Oakland Athletics - All-Decade 2000-09

The Oakland Athletics from the 2000's (the decade, not the millennium) were famous for achieving success thanks to general manager Billy Beane's shrewd reimagining of player evaluation and exploiting market inefficiencies, as chronicled in the book (and the film) Moneyball. However, the A's of that time period are better remembered by us fans for their failure to get out of the first round of the playoffs - the club lost in the ALDS four years in a row to start this decade (three times as AL West champions, once as the wild card team behind the historic 2001 Mariners). Here's how the A's's all-decade roster looked, arranged by games per position (for the most part), with years active with the team displayed to the right.

Third baseman Eric Chavez is one of those rare birds who played the same position for the same team in every year of the decade in question - there are only 13 such players in this entire project - and his longevity helped him finish his career in 20th place finish on the team's all-time Wins Above Replacement leaderboard (with the majority of the players in front of him plying their trade in the 1920's and 30's). Chavvy's blend of a potent lefty power bat (he averaged 22 home runs per season in the decade, even factoring in his largely lost 2008-09 seasons) and tremendous left side defense (he won six Gold Gloves in a row from 2001-06) resulted in him receiving the largest contract in team history: six years and $66 million, a mark which will surely be shattered if/when the A's approach an extension with their current superstar third baseman, but that's a problem for the next all-decade team. Next up in total games played for the club is second baseman Mark Ellis, who might have approached the 1,000 game plateau had he not missed all of 2004 due to a shoulder injury. The A's of this decade split shortstop fairly evenly between Miguel Tejada and Bobby Crosby (who put up nearly 600 games at the position), but it's no question which of the two has the more electric, even though his accomplishments (including a 2002 AL MVP award) are potentially tainted due to steroid allegations. Sticking with the infield, and with divided positions, catcher Ramon Hernandez is the clear leader in games behind the plate, but it's worth mentioning that former Pirates star Jason Kendall (368 games) finished a close second. Despite his middling performance in his four seasons with the A's, Scott Hatteberg perhaps best embodies the Moneyball philosophy of making the most of unexpected assets - in this case, turning an oft-injured backup catcher into a decent hitting first baseman.

As with the AL West rival Angels, I had to do some positional manipulation to make sure the most representative players were included in this all-decade lineup (as evidenced by the large discrepancies between games at a particular position and overall games played), but luckily this was limited to the outfield/DH mix. The one bit of stability on the grass was Mark Kotsay, who became the face of Moneyball Phase II, when cheap on-base percentage was replaced by cheap speed-and-defense. Next on the depth chart for games played strictly at center field is Terrence Long, with a little under 350, but if you combine those with his 137 in left and 102 in right, the Rookie of the Year runner-up in the year 2000 was actually the A's most frequently-appearing all-decade outfielder. The player who had the most games in RF alone is power hitting righty Jermaine Dye, who came over to the A's in a mid-2001 deal with the Royals, but only totaled 385 games with the team. Left field belongs to Eric Byrnes, who is known more for his high energy, borderline reckless play than for his ability to take consistently good routes to fly balls in the outfield. Similar to the right field situation, going by games played at designated hitter alone would give the spot to Erubiel Durazo (292), one of Beane's most sought-after acquisition targets. But when you add up all of Jack Cust's appearances across DH, LF, and RF, the three-true-outcomes specialist is the clear best candidate for the nod here.

While not nearly as formidable as Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz, the A's had their own vaunted "Big Three" in the early part of this decade - and what's more, they were all three drafted and developed by the Oakland organization. Lefty Barry Zito had the longest tenure with the team, as he was the only one who was not traded before he hit free agency. Known for his big curveball and his prowess with the guitar, Zito lands 24th on the all-time list of Athletics players by WAR, a tenure that included three All-Star nods and the 2003 AL Cy Young award. Sinkerballer Tim Hudson landed two spots ahead of Zito on the A's all-time WAR leaderboard, despite 60 fewer starts, as the Georgia native would go on to pitch the latter half of the decade with his hometown Braves. Big lefty Mark Mulder had the shortest overall career of the three, possibly stemming from overuse in his mid-20's: after his last two seasons with the A's, in which he led the league with nine and five complete games, he only managed one full season after that following a trade to the Cardinals. Another homegrown A's pitcher, Joe Blanton, logged some decent innings for the club, although his highest profile work came for the Phillies during the 2008 World Series following a midseason trade. Rounding out the rotation is Dan Haren, Billy Beane's main return in the above-mentioned Mark Mulder trade, although it's worth mentioning that a pitcher with a remarkably similar last name - Rich Harden - missed a spot by just about 10 starts.

The Athletics' ability to develop strong pitchers in this decade extended to the bullpen, as Huston Street held down the ninth inning for the majority of the decade, lending some stability to the position after a string of quality one-off seasons from Billy Koch, Keith Foulke, and Octavio Dotel (who was technically a 1.5-off). The Texan with the wide-stepping windup ended up being traded to the Rockies for Matt Holliday, who hated his half-year in green and gold so much that he infamously negotiated a one-team no-trade clause when he signed with the Yankees, ensuring that he would never end up in Oakland again. The overall leader in pitching appearances over the decade (by a four-game margin), Chad Bradford was such an extreme submarine pitcher that it wasn't uncommon to see his knuckles scrape the mound as he delivered a pitch. It's inspiring that Jim Mecir was able to have the career he did, given that he was born with two club feet, but perhaps the birth defect allowed him to increase the spin on his screwball. It's always nice to have a left hander among your top relievers, and Ricardo Rincon exemplified the role of lefty specialist over his career (157 innings in 223 games with the A's). Justin Duchscherer deserves a spot in this bullpen based on relief appearances alone, but his importance to the team only increases when you add in the 25 times he took the mound as the starter.