those were all some great points...

with all the success the big 3 had, it makes you feel like if you break them up to try and get younger, more offensive and cheaper, then you're breaking the formula that got you three western division championships...

...on the other hand, the big 3 never got us to the second round of the playoffs, so maybe it's time to start over and see if mulder, zito and harden can do so.

It's common sense.  And what's more, Billy Beane agrees.  He has said more than once that his vaunted "genius" has an awful lot to do with the presence of Hudson, Mulder and Zito.

I've been making a similar argument, advancing my own disappointment at any Hudson trade - because it basically eliminates the A's as a serious pennant contender in 2005 and rings down the curtain on an era that produced tremendous talent from the minor leagues without getting past the first round of the playoffs.

Without an extraordinary influx of cheap, young talent from the late 1990s drafts, the A's are not a winning team.  Even some of Beane's best trades only added to that nucleus, much of which is now gone or apparently on its way out the door.  

That said, Beane doesn't set the budget.  His remark about giving him another $50 million and he'd beat the Red Sox was ill-timed but almost certainly accurate.  He certainly would have put together a team that got past the ALDS.

Luck or not, if we had been drafting only high school pitchers with a tools-oriented philosophy, we would never have drafted the Big Three. You can call it luck, but at least Billy Beane put us in a position where it was more likely for luck to shine down on us. It's all about playing the odds, and Beane has done that quite well.

Who was the man who drafted Hudson and Zito

remember it was beane who started drafting more polished college players than other teams, and if i recall correctly Zito was drafted by texas but they wldnt cough up 50k more i think so he went to USC and the rest is history..so luck and preparation are always imperative

A Good BA is .333.  A good OBA is .400.  Yet you seem to suggest that unless BB is closer to .800, his method has more to do with luck in having the Big Three than anything else.

I don't think Hatteberg, Durazo, or Dye were overvalued.  But it was luck (bad luck) that Jermaine broke his leg and lost virtually two years of his career to the rehab --those things you can't plan on.

And the money not spent on Tejada was also not spent on Giambi.  Was that a bad decision?  Let's see how Miguel is doing in three years.

And given one's view of the farm system, who would you be more likely to let go?  jason or miguel.  With the next ROY in the wings, you can't fault that, on Moneyball or any other grounds.

Moneyball is all about finding an edge where other people don't see one.  That's all.  Its about trying to improve the averages a little bit in your favor so that over a long season you win a few more games, enough to make the play-offs.

It's about looking at what you have, and building from there.  Getting Kendall cannot be judged except in the context of Miller leaving, having an albatross in Rhodes and an unneeded 5th starter in Redman.  We got Kotsay for Hernandez last year -- that was a great trade (and it got rid of TLong), but was it Moneyball?  Maybe in the sense it had for outfield defense, but overall it was a great baseball move.

As for drafting, I don't think BB ever claimed that he invented drafting college players, or that it somehow started in the Moneyball draft year.  Again, it was a function of gaining an edge, under the circumstances his employer is in.  

The A's have been playing Moneyball for a long time -- they were one of the first teams into the Dominican Republic -- see M Tejada; The Haas family started the tradition of developing talent through the farm system.

Christ, its more than one man, one family, one generation.  What other team has been consistently one way for most of its history -- from Connie Mack to Charlie Finley to Billy Beane.

Dinger

Eck those are all very valid points.  I have a lot of respect for Beane, but the truth is that his value will not be fully realized until he is able to make the A's competive without the big three.  The one constant that he has had is three pitchers who will give you >15 wins a season and one will always push for 20.  Who has that?  As much as I love Hudson and  hate the thought of seeing him go, if Beane can continue to cycle players throught the organization and still give them a shot to win every year, he is the real deal (the Coach K of the NCAA).  If it does not come this year, it will certainly come next............the big three will be broken and all eyes will be on Beane.  He will either be genious or his success will forever be tied to the big three.  Let's hope for the former.