lay the foundation for what they hope will be a future winner. Yesterday they traded relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Nationals for a package including prospects Jesus Luzardo and Sheldon Neuse.
According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, Sonny Gray and Yonder Alonso are locks to be dealt before the July 31 deadline. Each should net a significant return, further enriching Oakland’s minor league system. It will hurt the club in the short term, but nobody’s expecting a quick fix.
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If all goes as planned, the A’s farm will have borne fruit by the time the team moves into a new stadium, conceivably within the next several years. Then comes the next big test: keeping the team together for the long haul, and finally giving fans a stable core of players to root for.