moneyball 2-indepth article about the 2012 A's. LINK
"The Rangers have a budget of $120 million, and the Angels decided to pay $154 million to try and catch them. The third team in the division, the Seattle Mariners, are laying out $81 million just to hold onto bronze, while the A's looked under the cushions and in the cup holder and scraped up $55 million to apparently play ego booster to the rest of the American League.
In the early season, the A's bullpen didn't get many leads, and when it did, it failed to hold them. Grant Balfour, a 2011 holdover, was sent back to middle relief after he couldn't close. For a team with no margin for error, ninth-inning errors were gut-wrenching. Looking down the bench, Young found Ryan Cook, yet another fringe rookie prospect acquired over the winter, and essentially said, I know you just started, but we need you to finish. Cook did so for three months, and became the A's' sole representative on the American League All-Star team."