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Billy Beane’s Master Plan Revealed

By Tony Frye

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If there’s one thing we can count on when it comes to Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane it’s that he is incredibly unpredictable and keeps his next move closely guarded. With today’s signing of Billy Butler (follow our coverage HERE), Billy Beane took to the media and began revealing his master plan. If you have no life at all and have nothing better to do with your time, you can visit the various baseball writers Twitter feeds and piece together what amounts to be the direction of the team for 2015, at least for now. Luckily for you, I’ve done the compilation.

We start with Jane Lee who has been a wealth of information all day long.

This is good and bad news for those fans who are growing tired of the relentless platooning. On the one side, Butler isn’t going to be the everyday DH as some (me) had predicted but on the other side, Butler does appear to be an every day player so maybe the Athletics are going to loosen up on certain platoon strategies or, at least, adapt them to the new lineup.

This acts as the second sign, Billy Butler being the first, that Billy Beane still believes he has the tools to contend again in 2015. The two words that will be over analyzed by fans and bloggers is “right now” which could mean he’s ready to trade him at the deadline if Parker and Griffin return to form or that he’s only keeping him until something better comes along. Of course, it could also mean nothing. Don’t over analyze Billy Beane’s syntax. What we do know for now, Jeff Samardzija looks to be the pitcher on the mound on opening day.

Don’t think for a minute that this means any major league player is safe but if you’re playing in Nashville right now there’s a very good chance you’re going to make it an entire season without getting traded to Boston.

This is why I love Bob Melvin. Regardless of how you feel about platooning, nobody can deny that Melvin is prepared, well thought and researched. To already know how your lineup is going to shape up is pretty impressive. The glaring subtext in this comment, too, is that Brandon Moss isn’t going anywhere.

To the fans that criticize this “huge” contract I urge you to relax. $10 million a year is pretty small when the 2015 qualifying offer was $5 million more than that. Also, consider that the Athletics would have owed Yoenis Cespedes $10.5 million this year. If Butler can produce at the plate at his current rate, which is better than Cespdes in many categories, they basically extended an all purpose “power hitter” contract for two more years without spending money.

Nice to see that Billy is on board with Billy’s plans for Billy. Billy Billy. We are going to get tired of typing that this year!

This is a fair comparison considering that they’re looking specifically for a right handed power hitter for the middle of the lineup.

So, what can we gather from these comments? You can gather that, at the very least, Samardzija, Brandon Moss, Josh Donaldson, Josh Reddick, and Coco Crisp will be around on opening day. We can throw Sean Doolittle on to that list based on the contract extension he signed last year. One wild card is still John Jaso who, Billy Beane said, has been cleared for baseball duties. Does that make him a trade chip or does that put him behind the plate?

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With Moss and Butler available on first base, it seems unlikely that Vogt, Freiman and Jaso are going to be thrown into the first base platoon so one, two or three of those guys may be gone by the time spring training arrives.

Today has been filled with good news for A’s fans. There’s not going to be a fire sale this year. We’re not out of the running in 2015. Billy Beane is putting together a team that he thinks can still go all the way and, through free agent signings and waiver claims, is rebuilding the farm system without costing us key components of our major league roster.

Who’s excited right now?

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