Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. In 1990, the “4 Aces” were foreshadowed in the same way your lottery ticket foreshadowed you being a millionaire. Few A’s fans could even name the 4 pitchers who were supposedly going to lead Oakland into the next wave of greatness. Perhaps in hindsight, Dave Zancanaro and Don Peters weren’t all that worth getting excited about. (The other two, Kirk Dressendorfer and Todd Van Poppel, pitched in the big leagues but were never confused for an “ace”.)
Fast forward to the early 2000s and the A’s made another try at a handful of studs and this time it really took.