A"s trade Scott Kazmir, almost certainly more to come: The truths about Billy ...

Ill make this fast, which means Im largely culling from my own comments the last few hours on Twitter, right after the As announced theyd traded pending free agent Scott Kazmir to Houston for two prospects, which we all assume is only the start of the As deals

For a while, I wondered if GM Billy Beane would hold onto Kazmir, Ben Zobrist and Tyler Clippard through this season and then let them walk as free agents and use the compensatory picks to restock the system.

But then I started looking at the As drafts over the last decade or so and it became clear that the As just havent fared so well in the draft and maybe Beane would figure out hes better off trading for prospects on other teams.

Which has started now. Its understandable; but it has started.

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With Beane its always a two-way play, under the demands of the Lew Wolff/John Fisher payroll limits: Beane tries to compete now while also maintaining flexibility for later.

It is not easy. Nobody would say its easy. I certainly dont think its at all easy and I have praised Beane frequently for his ability to keep the As in contention as often as he does with a payroll this low.

The payroll is not his fault. He has worked some magic to keep it going this long.

ButBeane didnt get it right this seasontrading Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss and a few others added some depth to the roster but it took off some of the top talent and we have seen the results.

That happens and hes allowed to be criticized for it. This is all so very tricky to do consistently with a bottom-rung payroll and again, Beane does it better than anybody else who has ever tried.

But back to the draft

When you look at this franchise since the monster-talent days of Giambi-Tejada-Chavez-Zito-Mulder-Hudson the real hole in the As current tool box is the dearth of controllable system products on their major-league roster.

You know, theres another franchise that has done pretty well lately with drafted playersBuster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Joe Panik, Brandon Belt

But the As havent hit on anything like that kind of rate in the draft. Not close. So thats one reason Im sure Beane chose to cash in for other teams prospects now instead of counting on hitting in the draft.

You sort of want to be able to hit in the draft, though. Ive cited the Giants. But why is Houston better than the As now and for the foreseeable future? A ton of controllable system products contributing now.

And heres the sum total of players on the As current active roster that they drafted: Sonny Gray.

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(Sean Doolittle is on the disabled list.)

Yes, the As have traded prospects for Zobrist, Jeff Samardzija last year and others, and theres definitely value in that.

But on a low-payroll team, if you can draft stars you keep them if possible. Its obviously the best way to acquire stars who stick around for any length of time, if youre a low payroll team.

So instead of drafting them, Beane has to go through the churn of constantly trying to trade for young players tomeet a need the draft isnt filling.

Hes very good at it. In fact, I think I mightve told him myself that hes better at evaluating players in other systems than he is in drafting his own players.

But you dont get guys like Posey or Carlos Correa or Kris Bryant or Giancarlo Stanton very often in any way other than the draft.

Beane had one of the mega-prospectsAddison Russell, drafted in 2012, but then he flipped him for Samardzija and Jason Hamel last year when he was going for it all.

I had no problem with that. Didnt work out, though.

Really, the As are trying to compete with the big payrolls every year and they often do it; its a very tough needle to thread, but it works best when you draft your own stars.

So the As have a low payroll and will have a low payroll for as long as Wolff and Fisher own the team. Thats the truth.

And the best values on such a team are young players. The best way to accumulate them is via the draft.

If you cant consistently do it through the draft, its a wild scramble to replicate that in other ways, and the As low payroll already forces Beane and his staff to scramble madly, anyway.

That can get chaotic and it always is.

Source: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami/2015/07/23/as-trade-scott-kazmir-almost-certainly-more-to-come/