The Oakland A’s came out of Tuesday night’s game with the second-best record in baseball. Only the Dodgers are better. One game better. The Dodgers have the second-highest payroll in baseball in the short season. The A’s have the sixth lowest. The A’s are always near the bottom. They are still likely to make the postseason for the 11th time in this century. It’s a lot, even though they’ve only made it as far as the American League Championship Series once (in 2006, when they were swept by the Tigers).

If you’re looking for comparisons to big-market teams, by the way? The Mets have made it to the postseason four times starting in 2000. But they’ve played in two World Series. The Angels have made the postseason seven times. But they won the World Series in 2002. White Sox? Three playoff appearances in this century. But they won their first World Series on the South Side of Chicago in 88 years, in 2005. The A’s have made the playoffs more over the past two decades than the Cubs. The Cubs, though, have 2016 forever.

But now the 2020 A’s look loaded, halfway through the mad 60-game dash toward October with a four-game lead on the Astros atop the AL West. In the past, Billy Beane and David Forst, who have been running the A’s a long time together in Oakland, have been players at the Trade Deadline. But Monday’s Deadline, Beane said on Tuesday, is going to be different -- the way everything is different this time in Major League Baseball.

“Very few clubs are ready to throw their cards in,” Beane said. “Because a lot of them are thinking the same thing: We’re only one three-game winning streak away from being in the eighth spot. I could be wrong, but I think that whatever action you’re going to see might come on Saturday or Sunday. This year, because of the short season, teams aren’t willing to give up.”

Then Beane said, “We make the same determination every year about whether we’re in it or not. Then we choose a side. Now we’d like to choose the side of acquisition. But as I said, things are a little different this year.”

Then he was talking about the tightrope-walk of the baseball postseason of 2020, which he said might be as close to the March Madness of the NCAA basketball tournament as the sport will ever see: Sixteen teams this time, everybody playing a best-of-three series before we get to division series.

“It’s going to be more random this time,” Beane said. “It just is. Listen, I’m not talking out of school here by saying that the Dodgers have a great team. They had a great team on paper coming in and now they’re showing it on the field. But look at what could happen to them in the first round. Say they have to go up against a team like the Giants in the first round, with the rivalry and all that. The nightmare scenario for them was that they run into, say, a hot [Johnny] Cueto and [Kevin] Gausman in the first two games. It’s going to be everybody’s nightmare scenario.”

As we were talking on the phone, the A’s were in first place in the AL West. Later they would give a 10-3 shellacking to the Texas Rangers. Beane wasn’t suggesting that winning the AL West was some kind of lock for his team. But it is at least a possibility. There is no way of knowing who the A’s first-round opponent might be, even if they end up with the best record in the league. But mentioned one possibility.

“Every time I turn on my television,” Beane said, “Toronto is hitting another home run.”

Of course he’s been a transformative front-office figure in Oakland, the star of “Moneyball,” going up against the big boys and their big payrolls every year, often building a contender for two or three years in a row, then having to tear it down and start all over again. Playing Moneyball again. Last year the A’s weren’t in a Wild Card series -- they were in a Wild Card Game against the Rays. The A’s had won 97 regular-season games, the Rays had won 86. Sean Manaea gave up three home runs by the third inning and the A’s were gone from October again.

Now here they are, set up to take another shot, go deep into October this time. They have been relatively lucky with injuries so far when teams like the Yankees have not. The Astros haven’t gone away, and are pitching better than anybody thought they would without Justin Verlander. Still: The Astros aren’t close to being the team that won 108 a year ago. A year ago, the Astros were 11 games better than the A’s. Through Tuesday -- halfway through the short season -- the A’s were four games better.

“The shorter season scares me,” Beane said. “The better the team you have, the longer you want the season.”

Then he was talking about October Madness this time in baseball, what he knows will be the excitement for fans, but also the possible nightmare scenario for top teams, getting knocked out by a No. 8. You think the Lakers weren’t thinking about that after the Trailblazers clipped them in Game 1?

“Anybody can win a three-game series,” Beane said. “Anything can happen.”

You don’t even have to be one of the smartest guys in the game to know that.