Hope isn’t budgeted in A’s bottom line

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Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

That sign, borrowed from Dante’s “Inferno,” should hang over the entrance to the A’s ballpark, a warning to players and fans.

As if they need a warning, after the trade of Josh Donaldson.

General manager Billy Beane is spinning the trade as necessary to rebuild the farm system and dump a salary about to explode. Zzzzz.

A’s fans, accustomed to such gut-punches, are deflated but resigned to their fate.

Imagine how the Giants’ fans would react if Brian Sabean traded Buster Posey for a much inferior catcher and some lukewarm prospects.

Yes, the Giants did lose Pablo Sandoval, a downward-trending .279 hitter who chose Boston’s $19 million-per-year offer over the Giants’. The A’s lost Donaldson because they decided — in an instant — that a player more valuable than Sandoval isn’t worth about

$4.5 million next season.

Oh, if only A’s owners John Fisher and Lew Wolff could afford Donaldson! Well, the A’s make a tidy profit every season, along with the $35 million (give or take) every year in franchise appreciation. They cash in big, just by existing.

The Giants invest a good chunk of their profits in players. Fisher & Wolff invest a good chunk of their profits in Fisher & Wolff.

A's third baseman Josh Donaldson was traded for four players. A's third baseman Josh Donaldson was traded for four players. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Hope isn’t budgeted in A’s bottom line 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

In Beane, the A’s co-owners have the perfect cover. He is the compulsive tinkerer, scrambling to keep his small-budget A’s competitive. Sometimes, he pulls it off.

I praised the Yoenis Céspedes trade as a gutsy toss of the dice. But with the Donaldson trade, it’s back to bu$ine$$ as usual. The A’s aren’t a baseball team, they’re a finishing school for future stars. Happy graduation, Josh!

What Beane gives the Fisher & Wolff money machine is a thin veneer of baseball legitimacy.

Maybe it’s time for Beane to walk away, to end his aiding and abetting. He should sell his piece of the A’s and take his considerable skill and chutzpah to a real baseball organization.

By doing so, Beane might embarrass MLB into stepping in and cleaning up the mess it has made in Oakland, rather than abandoning all who enter there.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter @scottostler