Yesterday the A’s swapped shortstop Yunel Escobar to the Nationals for reliever Tyler Clippard, and in doing so completed the ninth trade between general managers Billy Beane and Mike Rizzo since December of 2010.
Or, put another way: Oakland and Washington have made an average of one trade every five months for the past four years.
Some of them have been minor deals and they actually swapped catcher Kurt Suzuki back and forth twice, but in addition to this significant Escobar-Clippard trade they also had big ones involving Josh Willingham, Gio Gonzalez, and Derek Norris, plus a three-team trade with the Mariners that had Michael Morse and John Jaso in it.
Baseball-Reference.com has the full trading history between the two teams, because Baseball-Reference.com has everything always.
Beane is perceived as pretty new-school, Rizzo is perceived as pretty old-school, and they love making trades together.
