Even though he makes him home in the other city in the Bay Area, that being Oakland, Billy Beane still has found a way to put himself in the minds of mainstream baseball fans across the country. With the much popular book, ?Moneyball,? a big reason for that, Beane has endeared himself to fans for his common scene approach, even if it hasn?t done the same with his peers. Beane took over the reigns of the Oakland A?s in 1998 and in each of his full seasons in the Bay, he has produced a winning record and having a win total of at least 87 wins each season coming into 2006. During this stretch, Beane contrasted A?s teams that won three division titles and once secured the wild card spot, but were never able to win a playoff series during that time. Beane is known as somewhat of a magician with the budget he is forced to work under in Oakland and still put a competitive team on the field each year. This is in large part to have a concrete strategy and staying the course with it, even when it defies rational thinking. The A?s have never had an organizational raking by Baseball America higher than eighth since 2001 and that came in 2005. They were ranked 26th heading into this season. Still, with additions off of the scrap heap like Scott Hatteberg, who went from catcher to first base in seamless fashion, and Jason Isringhausen, who was out of baseball before Oakland picked him up in 2000, the A?s still find ways to keep pace with the bruisers of the American League. The list goes on and on from there and includes key players picked up when they had an expiring or very manageable contract. Players such as Johnny Damon, Keith Foulke, Jose Guillen, and Jermaine Dye helped the A?s make the late season pushes that have made them famous in the 21st century. Still, most of these players have left for greener pastures, as Beane has had to break up the teams nucleus multiple times and even destroy the famous Big 3 rotation of Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and Barry Zito because of the limitations set before him. Like Beane says in his book, he tries to finds a key statistic that is overlooked by the majority of baseball and them picks up players in the bush loads who fit that particular need. That way, he can pick up quality pieces at the fraction of the cost given out by rival clubs. However, with all innovative thinkers, he is sometimes disliked in the industry, especially those who are old school in nature and trust the eye of a baseball man over the numbers in a box score. He has also be accused of over intervening with the team in roles that should be the manager?s domain. This is one of the reasons why managers under Beane feel that they don?t get the proper respect they deserve for handling an ever-chaning roster because all of the credit goes to Beane for creating it. This is why Art Howe left for the Mets and Ken Macha left for a week this past off season. Beane, like most of his peers, is a risk-taker, but on a smaller scale. He will take the flyer on the player everyone forgot because he like nobody else in the industry, is supremely confident that his plan will work. If he wants a team full of great fielders, he will make it happen even if it hurts the balance of the team. He has shown that he can assemble teams that are competitive and at a low price, but that success hasn?t translated to playoffs victories. It could be a sign that signing a bunch of above-average players will get you above-average results. Signature Move: Breaking up the Big 3 in December 2004 was probably the toughest pill to swallow for Beane in his time in Oakland, but even though the Tim Hudson deal to Atlanta hasn?t worked out great, he can still smile a little bit with the outcome of the Mark Mulder trade to St. Louis. In the deal, Beane picked up reliever Kiko Calero, who has become a valuable part of the Oakland bullpen with a 3.31 ERA on the season and 42 strikeouts in 35.1 innings. However, the biggest pickup in that deal was starter Dan Haren, who has won 20 games in a year and a half for the A?s with sub-4 ERA both years. Mulder on the other hand has only won 22 games through that same period of time, while battling injuries this year that has seen his ERA jump to over 6.