A's GM Beane: Trading Donaldson 'addressed now and the future'

Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane spoke to the media Friday night after he pulled off yet another massive trade, sending All-Star third baseman Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays for Brett Lawrie and prospects in a four-for-one blockbuster. 

"We wouldn't have done it unless all four of these guys were in the deal," Beane said, writes MLB.com's Jane Lee, "and each guy represents sort of a need, some of them immediate."

Those guys are: Lawrie, pitchers Kendall Graveman and Sean Nolin, and 18-year-old shortstop prospect Franklin Barreto. 

"We were going to have to be more than impressed with what they had to offer," Beane added, "and Alex got to that point, and that's when we made the deal."

Lawrie, 24, replaces Donaldson. In spirit, if not in production. The key for Lawrie will be to stay healthy. If he can do that, he has the ability to reach the potential he showed in 2011, when he came up to Toronto and was worth 2.5 wins in only 43 games, according to FanGraphs. 

The A's needed to replenish their farm system after trading for Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester, and Beane said both Nolin and Graveman are big-league ready, with Graveman expected to compete for a spot at the back of the Oakland rotation.

The trade covered a lot of ground for the A's, Beane added:

We wouldn't have done the deal unless it addressed now and the future, and we were able to do that. We lost a lot of Minor League capital in the last couple of years trying to give this current group as good a chance as we possibly could, and now looking forward, I think we also have to be cognizant of the next couple of years. This deal, in our minds, addresses a little bit of everything.

Beane said the A's had to take a hard look at where they stood after moves to play deep into October didn't pay off. In the end, tough decisions, like trading a fan favorite in Donaldson, had to be made, even though Oakland was adamant on keeping the third baseman when the Blue Jays came calling:

When we went into this winter, we had to take a look at where we are and where we're headed, and we have to keep in mind we were 11 games behind the Angels last season and it took the last day to hold off the Mariners. Given the losses that we have ... at some credible positions, and given our payroll, we didn't think it was possible to sort of add to the current group to make up an 11-game difference, so what we thought we had to do was do something that wasn't timid and something that hopefully got us in a position that we had a team with a chance to get better with each day as opposed to one that was maybe starting to deteriorate.

Adding Graveman and Nolin means Samardzija and/or Scott Kazmir could be traded as the offseason rolls along, tweeted Lee. 

Lawrie's under team control through 2018, while the A's consider Barreto, who'll only turn 19 in February, one of the best prospects in all of baseball. The Venezuelan had a .865 OPS in 73 games in the Northwest League in 2014. 

Check out Lee's piece at MLB.com for more on the trade, including reaction from Donaldson, who called the deal "business" while thanking Oakland, "his home," and its fans. Lee's also posted quick-hit scouting reports on Barreto, Graveman, and Nolin.