Revisiting the A's big trade

[gunnarthor]

Uff da.  So Dayton Moore and the Royals got ripped pretty good for moving a top 5 prospect for Shields and Davis.  The A's made a similar trade to get Samardzija and Hammel but Beane wasn't criticized as much (track records give you things like that).  But was the trade any better?  The two pitchers weren't that great in Oakland - Shark was solid but Hammel wasn't.  Addison Russell is hitting pretty well in AA.  

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

The Cubs got a great deal in Prospects and shed some $$ for the next year by shipping off those two Starters.

 

If the Cubs make a successful bid for Jon Lester, it could look even more lopsided.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

Uff da.  So Dayton Moore and the Royals got ripped pretty good for moving a top 5 prospect for Shields and Davis.  The A's made a similar trade to get Samardzija and Hammel but Beane wasn't criticized as much (track records give you things like that).  But was the trade any better?  The two pitchers weren't that great in Oakland - Shark was solid but Hammel wasn't.  Addison Russell is hitting pretty well in AA.  

In practice, I believe the A's trade looked better.

 

In reality, the Royals trade was absolutely better... Not because I agree with the Royals trade so much as the A's trade was a complete and utter disaster.

 

The A's were the best team in baseball at the time of the trade, vastly improved their team on paper, and barely scraped into the playoffs as a second Wild Card when all was said and done.

 

Yikes.

[Mike Sixel]

It's still hard to figure out what happened to the A's.......but it is a lesson for the Twins, imo.

 

The A's had the best O in the game, traded for more pitching, and somehow got worse. Just because your offense looks good, doesn't mean you can assume it will stay that way. Just a thought.

[James]

Part of the criticism came from the timing.  The Royals got Shields and Davis immediately after the 2012 season when they had just lost 90 games.  They also had been bad for a long time, so the idea that they these two guys could push them over the edge seemed kind of odd.

 

The A's, on the other hand, knew that their pitching wasn't the strongest, but were in the middle of a season where they had the best record in the American league.  The idea of giving up a prospect to win that season wasn't a preposterous idea.  It was simply giving up a good prospect to get players that could help you win right now, when you had a track record of winning.

 

They are difficult trades to compare.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

Replacing Cespedes with Jonny Gomes apparently was a bad swap - it's more complicated than that, of course, but that was a key on offense.

[Mike Sixel]

Not really....several guys had started to slump, several got hurt, it isn't about Cespedes much at all, from what I read, unless he had some magical ability to make people in Oakland better that he lost after the trade.....

[USAFChief]

In practice, I believe the A's trade looked better.

 

In reality, the Royals trade was absolutely better... Not because I agree with the Royals trade so much as the A's trade was a complete and utter disaster.

 

The A's were the best team in baseball at the time of the trade, vastly improved their team on paper, and barely scraped into the playoffs as a second Wild Card when all was said and done.

 

Yikes.

One take away for me is yet another reminder that it is really difficult to understand baseball, and even more difficult to try to predict it.

 

The A's did pretty much exactly what is considered by many the optimal strategy...wait to add impact player(s) until "it gets you over the hump."

 

It's not that simple.

[biggentleben]

Replacing Cespedes with Jonny Gomes apparently was a bad swap - it's more complicated than that, of course, but that was a key on offense.

 

It really has little, if anything, to do with Cespedes, but that's the media talking point.  They quickly neglect that the Athletics had 8 players who at the time of that trade were achieving career high OPS+ numbers and three more hitting over 100 OPS+.  That leveled out, as anyone looking at the situation would have figured, but it all happened at once rather than having guys peak and valley at various points during the season.  The Tigers had Victor carry them for multiple months, but it was as if when he had an average or below average month or so, that's when Miggy hit out of his mind for a few weeks.  Good teams have various peaks and valleys at the same time.  The A's had all their peaks in April through June, and seemingly all their valleys in July through September.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

Yes, the reality of the situation is that Oakland was out of control hot for the first half and then most of the team cratered Offensively. Adding Lester, subtracting Cespedes was not the reason for the freefall. It was a hot team that cooled off at the same time. 

[Rosterman]

Baseball is such a strange business. It has ups and downs. It is not just a player, but players who work and perform in sync, managed well, and getting the breaks.

 

It was a great playoff game. Two dynamite starters facing lineups that are hungry. Mangers doing the right and wrong calls on innings pitcthers and pitches thrown. Stealing bases by the A's. Sudden Death oevrtime, which happens so little in baseball (think 7-game World Series). 

 

The A's did what they felt they needed to do to stay in first, and it didn't happen, but they still participated in the post season. They will retain at least one of the pitchers. They can still buy for next season. But, man, talk about moves that looked perfectly good on paper.

[drjim]

It really has little, if anything, to do with Cespedes, but that's the media talking point.  They quickly neglect that the Athletics had 8 players who at the time of that trade were achieving career high OPS+ numbers and three more hitting over 100 OPS+.  That leveled out, as anyone looking at the situation would have figured, but it all happened at once rather than having guys peak and valley at various points during the season.  The Tigers had Victor carry them for multiple months, but it was as if when he had an average or below average month or so, that's when Miggy hit out of his mind for a few weeks.  Good teams have various peaks and valleys at the same time.  The A's had all their peaks in April through June, and seemingly all their valleys in July through September.

 

I don't know if I quite buy that it had little or nothing to do with Cespedes. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between the media narrative and a straight analysis of the numbers, though leaning towards the latter. I think removing a cleanup hitter will always have an impact on a lineup.

[biggentleben]

I don't know if I quite buy that it had little or nothing to do with Cespedes. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between the media narrative and a straight analysis of the numbers, though leaning towards the latter. I think removing a cleanup hitter will always have an impact on a lineup.

 

At the time of the trade, Cespedes was hitting .256/.303.  He was slugging well, but his overall value was quite low, frankly.  If you want to go into non-measurables like "clubhouse leadership" or any such thing, then there's really no argument that will satisfy that on either side other than conjecture.

[drjim]

At the time of the trade, Cespedes was hitting .256/.303.  He was slugging well, but his overall value was quite low, frankly.  If you want to go into non-measurables like "clubhouse leadership" or any such thing, then there's really no argument that will satisfy that on either side other than conjecture.

 

I'm thinking more lineup depth/slotting, matchups for pitchers as they attack a lineup, and the like.

 

I will admit that statistical analysis might not be on my side and I haven't dug deep enough myself. But I think there is a mental side that can be more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a statistically proven phenomenon.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

And after the trade, Gomes managed to hit .234/.320 with only one extra base hit. They went from Cespedes' OPS+ of 115 to Gomes' OPS+ of 65. 

 

The offense was better with Cespedes, and while there's no way to know if losing him made everyone else bad, it is clear that the whole team (for the most part) stopped hitting in the second half.

[gunnarthor]

At the time of the trade, Cespedes was hitting .256/.303.  He was slugging well, but his overall value was quite low, frankly.  If you want to go into non-measurables like "clubhouse leadership" or any such thing, then there's really no argument that will satisfy that on either side other than conjecture.

.256/.303 is low but it wasn't that low in this pitching rich environment (and taking his home field into account).  His OPS+ was a solid 115 and he was worth roughly 3 WAR (if you like that).  

[USAFChief]

I'll say this for Beane: he's a man not afraid of his convictions. He thinks big, and goes out and does it. No playing it safe, tinkering around the edges, or "better to do nothing than make a mistake" philosophy.

 

TR could learn a lesson there.

[gunnarthor]

I'll say this for Beane: he's a man not afraid of his convictions. He thinks big, and goes out and does it. No playing it safe, tinkering around the edges, or "better to do nothing than make a mistake" philosophy.

 

TR could learn a lesson there.

I'm not sure that's fair to Ryan - he's traded a lot of established players for unknowns based on his belief that they will be better.  I don't see a lot of fear when Ryan makes a trade.

 

I understand you might be saying Ryan needs to make a "win-now" trade when he has the chance but we aren't there yet (and remember, Bowden turned down Garza, Baker + prospect for Soriano down the stretch in 06).

[Paul Pleiss]

The A's trade, imo, reamins a solid trade, and I'd call it the right move to make. As noted above, you can't predict baseball.

 

The A's traded for Lester to have him be able to pitch in the post-season. they got that. They even got to Big Game James in the match-up, and somehow both excellent bullpens went cra-cra. That's baseball. No way to predict that.

 

The A's got what they wanted, a post-season start for Lester. And the offense came through in a big way in the play-in game, without Cespedes. Baseball is a quirky game, and one game is more or less a coin flip. It wasn't a lack of Cespedes, and it wasn't Lester who lost the game. Things just got strange.

 

Billy Beane made some surprising moves, and I think given the chance he'd do it again all over for a chance to play that Royals team one more time.

[big dog]

I personally thought the Lester/Gomes/Cespeda trade made sense.  I didn't like the trade for the Shark and Hamels- I thought there was too much of the future traded away.  It was certainly defensible, I just didn't care for it.

 

I do have strong feelings that I don't like Beane's strat-o-matic approach to building a team, or at least not the frequency with which he shuffles the deck.  As an article of faith, I think that chemistry matters, and you need a core group that sticks together a little while.  Beane finds good parts, but he's always tossing them around and they never seem to gel quite enough.  Wouldn't you find it hard to perform your best in an environment when you expected that most of you were only there until your boss could find a replacement that might be marginally better?

 

As a fan, I would find it hard to root for a team that was a collection of shirts with various bodies moving in and out of them.  It may not just be the stadium that is keeping attendance down.  Winning isn't everything, especially when you don't win at the end of the season.  There are a bunch of young guys on that team I could cheer for, but as an A's fan I would just assume they would be traded in a year or two anyway.

 

I understand that's what happens in sports, and it's both necessary and fascinating, but it happens a lot more frequently with the A's and I don't see that as a good thing.  Would I enjoy a WS champion team with a bunch of players who were new, and who I expected to be gone quickly?  Sure, but not in a way that would make me want to go to more games in a year when half those guys were gone.

[Mike Sixel]

As a fan, I root for shirts and not individuals....so not all fans are like you (but I bet most are more like you). The A's don't lose 90 games under Beane, they just keep reloading. 

[big dog]

As a fan, I root for shirts and not individuals....so not all fans are like you (but I bet most are more like you). The A's don't lose 90 games under Beane, they just keep reloading. 

True, he's very good at reloading, but apparently his aim is somewhat off.  Maybe he should quit shooting so often and try aiming more carefully.

 

Man, I love that metaphor. Even if it doesn't work.

[Mike Sixel]

They were the number 1 O in all of MLB, and traded minor leaguers and 1 hitter for two excellent SP. That seemed to be the right move at the time. 

[biggentleben]

I actually liked the Samardzija and Hammel trade even more, seeing as they really gave up Russell as far as players who had a future in Oakland.  Straily had struggled in Oakland, but reportedly had some big issues between his ears when it came to relating to his coaches and veteran teammates, and was intended to be traded or waste away in AAA.  McKinney is going to have to move off of center field, and he likely won't have the sort of bat to profile in a corner, nevermind that he was struggling to hit in the hitter-friendly Cal League.  He did have a revival in high-A for the Cubs, but he still hasn't shown the speed he was rumored to flash in high school and doesn't display the type of power to really profile as a corner sort of guy.  They could not have seen how far Hammel was going to fall off, but Samardzija was excellent for them this year, and he's theirs to control this offseason.  If they choose to trade him this offseason, I'd wager they could even get a better return for him alone than the Cubs did for moving two starters.

[drjim]

I actually liked the Samardzija and Hammel trade even more, seeing as they really gave up Russell as far as players who had a future in Oakland.  Straily had struggled in Oakland, but reportedly had some big issues between his ears when it came to relating to his coaches and veteran teammates, and was intended to be traded or waste away in AAA.  McKinney is going to have to move off of center field, and he likely won't have the sort of bat to profile in a corner, nevermind that he was struggling to hit in the hitter-friendly Cal League.  He did have a revival in high-A for the Cubs, but he still hasn't shown the speed he was rumored to flash in high school and doesn't display the type of power to really profile as a corner sort of guy.  They could not have seen how far Hammel was going to fall off, but Samardzija was excellent for them this year, and he's theirs to control this offseason.  If they choose to trade him this offseason, I'd wager they could even get a better return for him alone than the Cubs did for moving two starters.

 

I agree with this. I thought it was a very good trade (for both teams) at the time and it made sense for Oakland to go all in this season as they realistically had a two year window before needing to seriously retool.

 

I was much more skeptical of the Cespedes-Lester trade. I would have played for two years instead of a potentially marginal upgrade for this year at the loss of value next year.