Hudson the Brave

The A’s traded ace Tim Hudson last week. You can either read “Moneyball” again, or just read this column. That’s what I thought.

Every once in a while, being a sports fan comes back to punch you in the gut.  There are a few times in your life when your team makes a move you hate so strongly, you realize how hopeless you are as a fan. Your team will sign and trade players, select players in the draft, win or lose games, with or without you.  You have no control over anything that happens with your team. And 99% of the time, you go along with that without even noticing. But there are those rare instances when the goings-on in the sports world become something more than white noise, and your body tries to reject it. You can’t help but sit back with a look on your face like Matt Damon, after losing his entire bankroll to Teddy KGB in “Rounders”. I went through one of these moments a few months ago, when the Warriors signed Derek Fisher.  And then came today’s bombshell: Tim Hudson has pitched his last game for the Oakland A’s.

For the third time in 4 years, the Oakland A’s have lost the leader of their team. Hudson now follows Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi on the first flight to the East Coast, leaving behind the only team he’s ever played for. So while I get to watch the Warriors shell out $200 million for Fisher, Foyle, Richardson, and Murphy, the annual A’s All-Star Dispersal Draft continues on. Of all the players to leave Oakland over the last 5 years, only Giambi’s departure hurt worse than this (though both trail Chris Webber’s trade to the Bullets as the most painful player loss of my lifetime). It’s almost hard to believe that Hudson has only been playing for a little over 5 years, or that he arrived in the majors an entire year after Eric Chavez. Honestly, it’s difficult to imagine the A’s even playing a game without Tim Hudson. His arrival in 1999 coincided with the A’s modern resurgence, an entire team of minor leaguers deciding to take the American League by storm. So now the A’s must anoint a new leader, just as Giambi begat Tejada, and Tejada begat Hudson.

For as great as he was for 5-plus seasons, it’s hard to point to one game that defined Tim Hudson, such as Barry Zito’s ALCS Game 4 at Yankee Stadium. There’s one game that stands out in most people’s minds, which also happens to be one of the few Hudson starts I missed: August 11, 2003 against the Boston Red Sox. Hudson pitched 9 innings, threw 93 pitches and allowing just 2 infield singles in a 4-0 shutout of one of the best offenses in baseball history. I was out of the country at the time, but still managed to follow the A’s thanks to Internet cafes, and one quote has always stood out in my mind. SI’s Peter King, a Red Sox fan, quoted Boston announcer Jerry Remy after the game, saying: “I can’t count more than five pitches tonight that didn’t do exactly what he wanted them to do”. Probably Huddy’s best game as an Athletic, and I missed it. Of course, maybe the reason none of Hudson’s wins stand out is because he had so many of them; he has the 3rd-best winning percentage of any pitcher in history. Every time he took the mound, you knew the A’s weren’t operating on a level playing field. But instead of the big-money bullies having the advantage, it was Hudson who controlled the outcome. He changed the odds of a victory perhaps more than any player in Oakland history.

Of course, when a team trades its best player, the overwhelming reaction is one befitting a certain Chicken Little. But the A’s may actually be a better team right now than they were last year, when they finished only 1 game away from making the playoffs. The most notable upgrade is in the bullpen, where Juan Cruz (acquired from Atlanta for Hudson) and rookies Huston Street and Jairo “Glyphics” Garcia now set up closer Octavio Dotel. All four have filthy stuff and throw BB’s, a welcome change from the Jim Mecirs, Ricardo Rincons, and Mike Magnantes that have plagued Oakland in the past. If you’re looking for the “New Moneyball”, the bullpen may be it. Anaheim has thrived over the past 3 years because of their ‘pen, and Beane has been an open admirer of their relievers. It appears as though he’s made it his mission this offseason to build Anaheim’s successor.

Aside from the bullpen, the most obvious non-financial reason to trade Hudson is one I hate to even mention: as beloved as Huddy is by A’s fans, he has developed an alarming history of injuries and poor playoff performances. In 2002, Hudson went 0-1 with a 6.23 ERA against Minnesota in the ALDS, pitching only 8 2/3 innings in 2 starts. His poor performance was later blamed on an oblique injury, the result of his windup’s incredible torque taking its toll on his small body. In 2003, Hudson again started 2 games, but pitched only 7 2/3 innings, bowing out of Game 4 against the Red Sox after just 1 inning due to a mysterious ailment. An oblique injury was again blamed, but reports later surfaced of a bar brawl in Boston the night before the game, the details of which won’t be known until Mychael Urban’s book “Aces” is released. Add this to the fact that the A’s have determined that Hudson’s delivery puts more stress on his body than that of any other pitcher, and you can see why Billy Beane was reluctant to guarantee him big money. Of course, when you’re just a fan and you don’t have to write the paychecks, these reasons become trivial. You just want Tim Hudson back. You don’t want to lose The Big Three.

The Big Three. Hudson. Mulder. Zito. For 5 years, those names have defined the A’s. More than Giambi, more than Billy Beane, more than “Moneyball”. When you think Oakland A’s, you think of the Big Three. Very few teams are defined by specific players anymore, the way the Baltimore Orioles made you think of Cal Ripken or the Mariners made you think of Ken Griffey. Today, it’s almost a dying ideal: the Giants have Barry Bonds, the Cardinals have Albert Pujols, and the Astros have Bagwell & Biggio. It’s rare in the free agency era that certain players assume a team’s entire identity, become the faces you think of when a team’s name is mentioned. It’s almost like one of those cartoon maps of the United States, where the Golden Gate Bridge pops up over San Francisco, and the Hollwood sign and Statue of Liberty are used to represent L.A. and New York. The Big Three were the A’s logo on baseball’s cartoon map. And A’s fans ate it up. The team that used to regularly spit out unimpressive stiffs like John Wasdin or Don Wengert had suddenly produced 3 gems, each one different from the next. Not since the mid-90’s Atlanta Braves had a starting rotation meant so much to one team. As a fan, you couldn’t hope for anything better.

Part of the Big Three’s appeal was that each one appealed to different people. Hudson was the undersized bulldog, Mulder the casual ace whose talent seemed to ooze effortlessly, and Zito the hippy surfer who carried stuffed animals on road trips. Ask any A’s fan who their favorite Big Three pitcher is, and you’ll have an answer inside of 2 seconds. All 3 are beloved in Oakland (for girls, A’s games are like an episode of “The O.C.: Sport”), but everyone has their favorite. Since I began writing columns on this website more than a year ago, there’s only been one story that I’ve known I always wanted to write: Which one of the A’s Big Three is the best pitcher? I never got around to it, mostly because I didn’t think it was fair to judge them against each other when they were still just getting started in the majors. After all, Hudson only arrived in Oakland in 1999, with Zito and Mulder following in 2000. They’ve combined for 245 wins and 4 playoff appearances in roughly 14 combined seasons, and the never-humble Beane has referred to them as “my brain”.

But for all the hype and celebration surrounding Hudson, Mulder, and Zito, they never once made it out of the first round of the playoffs. The Curse of Canseco has plagued the A’s since 1992, but The Big Three always bore the brunt of the pressure, which makes sense considering they’re the ones who get the most credit. Their aura had been slowly chipped away over recent years, from collapsing in the 2002 ALDS against the Twins to a complete freefall to end the 2004 season. The only pitching coach they’d ever had, Rick Peterson, left for the Mets after 2003 and the A’s failed to make the postseason for the first time since 1999. In retrospect, it was like Splinter leaving the Ninja Turtles. As great as The Big Three were, Beane felt it was time for the run to end. And if there’s one thing A’s fans love more than their starting pitchers, it’s Billy Beane.

The Hudson trade has a huge impact on the future of the A’s franchise, most notably with regards to the starting rotation. Mulder and Zito need to shake off last year’s second half meltdown, when they were competing with the 49ers to see who was worse at containing an opposing offense. Rich Harden needs to become the pitcher everyone knows he can become, an ace in the hole for the absolute last team that’s needed a starting pitcher in recent years. New catcher Jason Kendall has to step into the leadership void left by Hudson, and he has the attitude and experience to do it, not to mention the salary. Eric Byrnes can now pack a bag and book a flight (to San Diego?), because Beane has started the car and left without him. With Charles Thomas now in the fold, and Bobby Kielty still on the bench, a Byrnes A’s jersey now qualifies as a throwback.

All in all, today is one of the saddest days I’ve ever experienced as an A’s fan. Voluntarily giving up the best player on your team, especially when said player is the most visible emotional leader on the club, is never easy. More than anything, the Hudson trade puts the A’s run in perspective: Oakland actually got better after losing Giambi, and certainly is no worse after losing Tejada. Having Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada in the first place on a team with Oakland’s budget is remarkable; sustaining a winning tradition after their departures is nothing short of amazing. And so I give the A’s and Billy Beane the benefit of the doubt, and remain grateful that they were willing and able to sign my favorite player, Eric Chavez, to a 6-year extension last spring. Dan Meyer, the third player acquired from Atlanta for Hudson, is yet another reason to remain optimistic (381 K’s, 87 BB’s in 352 IP in the minors). But that’s little consolation right now: Huddy’s gone.

One can’t help but feel sad about losing Tim Hudson, and nostalgic about the Big Three, who have been apart for less than 12 hours now. My favorite memories of the trio came in 2001, when I was fortunate enough to have a free preview of the MLB Digital Cable package in college when the A’s traveled to Arizona for a series in July. Mulder, Hudson, and Zito combined to throw 24 innings and give up 2 total runs on the road to the eventual World Series Champions, in what is still the most impressive string of pitching performances I’ve ever seen. And the 2001 ALDS against the Yankees, when The Big Three had Jeter slamming his fist into the ground and Steinbrenner opining for such pitching talent, remains my proudest moment as an A’s fan since the early 90’s.

I’m actually happy for Tim Hudson, because he now gets to pitch for the team he grew up rooting for, and he gets to play for a Braves team that’s a virtual lock to make the playoffs. Selfishly, I’m happy as well, because I’ll get to see Hudson on Atlanta’s TBS broadcasts quite a bit. Plus, the Yankees and Red Sox weren’t able to scoop him up, and that’s a victory in itself. I’ll always miss the guy who clinched the 2000 division title, who led the A’s and The Big Three from the depths of Major League Baseball to the team that everyone got tired of hearing about. But most of all, I’ll miss Tim Hudson. Not the pitcher, mind you, or the All-Star. I’ll miss the guy who pumped his fist after a groundball double play in the seventh inning, the guy who wasn’t afraid to bark at the other team’s best hitter. I’ll miss seeing Tim Hudson, and knowing: “That guy’s on MY team”.