Brandon Moss reflects on trade from A's and his good time in Oakland
For the past three years or so, Brandon Moss essentially was the Oakland A's.
A scrappy, underdog player overlooked by a handful of teams before suddenly becoming one of the A.L.'s premier power threats is a success story not unlike Billy Beane's 'surprise everyone and win the A.L. West two years in a row' script.
These circumstances made Beane's trading of Moss to the Cleveland Indians earlier this offseason a bit ... odd, even for his standards. Moss' story was the quintessential 'Moneyball' strategy played out, and he was loved by fans, teammates and the media alike.
But then again, Beane is known for his business-like attitude about trades. No player is safe, especially (it seems sometimes) those that are adored by fans.
At spring training on Wednesday, Moss played against his ex-teammates for A's media to ask him about the trade and his thoughts on playing in Oakland.
Unsurprisingly, Moss thoroughly enjoyed wearing green and gold since mid-2012. As he told A's writer Jane Lee of MLB.com:
"I'm more than appreciative of my time in Oakland," Moss said. "I wouldn't be standing here without it. I went from a great situation over there to a great situation over here."
As for being traded, he admitted to Lee that wasn't entirely a total shock:
"No, not really," he said. "Everything happened so poorly in the second half. I didn't make much of it because I could kind of see it coming. We were losing some guys, guys were getting more expensive. Some of us were hurt. There were questions about the production of what it would be like the next year even though we'd be more expensive. I don't think I ever questioned it. I took it for what it was and ran with it. Nothing you can do with it."
On one level, it is interesting to read Moss' words about not being as shocked by the deal as some other audiences were. After all, his trade came in the same offseason that saw Beane deal away Josh Donaldson, Derek Norris, Jeff Samardzija and other key components of the 2014 roster.
A chatty, relentlessly engaging man, Moss elevated the A's clubhouse whenever he was around. His spirit even rubbed off on manager Bob Melvin, who fired off this quip when asked about facing him yesterday:
"I was trying to distract him," said A's manager Bob Melvin, "but he wouldn't turn around and look at me."
On a 'baseball is a business' note, the kind that motivates Beane to make most of his deals, trading Moss away at this point in time may end up being a smart move for the A's. Moss, 31, just had major hip surgery in the offseason to fix a nagging issue that plagued him for most of 2014, and he would have been more expensive for the cash-strapped A's in 2015.
He also recently revealed that he played in the A.L. wild-card game after receiving a cortisone shot in his hip. He hit two big home runs in the game, driving in runs that should have propelled the A's past the feisty Kansas City Royals, but at the moment it's unclear how the surgery will affect him long-term.
As for that wild-card game, Moss has a typically upbeat stance on it (considering the tension and drama that went into the marathon contest):
"Win or lose, that was the most exciting baseball game I have ever been a part of. I've never played in a baseball game that was that fun or had that much emotion. … What we accomplished as a team, I was proud. We were all proud of each other. I definitely don't regret playing through the injury. May have hurt my numbers, may have hurt certain things. But at end of day, you play the game to be part of something like that."
The player the A's obtained for him, minor league infielder Joey Wendle, is an unproven talent without a ton of fanfare, too, so on the surface it may seem as if the Indians 'won' the deal.
While the jury is out on that determination for the time being, there's no doubt that Melvin and the A's will miss Moss' bright personality and cheery disposition in 2015, however their season plays out.
