This is one day removed from the end of the Oakland A's loss in the Wildcard game against the Kansas City Royals. Probably too soon to be writing, but since no fan I know wants to talk about last night, or last week, or last month, etc, I'm going to do what any run-of-the-mill Comicbook Guy would do - register my disgust on the Internet (before my breakfast burrito congeals too rapidly).
I'll start with the obvious - the Cespedes-Lester/Gomes trade. The reason A's fans like myself can't get over this trade is because having a right-handed power bat in the lineup has been something A's fans haven't had in forever. The other thing Yoenis was that no other teammate could really say was that he was an Oakland player from the start. Sure, he never was in the minor leagues for the team, but he also never wore a different MLB uniform. We watched him through green-and-gold colored glasses. Those laser throws from the outfield, the moonshots over the fence, ... the only time I ever wished I was in Vegas were for both Home Run Derbys he participated in, 2013 and 2014. But I digress.
Jason Giambi was the big hitter when I became a real Oakland A's fan (lefty hitter). I started sitting in the RF bleachers because my good friend liked to sit there - "better chance of getting a Giambi homer," he'd say. Then we saw the parade of past-their-prime veterans who would hold the DH spot, including Giambi's second stint with the A's in 2009. Prior to that, the best success was with Frank Thomas in 2006. Hideki Matsui in 2009. Prior to that we saw guys like John Jaha, Matt Stairs, or Erubiel Durazo. But I digress again.
What can the Lester-Cespedes trade be compared to, in recent team history? For me, it's Matt Holliday in 2009. Beane traded away a couple pitchers and Carlos Gonzalez to Colorado, and it was obvious that Carlos was destined for greatness, even if we rarely saw much of it under then-manager Bob Geren. Matt Holliday went on to become one of the most forgettable Oakland Athletics in history, doing absolutely nothing on a team incapable of doing much anyway. He spent less than a full season with the A's before high tailing it out of Oakland for the 'best fans in baseball' in St Louis.
Insert white people joke.
Jon Lester seems similar to me in this way. He was brought here to do a job, not become part of a team. He had only worn the Red Sox uniform up until his arrival here. Everything he says about staying in Oakland sounds like a sports cliche spit straight out of his agent's mouth into a microphone into a hidden earpiece Lester is wearing. Guarantee he goes to the highest bidder this off-season: NYY or BOS.
Conversely, when the 2012 Oakland A's surprised everyone by taking the division on the last day of the regular season, Beane was humble, saying "This was supposed to be a rebuilding project that would have taken at least a couple years. We're just lucky it panned out this way." Now, I am paraphrasing, but the point is that it DID take Beane by surprise.
Now, fast forward to July 2014, and Beane is trading away the farm for arms. Never mind that Jesse Chavez was pitching well or that the A's had won the last eight games Tommy Milone started; they had never pitched a full season and Beane's confidence in them was nil; especially when a few bumpy starts for each pitcher could provide numbers to prove his theory, that in fact they were on a downward trend. The Samardja-Russell trade was huge in that no one thought Russell was attainable; he had just never been in the conversation. So here we see the prospects Beane covets the most in trades, suddenly having Oakland trade value. But then Lester for Cespedes happened.
The media went nuts. Tons of analyzing and over-analyzing, and after the dust settled, it was "Yep, Billy Beane did it again" - whereby "it" just meant blowing everyone's mind with outrageous deals for players. But what we, the A's fans, saw was 3/5 of the rotation replaced by former Cubs and Red Sox, when the scrappy Milone and Chavez got demoted to Triple-A and bullpen (respectively).
But at the cost of their cleanup hitter, the constant from the past two division champion winners, that undeniable force at the plate, "La Potencia".
Of course, the rationalizing went on - "We wouldn't have been able to sign him as a free agent (in 2016)" ... "The team was on a downward trend before the trade" ... etc etc. Then there were those of us who were so disappointed by losing Cespedes that we lost the faith in August. I say "we" but I really mean "me" and maybe some others. I wanted to believe in Lester, but I couldn't figure out why an every-fifth-day player could be valued against an everyday one. I couldn't figure out why the manager often says "The players write the lineup card," referring to how players who perform well force his hand into choosing who starts and who sits. I couldn't figure out when a player's value turns from team value to trade value.
So, as one is wont to do, I looked for precedents. With the acquisition of Samardja, Hammel, Lester, Gomes, and Sam Fuld at the deadline, I tried to think of the last time the team made so many trade deadline changes - and to me, it was right out of a movie. In 2002, Beane cleared house (*as re-enacted by Brad Pitt) and sent out the message that "If you aren't performing, then you aren't playing for me" (sic). But in 2014, the team was hitting on all cylinders, yet Beane couldn't sit quietly, as he did in 2013 at the trade deadline.
As a side note, the first time I noticed this trend was with Marco Scutaro in 2006. Here was a guy that filled in as a second baseman and shortstop in two back-to-back seasons for the A's, provided some of the most memorable at-bats for this A's fan, but was shipped to Toronto the moment he was a free agent - in favor of Bobby Crosby.
Bobby freakin' Crosby. Well you know where I can go from here.
Daric freakin' Barton. WHY do the A's put so much stock in some players and not others? Don't tell me 'defensive purposes' either. We just turned a catcher into a third baseman, an outfielder to a first baseman, and a first baseman into a closer. I'm never believing in defensive purposes again!
...and to bring it back full circle, Jim Johnson. Here's a guy whose numbers, or track record, warranted a $120 million dollar contract in the mind of Billy Beane. I remember after the first blown save or two going trolling on Baltimore message boards, and finding lots of evidence that a giant mistake had been made.
Could that money have been used for Cespedes? Didn't the same logic (track record, prior stats) preclude the trade for Lester? Did anyone in the A's brass call out Beane for the failure of Jim Johnson?
Well most recently it might have been Johnson, but how about Hiro Nakajima? Maybe the press conference was just for the Japanese media? The guy never set foot on the Coliseum grass, except for Opening Day 2012 introductions. How about Sam Fuld, the guy squeezed off the roster Opening Day 2014 by Barton? Essentially Barton cost us Fuld and Milone, if you decide to view it that way.
It just shows a total lack of self-awareness to not look at the Jim Johnson signing and ask "How can we avoid this in the future?" In the immediate aftermath of the A's 2014 season, Beane maintained that "without Lester, I don't think this team makes the playoffs."
What we, the fans, want is for Beane to admit it - he made a mistake. Boston knew what carrot to dangle under his nose, and he didn't hesitate; he traded away the man who led his 2012 team to first place, despite his understanding of it being "a rebuilding year." They thought they had the premier closer in the offseason signing of Jim Johnson, but despite his absolute zero-return -on-investment, Beane was not held accountable. Even the re-signing of Sam Fuld, which could be obviously stated as "the one that got away," Beane was just Billy being Billy when he got him back, no criticism leveled, no mistake by keeping Barton.
Anyhoo, teams have identities. The Oakland A's identity can be seen in that photo of the team celebrating the division win on the field in 2012, champagne bottles flowing, big sweaty grins, looking like a bunch of castaways who just managed their way off the island.
(months go by, I don't publish...)
Part Two:
I am now editing this in December, fresh off the Josh Donaldson trade, another head-scratcher for us Beane counters. I've had time to separate my immediate feelings from the more complex ones, the ones that don't comprehend the logic behind Beane's constant turnover of players. Actually, I take that back - it's not that I don't understand why, it's more that I just don't like it. No fan likes to see their favorite player traded, sure. But for A's fans, just when you think a guy might be a centerpiece to a larger puzzle whose pieces you may not yet have, Beane just grabs your heart and rips it straight outta your chest. Not just yours, but the players' too. Cespedes cried. No courtesy call for Josh Donaldson. No one but you to explain to your kids.
They must all be assets, numbers on a page, stock chips to be traded. But they're all people too, and when they are treated so well by the organization as players, you just wish maybe they would get treated well on the way out too.
As a fan, it makes me numb. I'm no longer the fan with the guilt trip about how many games I don't go to during the regular season; I'm just a statistic - a 'non-season ticket holder,' if you will.
