Before the 2008 season started it was a well known fact that the Oakland Athletics were in a full-blown rebuilding process. They'd traded away both Dan Haren and Nick Swisher for prospects as general manager Billy Beane felt it was necessary to restock the shelves of Oakland's farm system. Then the season started, and a team that was supposed to struggle was playing surprisingly well, and even in the playoff hunt.Still, this did not sway Beane from his vision, and he traded away Rich Harden, Joe Blanton, and Chad Gaudin at the deadline. Since then, Oakland has not been winning much. In fact, they've lost 21 of their last 27 games, and it doesn't look like things will get too much better over the final weeks.
Beane knows this, and though he realizes it's tough to watch at times, he doesn't want Athletics fans to abandon ship just yet. Land will be ho some day, he promises.
"Listen, the performance lately has been a little rougher than anyone would like to go through," Beane said by phone before the A's 2-0 victory over the Mariners on Thursday. "But we didn't make any bones about what we were going to do when we said we were going to go through a rebuilding.

With the trade deadline right around the corner, our MLB editor brings you the top five rumors every day until July 31.
Now that the Oakland Athletics have traded
Just days after the Brewers made a splash by trading for 
Now that the Athletics have finalized a deal to send 

