FreshArrival

Billy Beane Visits Athletics Nation May 2008 Edition Part I

Happy Memorial Day!! What better to top off a sweep of the Red Sox than a visit with A’s General Manager Billy Beane.

It’s been quite a while since I had the opportunity to have one of my lengthy interviews with Beane. In the time between he and I last spoke, he’s kick-started a rebuilding process with the green and gold, trading away Nick Swisher and Danny Haren. His rebuilt team got off to a surprisingly good start and he also made the decision to bring back 2006 A’s MVP Frank Thomas. AND his team is sporting one of the most surprising pitching staffs in all of baseball right now.

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So, as you could imagine, there was plenty to discuss when he and I sat down last week. This was one of our longer interviews, yet I’m going to try and get it down to three parts. Without further ado, here is my most recent interview with Billy Beane:

Blez: It’s been a long time since we chatted and the last time we did, you shied away from the word “rebuilding” and called it “retooling” instead. Since then you’ve gone through the rebuilding process and you yourself referred to it in the media as that. What was the impetus behind that rebuilding?Billy Beane: The impetus for it was where I thought we were headed. That to me is as important as anything with a franchise: not where you are but where you are going. I really thought our best-case scenario for the next year or two was really mediocrity. Ultimately there was no chance to be a really, really good team and I just felt we were going to just be in that middle area there. I also knew at some point we were going to have to, so to delay it was really just wasting time. We were at the FanFest and a few people were upset. Actually every year there are a few people upset (laughs). I remember asking the question back to a gentleman in the audience who was upset and it‘s good that he was upset because he cares about the team and he was there spending a Saturday which is why we have those events. But I asked him the question of how many games he thought we would win if we stood pat and he said something like 75 or 80. He was upset and I said, “Are you OK with that?” That was essentially trying to stimulate what was going through our minds and get him thinking the same way. Winning 75 or 80 games is nothing to get www cialis kaufen de excited about, particularly if that’s what you’re going to do over the next several years.Blez: Especially when the fan base is used to success.Beane: Exactly. I’ve always said you’re either building something that’s special or you have something that’s special. In between is just no man’s land. That was really it. I felt like as good as the players were that we traded, we need a lot of good players to create something long-term. Blez: How did you approach the process? Did you basically just put a lot of calls out there to other GMs and say, “Everyone’s available, come make me an offer.” Was it like that or did you even target certain players on your roster that you felt might have the most value?Beane: No, very rarely when it’s one of our high profile guys is it a situation where we’ll solicit a deal. If you start doing that, whether someone admits it or not, it’s going to diminish value by you being the aggressor. In Danny’s (Haren) case, and to Arizona’s credit, he was someone they always wanted. And (Arizona GM) Josh (Byrnes) started poking around a little bit at the end of the year last year. In truth, the process hadn’t been decided. I wasn’t completely convinced that if we had come back completely healthy that sticking with the current roster and seeing what we had was an option. You know if Rich (Harden) was healthy and Duke (Justin Duchscherer) was relatively healthy and Chavy was going to be ready to go. I wasn’t completely convinced yet that it was time to do it so there was hope for a healthy club, but we hadn’t really decided. That being said, we actually waited for clubs to come to us figuring that the clubs who came to us would understand the value of the player and would be serious about doing business. We weren’t out there soliciting things at all. The clubs that were serious, we would talk to them. In Arizona’s case and to their credit, they had done their homework and checked in early so we were pretty far along in the process once we decided to go ahead and make the move.Blez: Arizona had been poking around before you decided to go this route? They had initiated the discussions last ye …