The Contenders

No more talk. No more books about the formula for success. No more reliance on OBP. No more disdain for defense. This time, the A's can do the little things to go the distance. This time, they're money

Once upon a time, the A's ran the ultimate baseball frat house. Jason Giambi set the tone, and those Oakland teams were big and hairy and powerful. They clubbed homers, partied into legend and assaulted eardrums with their clubhouse music. Every September, they showed up fashionably late and banged on the door of the pennant race.

But every October, the baseball gods cruelly revealed their weaknesses—pulled down their pants, in a sense, and exposed their shortcomings for everybody to see. Misplaced outfielders misplayed fly balls (sorry, Terrence Long), slow runners got tagged out (apologies, Jeremy Giambi), second-line pitchers got pounded (excuse us, Fill in the Blank). The A's have had nine chances this decade to clinch a playoff series, and every time, they've lost.

Eventually, GM Billy Beane had to break up the frat brothers because of budget limitations. But a funny thing happened: Now reconstituted, the A's are defensively superb-perhaps better than any other team. Their rotation is excellent, with Barry Zito and Rich Harden in front of Dan Haren and Joe Blanton, who combined to go 25—12 after May 29. Their position players, almost without exception, run well. Their 22-year-old closer, Huston Street, thrives on pressure. The baseball gods may not have the A's to kick around anymore.

As the poster boy for the New School of Baseball Philosophy, Beane still maintains that there's a statistical randomness to the outcome of postseason play. "I've got the numbers to prove it," he says. But undoubtedly, the 2006 A's are deeper, more diverse, possessing more of the elements that the Old-School Thinkers believe are necessary to win in the playoffs: a deep bullpen, enough speed to make the offense multidimensional against good pitching, and a bunch of guys who catch the ball.

These A's are simply better. "A lot better," says veteran Eric Chavez. "When you talk about a team being suited to winning a championship, you go back and look at the White Sox, the Angels, the Yankees. They were all fundamentally sound, and that's the way we are now."

Beane freely admits to a shift in emphasis, if not philosophy. Even before Moneyball came out in 2003, teams had increasingly invested in on-base percentage; Giambi got $120 million from the Yankees after the 2001 season in large part because they thought he'd improve their OBP. As the pool of affordable on-base masters dried up, Beane started looking for other undervalued skills, forever seeking cheap but good stock. "Our team, by and large, is always going to be what the marketplace is allowing us to pay for," he says.

So it was that in fall 2003, Beane found that Padres centerfielder Mark Kotsay's defense was staggeringly good and that Kotsay was relatively affordable. Trading for him was the start of a new trend. While everyone else was obsessing over OBP, Beane was already on to D.

The GM snapped up Jay Payton from the Red Sox last summer, and in December, he swapped a minor leaguer to the Dodgers for the volatile Milton Bradley. Now the A's effectively have three centerfielders covering the outfield, along with Gold Glove candidates at third base (Chavez), shortstop (Bobby Crosby) and second base (Mark Ellis).

It naturally followed that as the Athletics hoarded first-rate glove men, their team speed increased dramatically. These guys still won't steal a lot of bases-Beane reasons, why risk the outs?-but they can go first to third and first to home.

And now, when they've got the lead in the late innings, they ought to be able to keep it.

For Beane, the value of closers has long been a point of debate because of the dollars-to-outs ratio: He's more inclined to pay someone who can account for 600 outs a year rather than 225. But over the past few seasons, watching the Angels' dominant bullpen, with Scot Shields and Francisco Rodriguez blowing away hitters with fastballs and sliders, the statistical geek within Beane became attracted to their particular type of efficiencynot to mention economy. Signing Billy Wagner is an option for the Mets but not for the A's.

Oakland had four of the first 40 picks in the 2004 draft, and Beane's scouts kept telling him that they loved the closer at the U. of Texas, a kid named Huston Street. Beane was skeptical. He asked the scouts, "Would you bet your 401(k) on this guy?" The answer always came back: Yes.

Still, he waited through the first round. Supplemental picks began coming off the board in the Oakland war room, and scouting director Eric Kubota made the case for Street again. "If there's ever a sure thing to make the majors," he said, "this is the guy." Beane nodded. For pick No. 40, Kubota called Street's name into the phone.

The scouts were right. The slightly built, self-assured righthander with the sinking fastball aced the minors in '04. The following spring, in big league camp, he impressed the A's by overpowering D-Backs veterans Luis Gonzalez, Troy Glaus and Shawn Green. Street made the team but bided his time in a setup role. Then Octavio Dotel injured his elbow. "I got a vibe from the players," says Beane. "They wanted Huston to be the guy."

On May 20, the day manager Ken Macha decided to make Street the closer, pitching coach Curt Young stopped by the kid's locker and said, "Be prepared to throw the ninth."

"Okay," Street said, then returned to his routine. As the A's have learned, it never changes. He begins stretching in the fifth, then a trainer rubs heat balm into his arm. Street makes his way to the bullpen for the start of the seventh, and when Oakland has a lead, he starts throwing in the eighth, a 25-pitch regimen: three fastballs to one side of the plate, three to the other side, then sliders and changeups. When he gets the call, he warms up with two pitches from the apron of the mound, "to calm the nerves." Then three fastballs, two sliders, one changeup and boom, he's ready.

The A's, however, were not. Going into their May 30 game against Tampa Bay, they were 17—32 and mired in an eight-game losing streak. Although Crosby was coming off the DL, there wasn't much hope for a turnaround. But Street pitched 1µ shutout innings to get the win, and over the next two months, the A's went 58—24.

Street converted his last 18 chances. After each save, he takes a blue marker and writes on the game ball: date, opponent, final score, save number. He had 23 last year, and he plans on keeping this job for a long time-long enough to fill up several shelves, and long enough to make real money. This season, he will earn $339,625, $12,625 over the minimum and $10,160,375 less than Wagner. That's moneyball.

The A's nearly made it back to the playoffs last year. They surged past the Angels into first place in the AL West after being as much as 12½ out. They were the first team in AL history to climb from 15 games below .500 to at least 15 games above .500 in the same season, and they thought the rush would carry into October. "As hot as we got, you're not used to having that much momentum," says Chavez.

But no team could overcome the injuries that dogged them in the end. Crosby, the second-year shortstop with the powerful bat, came up limping after a collision with Orioles catcher Sal Fasano on Aug. 27. Crosby missed three games before going for an MRI, and went into the trainer's room in Anaheim looking for the results. "What do you guys got?" he asked.

Broken left ankle, he was told.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he replied, slumping into a chair. At the same time, Harden was struggling with a muscle strain, and Kotsay's back gave out. The A's went 11—17 in September; the Angels won the West.

Six months later, Crosby is sitting on a table in Arizona, ankle good as new, thinking about what might have been. "I knew we had one of the best teams in the league," he says.

They did. They do. They just have to prove it.

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