Heavy Hitter

He gives lectures to Deutsche Bank executives. He’s rubbed shoulders with billionaire investor Warren Buffett. And he’s been offered millions to ply his trade elsewhere. So, what the heck is Oakland A’s General Manager billy beane still doing in the East Bay?

Photograph by Thomas Broening

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Beane and his wife welcomed twins in January, a boy (Brayden) and a girl (Tinsley). The twins already have been exposed to Dad’s occupation: Athletics Nation, an A’s fan club/website, sent two T-shirts as baby gifts. One read, “I came over in the Haren trade,” and the other, “I came over in the Swisher trade.”

Those deals this past winter, in which Beane shipped pitcher Dan Haren to Arizona and outfielder Nick Swisher to Chicago, represented a new chapter in the ongoing reinvention of the A’s. Beane’s blockbuster trades usually involve players on the verge of free agency, about to become too expensive for a small-budget club to keep. That wasn’t the case with Haren and Swisher, both 27-year-olds with reasonable salaries for the next few years.

But the A’s were 76-86 last season, and Beane knew that injuries, lack of depth, and a thin minor-league system did not bode well for the future. The trades reduced Oakland’s payroll from $79.9 million to $47.9 million (third lowest of 30 Major League teams) and brought a wave of talent in return. “It seems there comes a trade every offseason where people are confused,” shortstop Bobby Crosby says. “Then, you see the guys we got, and nobody’s confused. … Billy’s going to make us good. The guy knows what he’s doing.”

Says Beane: “That’s the stimulating part about being here—the challenges we face year after year. It’s sort of creating something from scratch, which we feel we’ve had to do for a number of years, and seeing it grow.”

Not all of Beane’s trades work out—the deal in which he sent standout pitcher Tim Hudson to Atlanta netted three players who essentially did nothing. Still, Beane has earned a level of trust in the East Bay, mostly because the A’s weathered the departures of stars such as Hudson, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and Barry Zito. In this latest round of trades in December and January, fans wondered if Beane had given up on the 2008 season after he jettisoned Haren and Swisher. (And the fans let him know it in pointed letters.) Yet, Beane acknowledges there’s a level of open-mindedness and acceptance in the Bay Area, with its history of business innovation, that works to his advantage.

Meanwhile, as the 49ers and Raiders languish in the pro football netherworld, the Warriors emerge from their long hibernation, and the Giants sag under the residue of the Barry Bonds era, the A’s keep humming along. They had a streak of eight consecutive winning seasons before last year, and they followed the tumultuous offseason by playing unexpectedly well through the first three months of this season. And Beane keeps mixing it up—in early July, he pulled off a major coup by signing highly coveted 16-year-old Dominican prospect Michael Inoa with a $4.25 million signing bonus. Less than a week later Beane was at it again, trading the talented but oft-injured A’s fireballer Rich Harden, along with pitcher Chad Gaudin, to the Chicago Cubs for a package of young prospects.

On October 1, 2000, as the A’s beat Texas to clinch the American League West title, Beane walked along the beach in Alameda, trying to enjoy a sunny day by the Bay. He couldn’t bear to stay at the ballpark, where his emotion and intensity would overwhelm him as he watched such an important game.