Defensive Indifference

If you hadn’t already figured it out, the week from Christmas to New Year’s Day is officially the slowest week in the baseball world. It’s the only sport truly in the midst of its offseason. Finally, there’s something interesting to report, though. The A’s are officially in rebuilding mode.

Billy Beane followed up the Dan Haren trade by sending slugger Nick Swisher to the White Sox for three prospects, including pitcher Gio Gonzalez, who led the minors in strikeouts last season.

The Swisher deal is a minor surprise because there weren’t a lot of rumors with his name in them. It was always Haren and fellow pitcher Joe Blanton that everyone assumed Beane would move, but really we should have seen this coming. By trading Oakland’s best pitcher Haren, who is under contract for a few more seasons, Mr. Moneyball committed to a complete rebuilding effort — that means anyone with high value and especially guys like Swisher, who are still cost-controlled but about to get a lot more expensive as they become arbitration eligible, are good candidates to get moved. That’s the major takeaway for me. After the jump, more thoughts on the deal and the potential end of Moneyball.

Billy Beane is stockpiling young talent and replenishing his farm system with hope that the A’s can be serious contender by 2010 when they move from Alameda County to Fremont. It’s an interesting choice because once the Tigers got Miguel Cabrera (and by extension the Angels didn’t), the A’s became AL West contenders with Haren and Swisher. I wouldn’t have made them the favorites, but the LAA are far from flawless and Oakland was ravaged by injuries last season. With better health and a little but of luck the A’s could have won the AL West in 2008. But Beane recognized, correctly in my opinion, that that team (the one that could have contended this season) didn’t have much of a future beyond this season, or much chance of seriously contending for a World Series title, and instead opted for a three-to-five-year run of contention when the new park opens in 2010.

That means you can expect Huston Street, Joe Blanton and maybe Justin Duchscherer to get moved in the next month or so for anything young and of value. None of those three will likely net a prospect as polished as Gio Gonzalez, but Beane’s meme, at least based on the Haren trade seems to tilt a little more toward the quantity end of the spectrum instead of the quality end. That’s probably the right tact when you’re looking years into the future. A couple of other random thoughts on the deal:

• What’s Chicago’s plan with Swisher, especially after acquiring Carlos Quentin earlier this winter? The White Sox signed Jermaine Dye to a long-term deal this summer and while Swisher can play center, he’s stretched there. That leaves Quentin without a position. Obviously Swisher isn’t going to play first base or DH with Paul Konerko and Jim Thome already on hand. The obvious thought is that perhaps Quentin will be moved again, perhaps in a deal for a real center fielder. All in all, though, it might not be a bad idea to hold onto Quentin. Dye, Konerko and Thome are all health risks to varying degrees and it’s easy to envision Quentin getting 400 plate appearances filling in all over the place. On the other hand, Quentin HAS to get at least that many plate appearances. He can’t be jerked around like he was in Arizona or his development might be irreparably harmed.
• The White Sox have now what I’d call an interesting team. It’s going to be tough going for them in the AL Central, but if they can get a center fielder I can see them hanging around in the wild-card race like the Mariners did last season. On the other hand, the window is closing for this team and its success still depends on a core of older players, especially Thome and Konerko. There isn’t a bright future on the South Side, especially after this trade, because an already poor farm system was partially gutted and lost its best prospect.
• Are we witnessing the end of Moneyball? By that I don’t mean Billy Beane’s philosophy about running a baseball team, but I mean the actual characters drafted and profiled in the book. Swisher, who was one of the only players coveted both by Beane and all other teams was part of that infamous 2002 draft class and was easily the most successful member of the bunch and he’s gone. Joe Blanton, who was the second of seven first-round picks by the A’s that season after Swisher seems like a virtual lock to be moved this winter too. Mark Teahen, the only other major leaguer of significance from that draft is long gone, traded as part of the three-way deal that sent Octavio Dotel to Oakland and Carlos Beltran to Houston in 2004. Jeremy Brown, the stocky unathletic catcher who received most of the attention in Michael Lewis’ book is going to be 29 at the end of next season and has 11 major league plate appearances to his name.

SEXY UPDATE: Apparently Kenny Williams’ initial plan is to play Swisher in center … whatever. Take that with the appropriately enormous-sized grain of salt.