In light of this week’s trade of two strong Oakland A’s starting pitchers for four unpromising prospects, it is again time to ask: why does Oakland A’s General Manager and part-owner Billy Beane avoid accountability for the team’s fortunes? Fans have been all over San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean for his team’s decline, despite his having less control over player decisions than does Beane. And the Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox and other teams have all reached or won the World Series in recent years with payrolls comparable to that of the A’s. Is Beane still insulated from criticism by his praise in Michael Lewis’ bestselling Moneyball, which showed Beane outfoxing other general managers in his pursuit of bargain talent? Or, more likely, does the Bay Area prefer a guy who appears to think “outside the box,” even if this does not bring a World Series to Oakland?

Beane: Profits over Winning

We always hear that professional sports is a “win or else” business. It’s supposed to be all about what have you done for me lately, and even perennial winners are said to be on the “hot seat” if their team performs poorly in consecutive seasons.

Typical is the case of former St. Louis Cardinals General Manager Walt Jocketty. In thirteen years, Jocketty led his team to the postseason seven times, and the Cards won the 2006 World Series. But Jocketty was fired after the 2007 season despite this strong record, and his being named Major League Baseball's Executive of the Year by The Sporting News in 2000 and 2004.

Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, however, operates under a different set of rules.

Beane is apparently under no pressure to guide the A’s to the playoffs, or to even put together a team that draws fans. Beane’s performance is apparently not measured by winning, with the Woolf-Fisher ownership team content so long as Beane takes care of the economic bottom line.

Until recent years, A’s fans commiserated with Beane’s need to trade and/or lose such quality veteran free agents as Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and Tim Hudson. These players would be subject to an all-out bidding war, with the A’s unable to financially compete.

But the offseason trade of young All-Star Game starter Dan Haren raised some eyebrows. Haren was years away from becoming an unrestricted free agent, and while the A’s got great prospects from Arizona in return, one does not see any team serious about winning trading a star young pitcher at that stage of their careers.

This week’s trade of Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for a pile of unpromising prospects shows that winning this year, or in the near future, is not the A’s goal. As with Haren, neither Harden nor Gaudin were coming up on free agency. Any team whose primary goal was putting a winning team on the field would have kept these players, whose departure told A’s fans that they should forget about the postseason in 2008.

Beane made this week’s trade with the A’s five games back for the division lead, and only three behind in the wild card. If Brian Sabean made such a deal with the Giants exceeding expectations and only a handful of games from the playoffs, phone lines would be jammed demanding his firing.

Beane’s Illusory Record

Whenever Beane trades off the present for a never to arrive future, some fans get angry but many join pundits in concluding “well, given Billie’s track record he must know best.” But this track record, like the similarly revered Don Nelson of the Warriors, does not involve his team’s appearance in a championship series.

Fans forget that prior to Beane taking control of the franchise, the A’s were consistent winners despite low payrolls. And that several other teams with comparable payrolls have won the World Series, or at least reached it, while Beane’s A’s have won a whopping one playoff series.

So its not like Beane’s the only guy playing with one hand behind his back. Chicago White Sox GM Ken Williams, one of the guys Beane supposedly outsmarted in Moneyball, won a World Series in 2005 with an A’s-level payroll.

Why Bay Area fans love Beane

Beane’s lack of a championship would have had him removed from more winning-oriented teams long ago. But the Bay Area sports fan often puts style over winning. Fans love Nellie’s “small ball” despite its failure to win in the playoffs, and treasure Beane’s ability to find and nurture young talent, despite not having it lead to a World Series appearance.

The progressive Bay Area does not want to cheer for Goliath; we like a David who uses smarts, rather than superior resources, to prevail. And Beane’s approach fits this perfectly, even though too many fans forget that David actually slew Goliath, while the Yanks, and now the well-funded Angels, consistently beat the A’s.

If Beane is simply the front-guy for the real estate developers who own the team, and they are making him trade quality talent for greater profits, than we should reconsider praise Beane got for turning down a higher-paying gig with the Boston Red Sox. At the time it looked like Beane cared more about lifestyle than maximizing his salary; now it looks like his lifestyle choice included a desire to avoid the pressure-cooker environment of having to win.

Let’s face it: the A’s owners have made Beane rich by giving him an ownership share, and he now sees his primary job as keeping costs down while the team plots its move to Fremont. The A’s proposed stadium/condo/mall project was always driven more by the housing than the ballpark, and with the condo market in crisis one has not heard much about the team pushing to get a new stadium built.

Since general partner Woolf does not believe the A’s can win in Oakland, he has apparently instructed Beane to translate this belief into reality through trades like the one this week. Fortunately, it seems that A’s fans have already caught on to Beane and the ownership group’s strategy, which is why attendance was down despite the team’s surprisingly good record.

Why should A’s fans become emotionally invested in players likely to be traded, and a team whose ownership puts profits over winning? Sadly, it is not just Al Davis who treats the East Bay sports fan like dirt.