Oakland Athletics: Billy Beane all-in for World Series

Billy Beane doesn’t need any sunglasses or hat in this poker game.  He is making his gamble straight forward while staring everyone dead in the eye.

Thursday’s MLB Trade Deadline was just more evidence that the Oakland Athletics general manager Beane isn’t just all-in, he is (as they say in the Bay Area) “hella” all-in.

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The gamble for a World Series title didn’t begin when the A’s traded for Jon Lester early Thursday morning or even when they traded for Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel on July 4.  It started during free agency in November, when Beane took his extra $20 million in payroll and went on a shopping spree.

But the trade for the two-time World Series winner Lester and Sam Fuld from the Twins was Beane tossing in the rest of his chips on the season.  After trading the A’s fan-favorite Yoenis Cespedes to bolster his starting rotation with Lester, Beane can either be the best general manager in the game at season’s end, or the biggest loser in the game at the season’s end.

Lester, one of the game’s best left-handed aces (10-7, 2.52 ERA) joins and even improves one of the best starting rotations in the American League while both Jonny Gomes (.234, 6 HR, 32 RBI with Boston) and Fuld (.274, 1 HR, 17 RBI with Minnesota) are expected to help produce runs with a consistent lineup in Oakland.

Although Gomes was underachieving with Boston, Beane is hoping that Gomes can return to his 2012 self where he hit .262 with Oakland, with 18 home runs and 47 RBI.  His .329 OBP is actually 26 points better than that of Cespedes (.303), the man he’s replacing in the Oakland outfield.

Don’t let the spending and high-stakes trading fool you, these are still the same Moneyball A’s where the first goal is to “get on base.”

This is the first time in a long, long time that the A’s were considered favorites for anything, let alone a World Series run. They are the best team in baseball going into the month of August and have been the best and most consistent team throughout the season.

At 66-41 entering the opening game of their weekend series against Kansas City, the A’s continue to boast the best record in baseball, four games better than the surging L.A. Dodgers who are beginning to run away with the National League West, winning six in a row.

Maybe we’ll see an A’s and Dodgers World Series like we had back in 1990?

That’s a definite maybe if the A’s can stay the course throughout these next two months leading into October.  In the 2012 season, the A’s were 35-21 in August and September and in 2013, they were 33-21 in those two months, meaning that a late season collapse, especially with this team, would be surprising.

Last year, en route to their second straight AL West pennant, the A’s rolled through September, going 19-8 in the month to finish the season. The A’s have won 94 and 96 wins in 2012 and 2013 respectively and are on pace to break the 100 win mark for the first time since 2002, when they won 103.  They’ve lost no more than four games in a row this year, a streak that hasn’t been revisited since late May.

Yet, regular season success will only mean anything if the Athletics can win the World Series, let alone win it, and to do that, they have to get through the postseason, something that has haunted the A’s throughout this millennium.

Since 2000, the A’s are 1-7 in postseason series with their only win to the ALCS coming in 2006 where Oakland was swept by (none other than) the Detroit Tigers (a team that they’re, once again, on course for an epic playoff series against).

While the A’s have made significant strides these past two and a half years to return to relevancy, Beane needs his moves to work this year and needs to get the A’s to the World Series for this season to mean anything.  The window is small for Oakland.  They have this year and maybe next year to win a ring before players get sold out again.

While it’s been fun watching the A’s get above the “50 feet of crap” that they were once under about a decade ago, they need to stay 50 feet above everyone else and the only way to do that is to lift the World Series trophy at the end of October.

Besides, who doesn’t want to see a World Series take place at O.Co Coliseum in Oakland?