It made another huge trade to acquire an ace.
The A’s on acquired Boston Red Sox starter Jon Lester, the playoff-tough
left-hander who can be a free agent at season’s end, in an all-in effort
to win the AL West and make a deep October run, baseball sources told
Yahoo Sports.
The addition of Lester comes 26 days after the A’s acquired ace right-hander Jeff Samardzija of the Cubs, and so they have remade the top of their rotation. They already had Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir.
The agreed-upon trade will send
Lester and outfielder Jonny Gomes to the A’s. In return, the Red Sox,
embarking on their second roster makeover in two years, receive
outfielder Yoenis Cespedes
and, critically, a competitive balance pick in the 2015 draft.
Cespedes, 28, can become a free agent after the 2015 season. In his
third major league season, Cespedes is batting .256 with 17 home runs
and 67 RBI.
This deal shows the trigger of the A's. Jason Hammel, also acquired from the Cubs, has struggled in Oakland, going 0-4 with a plus 5 ERA and plus 2 WHIP. It appears Hammel is destined for bullpen duty or a DL stint to regain his form.
Boston came away with a fabulous return for Lester, who was going on the free agent market at the end of the year, probably looking towards a Kershaw megadeal. The Red Sox get a legitimate starting outfielder with power in Cespedes.
And he is a critical point when looking at the Cubs trade with Oakland. It is now perfectly clear that the Cubs are purely focused on obtaining and stockpiling prospects than known major league talent. If the Cubs received Cespedes in the Samardzija-Hammel deal as well as a 2015 draft pick and either Addison Russell or Billy McKinney, it would have been a better deal since Cespedes instantly becomes the best outfielder on the major league roster by a mile. Cespesdes bat gives instant protection to both Rizzo and Castro in the line up.
As Oakland is clearly "all in" for this season, it is also clear that the Cubs have folded their hand for 2014 by continuing acquiring prospects and not major league players. The danger is that the Cubs are hoping that these prospects, when the cards are dealt with the their major league promotions, will turn out to be aces.
There is just another concern about how the Cubs make trades. After the Lester trade, the Twins have acquired leftyTommy Milone from the A’s in exchange for outfielder and ex-Cub Sam Fuld.
Milone lost his rotation spot with the Athletics earlier this month when the team acquired Samardzija and Hammel and any hope of him regaining that spot likely faded with Oakland’s morning acquisition of Lester. The 27-year-old Milone had asked to be traded somewhere that he had a chance to start, and Minnesota certainly fits that bill.
Milone had pitched to a solid 3.55 ERA with 5.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and a 38.4 percent fly-ball rate in 96 1/3 innings this season. He owns a 3.84 ERA with 6.5 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 and 36.8 percent ground-ball rate in 468 2/3 innings for the Nationals and Athletics. He is eligible for arbitration for the first time this off season and can be controlled through the 2017 campaign.
There is just another concern about how the Cubs make trades. After the Lester trade, the Twins have acquired leftyTommy Milone from the A’s in exchange for outfielder and ex-Cub Sam Fuld.
Milone lost his rotation spot with the Athletics earlier this month when the team acquired Samardzija and Hammel and any hope of him regaining that spot likely faded with Oakland’s morning acquisition of Lester. The 27-year-old Milone had asked to be traded somewhere that he had a chance to start, and Minnesota certainly fits that bill.
Milone had pitched to a solid 3.55 ERA with 5.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9 and a 38.4 percent fly-ball rate in 96 1/3 innings this season. He owns a 3.84 ERA with 6.5 K/9, 2.0 BB/9 and 36.8 percent ground-ball rate in 468 2/3 innings for the Nationals and Athletics. He is eligible for arbitration for the first time this off season and can be controlled through the 2017 campaign.
And since Oakland has shown all its trade cards that would or should have been apparent when the Cubs were selling their pitchers, the Cubs passed on another major league ready arm in Millone, who fits a pressing need for Chicago: starting pitching. A controllable pitcher with a solid ERA and a good ground ball rate would be a good fit in Wrigley. It is clear the Cubs could have given Oakland a Fuld type outfielder (pick anyone: Sweeney, Schierholtz, Coghlan, Riggiano or Lake) to pick up Millone or someone like him. This another piece of evidence that the Cubs are holding back on rebuilding the major league roster with major league experience for the long haul.
Statistics and expectations are the trading blocks of prospects. But how they actually play under the pressure of ML games is another thing. Bill Madlock was on the radio and he said in his day the only stats that mattered were wins for pitchers and hits for hitters. He knows about the new sabermetrics and new stats like OBP, but he remarked that OBP is meaningless if you are station to station runner versus a person like Rickey Henderson who could turn a walk into a triple. The object of the game is to score more runs than one's opponent, not to have a better sabermetric spreadsheet.
