The A’s are insane, delightful

It’s that time of year where the pointy-headed dorks start telling you why teams aren’t as good as their record. Check out these Oakland A’s, for example. They’re 30-16, which is absurd. So it’s probably better to look at their Pythagorean won-loss record, which is based on the number of runs they’ve scored and allowed. This will lead us to the truth about the A’s. What should their record be?

33-13

Oh.

Oh, my.

The A’s are winning like a 106-win team right now, but they’re playing like a 116-win team. They won on Wednesday night with three runs on one hit. It’s time to give up. The sequel to Moneyball is going to be two hours of reporters asking Brad Pitt what his secret is, with him giggling like a leprechaun and throwing smoke pellets. The A’s are magic. They make no sense, unless you accept they can create good players out of sticks and mud. Here’s a look at some of their more ridiculous success stories.

On the Just Take This Guy scale, no one was a purer 10 than Moss. After getting 385 at-bats with the Pirates in 2009, Moss was buried in Triple-A, where he hit .266 with a .330 on-base percentage. He was removed from the Pirates’ 40-man roster and became a minor-league free agent, joining up with the Phillies. He got six at-bats with them and was a free agent again after 2011. He was 28.

After a promising season in Low-A, he was ranked the #72 prospect in baseball by Baseball America, but he quickly slid off the list. He didn’t have the purest prospect pedigree and he didn’t have the stats. He was depth. Did the A’s get lucky, or did they see something worth polishing?

Yes. At least, that’s my guess. Both are true. The secret of the A’s isn’t that they can correctly identify the raw talent of every Brandon Moss that comes across the waiver wire; it’s that they can make one out of every five work. Get the chunks of ore and don’t sweat the Chris Carters or Nate Freimans who don’t turn into stars.

Donaldson isn’t a true Just Take This Guy All-Star -- he was something of a short-season sensation before the A’s traded a bag of assorted Rich Harden parts for him -- but he’s worth pointing out for a couple reasons. First, he was mostly unimpressive as a 25-year-old in Triple-A, hitting .261/.344/.439 in a league that averaged .286/.359/.448. He was a catcher, so those numbers weren’t awful, but it’s not like he was kind of hitter you could look at and think, “Well, move him out from behind the plate and he’ll be an MVP candidate.”

Second, as a 26-year-old on the fringes of the major-league roster, Donaldson started his season one of the worst 50-PA stretches in major-league history, hitting .082/.080/.102. That’s four hits and no walks in 50 plate appearances, with 16 strikeouts. After a 3-for-4 performance against the Giants, he hit .178/.196/.222 over his next 13 games before being demoted again. He did well in Triple-A (.901 OPS) after he was called up for good, but how many managers and organizations would have completely buried him after that start?

Or, to put it more directly: Do you think the Royals would have still have been on the Josh Donaldson train? After looking like he was using an uncooked breadstick at the plate, the A’s still brought him up, still reinserted him into the lineup, still made plans with him as a part of next year’s roster. That, after a mostly lackluster minor-league career and abysmal start to his major-league career. The A’s secret formula is probably nothing more than making the right evaluations and then trusting themselves.

Oh, come on. The only things suggesting he could succeed as a starter were 23 starts in Triple-A. He had a 3.98 for the Blue Jays’ affiliate in Las Vegas -- think Coors Field without the humidor -- before they sold him to the A’s. Blue Jays fans were crushed.

It’s like the King James Bible says, “The unliked comment is often the path to truth, verily.” The only thing that Chavez had going for him as a starter was preternatural control, which he lost when transitioning to the bullpen in the majors. Still, the A’s looked at that and said, yep, starter. Put him in the rotation, we’re only expecting to make the playoffs.

Any team could have had him when he was waived by the Royals. Any team could have paid more sweet cash to get him from the Blue Jays. Now he’s one of the better starters in the league. Okay.

Encarnacion was on the A’s for about three weeks in 2010, and he was given the Book of Oakland Athletics Secrets. When he was non-tendered, he ate the book before the A’s could get it back. Now he’s good again. Moral of the story: Eat the things you find on your desk the next time you’re laid off because they might make you a millionaire.

Just give it a couple months.

The A’s are probably the best team in baseball, and I’m done trying to figure them out. Here are A’s fans yelling at me for picking the Rangers before the season started. They were right. I was wrong. I’ll need to see two straight seasons of bad A’s baseball before I doubt them again.

As long as they can take guys like Moss, Donaldson, and Chavez and turn them into stars, we probably won’t get that chance.