The White Sox are in, the A’s are out, and everything is upside down

The White Sox are going for it. They’ve signed David Robertson for many years, many millions, and they’re going to acquire Jeff Samardzija from the A’s. It’s the white flag trade, except they’re using the flag to rappel down the face of the prison wall. They were a boring, shapeless franchise burdened with one of the most electric, watchable pitchers in baseball, and this offseason was supposed to be about sprinkling their remaining talented players around the league. Now they’re going for it.

The A’s were going for it. They traded a fan favorite with two years left on his deal for a mercenary with two months remaining. They exchanged their best prospect -- a dynamic, multi-tooled, middle-of-the-diamond joy -- for a pair of win-now pitchers. They survived a second-half collapse for the ages, only to get to a late-inning collapse for the ages. Still, they were young. The roster was affordable and cost-controlled. They had a young ace, and their best position player was locked up for the next four years. Now they were going for it.

There’s always the prestige, A’s fans. The pledge was accumulating all the talent. The turn was dealing it for sketchy middle-infield prospects. The prestige is ... Billy Butler. And others. Don’t minimize the others, though. Billy Beane is Clarence Worley and he has a) a wacky plan and b) something to prove. Don’t minimize the others until you see who they are. There could still be a prestige.

Still, this is the tale of two franchises with two wholly different strategies this offseason. There’s a lot of offseason left, but the early returns suggest the two teams are heading in two different directions:

The White Sox are, indeed, going for it. They are not trading Alexei Ramirez. They are not going to give Dayan Viciedo away for free. They aren’t going to spackle a moderately priced Adam LaRoche over the hole in the roster and call it an offseason. They’re absolutely going for it.

It makes sense. They have respectable players on the roster, players who picked up MVP votes and Cy Young votes. The lineup is (mostly) under 30. The rotation has a bonafide ace, and -- assuming the trade for Samardzija goes through -- a nifty supporting cast. Their starting lineup features two players they absolutely stole (Adam Eaton, Conor Gillaspie), and their bullpen now features one of the very best closers in the game.

I would have paid cash money to be in the room when GM Rick Hahn made his pitch.

This team is close.

*PowerPoint slide*

We have one of the best five pitchers in the game.

*PowerPoint slide*

We have power, and we have speed.

*PowerPoint slide*

What we don’t have is money to get the crap we need.

Whatever he said, it worked. There’s a new first baseman. There’s a new #2. There’s a new closer. The White Sox will probably crack $100 million in payroll this year, which they probably should have been shooting for the whole time. For the last couple years, the White Sox were a kid banging away at an arcade game, pretending they were playing the title screen even though they never put in a quarter.

To what end? Well, the Tigers are shaky, considering that Max Scherzer might leave, Justin Verlander is Tim Lincecum, and THEY TRADED DOUG FISTER FOR NO GOOD REASON. They’re still the favorite in the division, mind you, even though the bullpen is Don Kelley, that guy with the hat, and those other people you don’t trust.

The Indians were a pleasant surprise last year, but they’re probably in the same could-maybe-dunno patch as the White Sox.

The Royals are a solid team, albeit without their best pitcher from the last two seasons. That stings. They have the bullpen, the speed, and most of the regulars. Like the teams above, they have strengths, flaws, some of the above, none of the above. They’re a surprise renaissance from Mark Quinn away from taking the whole thing, which is something you could write about every contending team in the Central.

The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball’s American League.^*.

This is an outstanding time to go for it. No clear winner. Lots of question marks. My only regret is that I didn’t think of this earlier and write a 2,000-word column in early November about how the White Sox should go for it. I was thinking about it in spirit, I assure you.

“Are they favorites?”, you might ask. They’re still third or fourth place, just eyeballing it. But it’s a close third- or fourth-place, the kind that could change with a surprise season or good fortune/health. They’ve done well for themselves this offseason.

One of the best Twitter accounts to follow for A’s fans is Ken Arneson’s. When news of the Samardzija deal broke -- less than a day after Brandon Moss was also traded for an underwhelming middle infielder who wouldn’t show up on any of the fancy top-100 lists before the season started, Arneson had questions.

All good points. All valid questions. When the A’s took risks with Dan Haren and Rich Harden, flipping them for prospects of some note, the A’s were in a funk. There was a point this past season when the A’s were clearly the best team in baseball, give or take. Cut to a couple months later, and they’ve exchanged their best player and a year of free agency for a lesser player. They’ve traded one of their biggest power threats for a solid-though-a-possible-utility-player prospect. They cashed in on one of their best trade chips before the dumb, rich teams could have a fistfight over the semi-ace scraps.

They also signed an aging DH to a three-year deal. Which is fine. If you’re not doing the other stuff up there.

Maybe Beane knows what he’s doing. Maybe he’s trying to beat Super Mario Bros. with his toes because he can and he’s bored. Maybe this is the best thing for 2016, without hurting 2015, and we’re all too myopic to see it. Maybe.

It sure seems like a disappointing return for what, for the moment, looks like a rebuilding year. There was an opportunity to ape the deal he made in July, too. Remember that prospect up there, Addison Russell? He was the shining light of the A’s system, a real bright spot. The only reason the A’s included him in a trade was because the Cubs were willing to exchange two solid-to-excellent starting pitchers for him. The Cubs bundled their assets. The A’s were hot for it.

Now imagine a rumor like this floating around:

What sort of prospects would a team give up for 12 percent of the A’s, including their best position player? It’s not like we can speculate with any authority, but instead of quantity, the A’s might have nabbed one of the best prospects out there and got the middle infield fill-ins they were looking for.

Or maybe instead of side-eyeing the trades as if I know a thing about Marcus Semien or Franklin Barreto other than what Google gives me, it’s the decision to blow up the team that should be questioned. Even if the A’s came away with 15 of the top 16 prospects on Baseball America’s top-100 list, what was wrong with the current A’s that couldn’t be fixed? According to runs scored/allowed, they were something close to a 99-win team last year. They won more than 90 games in the two seasons before that. They were a clean inning from Sean Doolittle and/or Dan Otero -- regular occurrences all season long -- from advancing in the playoffs. Donaldson was cheap. Moss wasn’t prohibitively expensive. Samardzija could have been traded in July, or the A’s could have taken the draft pick after he rejected their qualifying offer.

Instead, poof. I don’t get it, not without playing keyboard psychologist and wondering about the pulleys and winches inside Billy Beane’s head. Not without wondering what Lew Wolff’s response to this plan was, if it wasn’t his plan to start.

Not without wondering about Billy Butler.

Good for the White Sox, even if it’s a risk and they still aren’t the favorites in the division. Boo to the A’s, at least for now. I could see a Max Scherzer/A’s deal after all this, just to mess with us. That’s just how confusing their offseason has been. For now, though, all we know is that two AL teams made a trade late on Monday night, and it looks like they completed the deal as they passed each other on hotel escalators going in different directions. We weren’t expecting any of this.