MVN: Most Valuable Network

The Oakland A's made the Matt Holliday trade official on Wednesday, two days after the details of the trade became known. A lot has been written about the trade over the past two days, and the reaction to the deal has been mixed, to say the least.

In summary, the A's have traded roughly 15 years of service from Huston Street, Greg Smith and Carlos Gonzalez for what is expected to be one year of service from Matt Holliday. While there is no question that Holliday is the best player involved in this deal from a talent perspective, the years of service question certainly gives many people pause when analyzing this deal, particularly those who have bought into the A's way of building a team over the past few years (i.e., gathering up young, cost-controlled players).

What the A's are receiving in this deal is probably easier to quantify than what they are giving up. Holliday is an established player and while there is always some risk that his stats will suffer with the league switch and the home park switch, he is a pretty sure bet to put up solid offensive numbers (an 860 OPS or higher).

What the A's are giving up is harder to evaluate. Street, when you look at his career numbers, appears to be a dominant reliever. However, when you look at the injuries he has sustained over the past few years and the decline in his performance last season, it is harder to assess whether Street is the pitcher of his first three seasons, or the guy with the declining fastball we saw for much of last season. Given the A's growing collection of young, effective relievers, Street's loss -- even if he does return to form -- may not be felt that greatly by the team.

The same is likely true for Greg Smith. As much as Smith was an anchor for the A's rotation early in the season, by season's end, the walks and homeruns were starting to catch up with the Louisiana product. His stuff has never been described as great, and while he has always made it work despite not having an overpowering fastball thanks to his pitching smarts and sheer competitiveness, it seemed by the end of the year that the league was starting to catch on to Smith's pitching style (nibbling at the corners). Given the offensive firepower in the AL, it is understandable why Smith wasn't all that eager to challenge hitters regularly. He may fare better in the NL, where the offenses are a little weaker, and he is moving into a favorable division for his pitching style, although his home park might be a challenge.

From the A's perspective, though, trading Smith is not a big risk given the sheer volume of young pitching talent (especially left-handed pitching talent) they have in their ranks, Dana Eveland, Gio Gonzalez, Dallas Braden, Josh Outman, Brett Anderson, to name a few of those lefties. Young pitching always has a value, but you also only have five spots in your rotation, and there is an argument to be made that the A's even now have five pitchers who are likely to pitch at least as well, if not better, than Smith projects to next season (Eveland, Gonzalez, Sean Gallagher, Justin Duchscherer and Dallas Braden).

Carlos Gonzalez is the biggest risk for Oakland in this trade, although the A's were once again trading from an area of strength in dealing a young outfielder because the team has plenty of those. It remains to be seen, however, how the young outfielders the A's currently have will ultimately match-up with the career that Gonzalez will have. Carlos, for certain, has the potential to be a super-star in the big leagues. However, there are plenty of players who never reach their top potential. The A's used to have a theory that plate discipline was something that a player couldn't learn, but rather had to always have. If they still ascribe to that theory, then it seems likely that they feel that Gonzalez will never reach that potential. His inability to lay-off of breaking pitches was badly exposed in August of last season, and it remains to be seen whether or not he can fix that flaw in his game. Terrence Long never did, but there are certainly other hitters who have improved in that area. However, one thing is certain: if Gonzalez continued in 2009 to look as lost at he did last August, his trade value for Oakland would have been dramatically reduced next off-season (for a reference point, you can see what happened to the trade value of Lastings Milledge in one year when he struggled some in 2007). So the A's are taking a risk here that they are selling high on Gonzalez.

One could make the argument that while the A's certainly could afford to trade away these three players, it made little sense for Oakland to trade them for a player who isn't likely to be with the team beyond one year. As observers of the A's way of doing things over the past 10 years, we have become used to the idea that it is always better to have younger players than it is to have experienced players on the verge of free agency, even if those experience players are better players. I think that theory works very well when you are putting together a core of your team. However, a team without any superstars is a team that isn't likely to win.

The past two years, the A's have had their core of young players, but they haven't had any superstars to help that core succeed. All of the A's playoff teams over the past 10 years have included at least one star in nearing free agency: 2000-2001, it was Jason Giambi and later Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye; in 2002-2003, it was Miguel Tejada, Keith Foulke, Ray Durham, David Justice, Eric Chavez; in 2006, it was Barry Zito, Milton Bradley and, of course, Frank Thomas. Since Thomas and Zito left and Bradley was traded, the A's have been without any veteran stars (unless you could Eric Chavez and Rich Harden, but their injuries all but negated their impact on the team the past two seasons).

Adding a veteran superstar who has been to the World Series should only help the A's younger players develop. Baseball players are like sponges. They absorb so much information and feed off of one another. I'm sure having Todd Helton around the Rockies all of these years helped Matt Holliday develop as a player, and Matt Holliday should help Travis Buck, Ryan Sweeney and Daric Barton develop in a similar way. In addition, having a hitter like Holliday in the line-up allows the A's to place the rest of their hitters in spots that are more suited to their skills. There will be no more Kurt Suzuki or Ryan Sweeney hitting third next season. And if Eric Chavez is healthy, a middle of the line-up featuring Jack Cust, Holliday and then Chavez should be pretty potent. For the pitchers, there should be a psychological lift, as well, as they will start games knowing that there is someone in their line-up who can do some damage and that they might not have to be perfect in order to win the game, something that couldn't be said last season. Manny Ramirez seemingly had this impact on the Dodgers last season.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, one of the biggest parts of the A's philosophy that is often missed by the media is that they strongly believe winning breeds winning. They work very hard to develop a winning culture in the minor leagues on the theory that winning allows players to develop good habits. Although I think the tear-down of the A's roster over the past two seasons was necessary, it did put the A's in the position of being a losing team for the first time since 1998. The A's are in danger of having their entire core develop at the major league level in an atmosphere of losing. While that isn't necessarily a death-knell for an organization, it does run the danger of becoming a habit after a team runs a few losing seasons in a row out there.

Matt Holliday alone does not make the A's a playoff team, and it may not even guarantee them a winning season next year. However, on paper at least, it seems that the A's are already a better team than they were in 2008, which gives them hope of a winning record, given they were just seven games off of that pace. And if the A's supplement the Holliday trade with one or two other moves to upgrade the big league roster, Oakland will be giving itself a legitimate chance to compete for the first time since 2006. Given the fluid nature of the league and the success of a few losing-to-first-place teams over the past few years (Tampa Bay and the Chicago White Sox, to name two from last year), it is worth the shot for Oakland to take this risk, even if it isn't a sure bet to succeed. They have to depth to recover if the trade doesn't net them anything more than prospects or two draft picks and the financial flexibility to handle the salary increase. If the trade does lead to a shot at the playoffs, then I think that it will be more than worth it for the overall development of the organization.