The Oakland Athletics have dealt Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays for Brett Lawrie and three players you’ve never heard of, per the team’s Twitter account.

The central question here is not whether general manager Billy Beane got a fair return in the trade, but why the American League West club would trade Donaldson at all. 

The third baseman is affordably priced and ridiculously productive. 

MLBTradeRumors.com projects that the 28-year-old will make $4.5 million via arbitration in 2015, and he can’t become a free agent until after the 2018 season. Donaldson ranked No. 6 in WAR in all of baseball last season (per FanGraphs), finished as the runner-up for the AL Gold Glove at third base and clubbed 53 home runs at the cavernous O.co Coliseum over the past two seasons. 

What’s not to like about that?

One response is that the team is simply rebuilding. But if that’s the case, why did Beane bother to dish out a three-year, $30 million deal to designated hitter/first baseman Billy Butler earlier this month?

Another response is that Beane‘s not done—not even close.

Next up on the trade block could be Josh Reddick. The right fielder shared his thoughts on the decision to jettison Donaldson via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Regardless of your line of work, it’s never a good idea to publicly question your boss. After all, it was just a couple of weeks ago that Donaldson fired a shot at the club’s brain trust on Twitter. 

In the wake of the trade, Beane said that he had never even heard about that tweet.

Still, not everyone is buying that line. 

Even if Reddick‘s comments don’t lead to his departure, Oakland has much bigger chips to deal than the 2012 AL Gold Glove winner. 

Outfielder/first baseman Brandon Moss knows he could be on the clock with the Athletics. 

“The whole world noticed,” said Moss, via Slusser, after the team added Butler and Ike Davis in rapid succession. Like Moss, both are capable of playing first. “You never know; the front office likes to mix [it] up. I’m trying not to let anything surprise me, because I don’t want to be blindsided.”

Jeff Samardzija is another high-profile player who has no excuse to be blindsided if he gets a text from his agent in the next couple of weeks. The right-handed starter is set to become a free agent at the end of the 2015 season, and Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports wrote in the beginning of November that Oakland would take calls on Samardzija. 

According to John Hickey of the Bay Area News Group, the team could part with the 29-year-old in order to land a big-time bat.

Rosenthal also tabbed Scott Kazmir as another Athletic who could be on his way out of town. Like Samardzija, the lefty starter will become a free agent at the end of next season. 

Reddick, Moss, Samardzija and Kazmir are some of the names at the top of the list, but really anybody on the roster could be moved between now and spring training. 

That’s just how Beane does it. 

Now, the only questions are who’s next and whether Beane can once again, inexplicably, build a contender in 2015.

 

If you want to talk baseball, find me on Twitter @KarlBuscheck.

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