1970s Oakland A's: Greatest baseball team ever?

C'mon it's a lot more than the teams they played for. Smith was a glorified journeyman. He played for eight teams. After his Cubs days he was a placeholder at closer. In two playoff series he had a 8.44 ERA.

Rivera has an 0.80 ERA in 112 2/3 postseason innings. Read that again: ZERO POINT EIGHTY earned run average in MORE THAN 100 INNINGS...more than 100 pressure-packed innings. Unbelievable.

If he's not a Hall of Famer--diluted save stat and all--close the place down.

 

The 1971-75 A's were a team you had to see to really appreciate. That they didn't have the star power of the Big Red Machine and won three straight World Series is a point in their favor, in my opinion. They had an incredible knack for scoring more runs than they allowed. They were always middle of the pack in batting average (6th in '72, 6th in '73, 11th in '74), yet they were at or near the top in runs scored (2nd-1st-3rd).

They fought amongst themselves, argued publicly with their owner and many of them disliked their manager (through '73, anyway). Yet they were legitimate World Series champions each year.

As a non-A's fan, I have as much respect for those teams as the Big Red Machine, the '96-2000 Yankees, and the '27 Yankees for that matter. The numbers/honors, etc. don't do them justice.

 

I have no idea why this has stuck in my head all this time, but 20-odd years ago, when MTV was making its first-ever attempts to do something besides music, they had on an "edgy" comedy skit show.

One of the skits featured a scrabbly, misanthropic guy (looked like Shane MacGowan, and had the brogue too) who lived in a ship and hated how people just kept yammerin' all the time about every little thing.

So he settled the Two Big Questions. I forget what the first was (maybe "Does God Exist?") but the second answer was "And the grrrreatest baseball team of all time.....was the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. So everybody -- SHUT THE HELL UP!!"

So there's one vote on the matter.

 

That might be one of the the dumbest things I've ever read.

In 1972 they won seven more games than the next-best team in the AL. They then won the World Series without their best player, a Hall of Famer

In 1973 they won three fewer games than Baltimore, but then defeated the O's in the playoffs, and won the World Series.

In 1974 they won one fewer game than Baltimore, but again beat Baltimore in the playoffs and won the world series in five games.

In each year, they were the best team in their division. Proved it on the field.
In each year, they were the best team in their league. Proved it on the field.
In each year, they were the best team in baseball. Proved it on the field.

Any questions?

 

A West Coast team will never be acknowledged as the best at anything. East Coast bias is the law of the land.

 

Yes, American and National.

I think that's how the game works, yes. The team that wins the World Series gets the rings and is considered to be the best team in baseball that year. Especially if the team that beats the best team the other league can offer does so without even using its best position player.

 

Not a question of being "too cheap," more a matter of having a payroll already bloating from Griffey, Buhner, Randy Johnson and Edgar Martinez. Non-Yankee franchises have to make choices. The Mariners still had the No. 8 payroll in MLB the year after Tino was gone.

Cashman and company obviously do a good job of running baseball operations. There was a time when the Yankees pissed away their FA money on players like Dave Collins. But they also have the luxury of buying out their mistakes. You say Carl Pavano is a $10 million disaster? Well, we'll just sign Roger Clemens to replace him. Other teams make a bad decision with a starter and they're reduced to trying to squeeze something out of Mark Redman or some other junkpile find.

There's no question the Yankees aren't playing by the same rules everyone else is. They threw away more money on Drew Henson than some teams will spend on two years of drafting.

 

Oh, I never denied the Yankees have more room for error. But they didn't have to outbid the field for a lot of the role players they got during the dynasty years.

As for the M's cheaping out by not re-signing Tino I guess that's hindsight speaking. Paul Sorrento put up pretty comparable numbers in 1996.

 

That is an unbelievable stat. Wow. Just wow.

 

byh - i simply was saying the yankees were able to get these guys because they had/have very deep pockets. these "trades" were about as close to free agency as it gets.

 

Concepcion has averaged 60 Hall of Fame votes over the last 14 years. Hardly a groundswell, but still better than the 14 votes Campaneris mustered in his one-and-done year on the ballot.

 

He was a good player, but how much did Concepcion benefit from playing on the turf at Riverfront 81 times a year?

Always thought Campaneris was a fine player, too.