On Wednesday, the Oakland Athletics announced that they selected the contract of Barry Zito from Triple-A Nashville, bringing back one of the more colorful players in the history of a franchise which has a large number of colorful personalities. Sure, Zito was a little out there, but he also was very successful during his stint with Oakland. Zito, along with Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder formed one of the most feared trio of starting pitchers over the last twenty years. Considering this is Hudson’s final year before he retires and Zito can’t have too many pitches left (Mulder’s final year was 2008), now would be an appropriate time to revisit a time when Oakland dominated its division with Moneyball, on-base percentage, and oh yeah, stellar starting pitching.
The Oakland A’s of the late eighties and early nineties was an American League powerhouse. Their accomplishments are impressive – three straight pennants (1988-1990), one World Championship, and 306 wins in that three season stretch and another trip to the ALCS in 1992. The A’s did with power (Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Dave Henderson), speed (Ricky Henderson), pitching (Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley) and a great manager (Tony LaRussa). Oh yeah, steroids by the truckload helped too, but that’s neither here nor there.
During the mid-90s, the A’s started a downward trend toward mediocrity and once ownership changed in 1995, so did the cash pool from which to pay top talent. Therefore the big names gradually left and with it, wins. After general manager Sandy Alderson left to work in the commissioner’s office in 1998, his protege and assistant GM Billy Bean took over the financially-limited franchise. Beane immediately took the Moneyball principles that Alderson had tutored him on and began building a consistent winner despite being a small market team.
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