Since Billy pulled the trigger on rebuilding the team, let's look to the past when perhaps the A's should have pulled the trigger and did not. The end results were dismal.

1976, the beginning of the free agency market. Charlie Finley, refusing to deal with his players, or free agents lets his star players abandon ship. Except for Billy North, and Vida Blue all new faces appear in the lineup in 1977. An empty farm system forces Finley to trade what he had, which was not much, including Manager Chuck Tanner to Pittsburg for a handful of prospects. Rick Langford, Tony Armas, Mitchell Page. Who ever heard of trading a manager and a catcher? But that trade worked well in the long run. However we were at the bottom of the division with the triple A's as they were called. The next three years were awful, leading to a 108 loss season in 1979. Soon under new management they got better, but only temporary.
  Then 1987 the Bash Brother era where we hit another high spot, but as the prospects were traded away for players to get over the hump, the system was depleted. They did not pull the trigger in time, and the mid to late 90's plain stunk. As painful as it is to see favorites leave I think it is better to be pro-active than reactive as Finley was. Just being a fan, as we all are we have to take the good with the bad.