I would just like to point out that only one team wins the world series every year, and it's a pretty tough thing to do, I think the best any team or manager can realistically hope for is to win their division and get into the playoffs. I've seen plenty of good teams go down in the playoffs, and many will continue to do so because baseball in the regular season is such a huge sample size, whereas in the playoffs it's a short series. If anything, not giving away outs would be even more important then I would guess. So when people ask how many world series rings the A's have won, I think that's unfair. From 2000-2005 the Cardinals went 575-408 and got into the playoffs FIVE TIMES. How many rings do they have to show for it? None. It's an unfair point to any team.