Billy Beane stands by Yoenis Cespedes trade even after A’s collapse
General manager Billy Beane would do the Yoenis Cespedes trade all over again. He didn’t use those precise words with the Oakland Athletics media on Wednesday, but certainly that was the gist in John Shea’s column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
The A’s lost to the Royals on Tuesday night in the American League wild-card game, ending a most frustrating season that included Oakand’s ascent to the league’s best record in August before a fall that nearly cost them a playoff spot — even if it was only for one game.
Though he received praise for “going for it” at the time of the Cespedes trade, which brought left-hander Jon Lester from Boston, many worried that Beane was messing up the chemistry of the A’s clubhouse. The team already had started to show signs of faltering, and not long after the deal went down, so did the A’s winning percentage. They were 66-41 on July 31, actually improved to 72-44 by Aug. 9, but finished 16-31, including their playoff game.
Now, Cespedes is gone and so, too, will be Lester, a free agent this offseason.
Some flat-out have blamed the Cespedes deal. Others say it was, at least, a mistake. Holders of these opinions ignore two important details, Beane says: One, the A’s weren’t as good as they appeared, even when at their best. Two, the Los Angeles Angels were just better.
Shea writes:
“Simply put,” he said Wednesday in manager Bob Melvin’s Coliseum office, “if we don’t have Jon Lester, I don’t think we make the playoffs.
As bold a statement as the Yoenis Céspedes-for-Lester trade itself.
The 2014 A’s season went down in flames Tuesday night in Kansas City, and Beane was left to explain a day later what went wrong. A team that went from dominant to docile at about the time Beane traded Céspedes to Boston lost 9-8 in a painful season-ending wild-card game.
“One thing I’m going to say right now,” Beane said amid a round of questions on the Céspedes-for-Lester trade, “the Angels were going to catch us. They played nearly .700 ball from a certain point on.”
Indeed, Beane had warned about the Angels in conference calls following his Fourth of July trade for starters Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the Cubs and July 31 deal for Lester. He had denied the deals were about finally escaping the first round and getting deep into the playoffs, saying they were about winning the division.
The A’s deficiencies, aside from missing decent production from Cespedes, are there for anyone to look up.
They started to slip on offense in June, well before Cespedes left. By the end of the season, they collectively weren’t hitting at all. They had several key injuries pile up in the second half of the season. Players such as Josh Donaldson, Derek Norris, Brandon Moss, Coco Crisp and John Jaso — and there were more — weren’t in full working order down the stretch. But the A’s also had holes on the roster. Jed Lowrie’s defense at short was mediocre, and he hit below average. Eric Sogard was a terrible hitter, though his glove was a plus. Josh Reddick wasn’t really up and running until the very end of the season. And, as the Kansas City Royals showed, Oakland’s control of other teams’ running game was lacking.
As good of a job as it appeared Beane had done assembling the roster in, say, June, the A’s still lacked.
And the Angels, after underachieving for years, played out of the their minds, maxing out everything they had, to win the AL West by 10 games.
And if you’re going to blame the Cespedes trade for messing with the team’s chemistry, to the point that it cost them more than just runs scored, here’s something to consider: The players left behind were so mentally weak that they couldn’t handle a trade? Blame Beane for asssembling the lot. Also: Do they get any criticism for being porcelain dolls emotionally? Or just Beane?
The A’s were flawed aside from, and long before, the Cespedes deal.
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David Brown is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter!
