Buying Low, Selling High

Meet Dan Haren.

Dan Haren is tearing it up now. He is being paid $2.2 million this year.

Dan Haren was involved in a really lopsided trade before the 2005 season. Said trade sent him, a top prospect named Daric Barton, and a friend:

Kiko Calero. He is making $1.6 million this year.

They went to Oakland. They're paid a combined $3.8 million this year.

Meet Mark Mulder.

He has gotten progressively worse since coming from Oakland to St. Louis. He is making $6 million this year, or more than Calero and Haren combined.

That is how you play Moneyball. That is why Oakland will be a perennial winner, despite chronically low-to-average payroll.

It seems like when a team trades down a player -- that is, turns a small number of players into a larger number of players – and doesn’t do so due to financial constraints, the down-trader tends to do better long-term.