Grade-A ORGANIZATION.(financial and personnel management of Oakland Athletics baseball team)

Winning isn't always about who has the most money. The low-revenue A's bank on the draft and minor league free agents.

When it comes to developing players, the Oakland A's are proving that success needn't come with a high price tag. They have climbed to the top of the A.L. West, despite spending less than perhaps every other club, by drafting well and keeping a steady flow of prospects coming Up from the minors.

THE SPORTING NEWS named Oakland general manager Billy Beane Executive of the Year in 1999 for his ability to stretch a dollar. The A's improved 13 games that season, then won four more and the A.L. West title in 2000.

Ask Beane about his budget, though, and he quickly focuses on the bottom line. "The only number I can tell you is that we spend less than anybody on player development and scouting," he says. "We're dead last. That's just a fact. There's a number of teams that may spend three times as much in those areas as we do."

So how do the A's make up for their relative lack of cash?

Part of the answer lies in organizational continuity. Sandy Alderson, Beane's predecessor, established many tenets of the A's philosophy and was general manager and president for almost 20 years before he moved on to take a job in the league office. Beane has been in the organization for more than a decade, and player development director Keith Lieppman and scouting director Grady Fuson both have been around for about two decades.

"I think there's a culture and a chemistry that's existed here for a long time," Beane says. "But it's still a relatively young group."