A while ago, I discussed an assessment of Billy Beane written by James Surowiecki in The New Yorker.
I received the following e-mail from Mr. Surowiecki, from which he has permitted me to quote:

A couple of things: you're absolutely right that signing young players to long-term contracts has been key to the A's success. That point got left on the cutting-room floor because, well, I couldn't get it all into 950 words. I also think that that strategy isn't what's most distinctive about Beane's approach, since, as you point out, the Indians used it to such great effect in the 1990s.
On the question of how lucky the A's have been, though, I think the issue is more complicated than you make it sound. Schoenfield's historical analysis is interesting, but I think he in effect begs the question that he's trying to answer: namely, is Billy Beane's acumen the fundamental cause of Oakland's success. Schoenfield looks at history and effectively says, "No other team
has produced three homegrown star starters in a two-year span, and only the Braves did it in a three-year span. Therefore Beane must be lucky."
What if, though, Beane really is just better than anyone before him at drafting young pitchers, and what if the A's are better at developing pitchers and (very important) keeping them healthy? Then of course you'd expect him to have better results than anyone before him, precisely the way he does. Historical comparisons are useful, but by their very nature they can't tell us why things are different, only that they are.
I think there are some concrete reasons to think that Beane really is better, too. Take the most obvious fact about the three A's star starters: they were all college pitchers. Traditionally, baseball GMs have wasted draft picks on high school pitchers, when we know that very few high school pitchers -- and almost no right-handed high-school pitchers -- ever become stars. I don't
have the information, but I bet if you looked at the staffs of all the teams Schoenfield surveyed, a huge number of the pitchers were high-school pitchers. So it's not surprising that only a very low percentage of all the pitchers would be stars. Beane, by contrast, never wastes high draft picks on high-school pitchers, so he's got a big advantage right there.
The A's are also incredibly rigorous about pitch counts, not just for minor-league pitchers, but for their starters as well -- much more rigorous, maybe, than any team in history. You probably know this, but in the early part of the season the starters have much lower pitch counts than they do later in the season. That's crucial to keeping young pitchers healthy. And Rick Peterson, the A's pitching coach, is obsessive about mechanics, arm strength, and health. One of the reasons they kept Ted Lilly on the DL so
long after the Yankees' trade was to build up the strength of his back muscles. Again, all this increases the odds that Oakland would have successful starting pitching.
Finally, I think the A's general philosophy on pitching, which Beane and Peterson have inculcated through the whole organization, is a recipe for success: throw strikes, get groundballs, don't give up home runs, and don't worry too much about strikeouts. Again, this is far from conventional wisdom in baseball, especially when it comes to young pitchers. Hudson and Zito are great, but I don' t think they would be as great if they were pitching for a lot of teams in baseball. (Mulder probably would be.)
Anyway, sorry for going on like this. It's still very possible that Beane is lucky. But in this case, I think whatever luck he's had really is the residue of design, and he deserves credit for it.

I don't really disagree with Surowiecki's points. The one thing I'd stress is that it is far too early to determine whether Oakland's methods really constitute a better mousetrap in terms of developing pitchers, or if it's just a matter of three pitchers who've been lucky enough not to get hurt yet. Surowiecki is right that Oakland is doing just about everything that analysts recommend in terms of developing young pitching. But the actuarial statistics on pitchers are so gruesome that, even though it seems clear that Oakland is reducing its odds somewhat by its program (especially drafting college rather than high-school pitchers, for which there is copious evidence as to its lessening the chances of catastrophic injury), it's just way too early to say that the program yields better systematic results.
I draw on two particular points of caution:
1) The Atlanta Braves have a program where pitchers throw every day, rather than taking days off completely as most pitchers do. For much of the 1990s, the Braves had a deserved reputation for keeping their pitchers healthy. In 1999-2000, though, so many pitchers broke down at all levels of the organization that Baseball Prospectus joked in one of its books that the team was getting "bulk discounts on Tommy John surgeries."
2) The Seattle Mariners got religion a few years ago and, among other things, have gotten strict with pitch counts at all levels of the organization (including the big club) Perhaps as a result, they have started producing young pitching at a great rate. Two of their best prospects, Gil Meche and Ryan Anderson, have broken down in career-threatening fashion despite being handled very carefully. (Admittedly, they were both drafted out of high school.)