AP file photo: Former Oakland A’s designated hitter Billy Butler will get paid the Major League minimum salary from the New York Yankees for this season and from the A’s $11 million next season. Butler is seen here swinging against Cleveland pitcher Josh Tomlin in Cleveland on July 30th

On the A’s podcast with Charlie O:  The New York Yankees who are contention for a playoff spot signed Billy Butler the former A’s designated hitter for the Major League minimum. The A’s Butler’s former team are tightfisted in spending money and it was a surprised that their going to eat a season and a half of recently released Butler’s contract worth $11 million. As they have been over the years the A’s are just keen to eating a player’s salary. To owe Billy Butler $11 million in the season coming up and to have jettison him and to say “hey were just not going to need you” and let him go was not surprising, it was totally shocking.

There were a couple of things about that that stood out to me and the least of those were the fact that the A’s general manager David Forst said “were going with youth movement.” The A’s are going to go with the youth movement, your going to see less and less of the “let’s pay the older guys” coming in and give them big dollars for a couple of years or three years.

Meanwhile the Yankees who have improved since the All-Star break and the departure of Alex Rodriguez who retired add Butler to their line up for power at designated hitter. Butler was signed primarily to face left handed hitters as the Yankees are scheduled to face three left handers over the next four days. This will mean that Butler who had no chance at seeing post season with the A’s will have a better chance at seeing the playoffs with the Yankees who are just two games back in the wild card and four games back for first place in the AL East.

Charlie O has your A’s headline coverage each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com