Synopsis

Hello! I have recently been playing around with Historical games and its fun to get lost in the Wikipedia reading of past seasons. The most interesting part, isn't the that happened, but the near miss things that did not.

Enter the first in this series I am simming, of dynasties that weren't. Two other contenders were the 2004 Marlins and Yankees, and a third being the 77 Yankees.

The direction is simple, play with a team that is on the verge of a dynasty but a few things that did not go right or balls that bounced the wrong way putting halt to the dynasty in the making.

Real Life A's

The 2002 real life A's are one of the most famous teams in baseball history...but for the WRONG reasons.

Due to a small market and old stadium (an issue that continues to this day) ownership led by Stephen Schott, invested heavily in young players when they took over in 1995 and hired Billie Beane in 1998.

Ironically, Beane delivered greatly on this and doing what ownership asked. Schott wanted to prioritize pitching and the A's did so with the famous trio of Hudson, Mulder, and 2002 Cy Young winner Zito along with a great bullpen. They were young, cheap and darn good.

The team also had great young infielders such as 2000 AL MVP Jason Giambi, 2002 AL MVP Miquel Tejada, Eric Chavez, and traded for Johnny Damon in 2001. (ironically the team also had some great prospects, in Ellis, Harang, and a Nelson Cruz who was traded in 2004 after a great minor league year)

This was a GREAT team. In a 5 year period only the Yankees won more games...however the A's failed to win a playoff series.

After 2001 the A's started to lose these young players due to free agency which ownership expected

"I didn't spend a lot of time with them because eventually I knew they were going to move on," Schott said. "With free agency, it's difficult to keep players around for so long."

Wanting to still be competitive, Beane met Brand and "Moneyball" was born. The team was competitive, but did not win a world series, and many point out how the book/movie leave out the influence of already established players found by traditional scouting methods like those above.

Realizing perhaps baseball for them was not long term and for them, especially with no new stadium and a promise to past owners not to move the team, Schot and his partner sold the team in 2005, kicking off an even larger drout for the team as owners fought with the city for a new stadium.

Simulation A's

Owners caved and sold the team a few later anyways, so why not a few years early?

Instead of changing direction and "Revolutionizing" baseball...what if Beane was allowed to just keep doing what he was doing? Hind sight is 20/20 but he was clearly onto something. What if he had the support like the Texas Rangers and were willing to hand out the big bucks?

Enter Al Davis, who while has plenty of criticism's of his own, was always an involved owner and of course remembered by his famous "Just win Baby". Unafraid to spend money, here's the open check book Billie.

Davis' Raiders play in the A's stadium and so with being sick of "Sharing" a stadium along with operating with cheap A's ownership, Davis decides to step in and do it all himself. The Raiders and A's will win, bring in fans, and get the city to build a new state of the art stadium for his winning and beloved teams to share.

Changes via Editor

Al Davis as owner, duh. Budget raised rom $37M to $100M, this is Spend Moneyball afterall.

Giamit, Damon, Isringhauser moved back to A's, again duh.

Traded for Alex Rodriguez, this may seem controversial, but I wanted a big X factor. A new owner wanting to win and spend money, outbidding Texas for A-Rod seemed like the way to go.

Goal

The goal is simple, keep fan interest high and just win baby.