Cespedes is really overrated though. His OBP this season is .303 (not a typo). He hasn’t been able to recapture the magic of his ‘rookie’ season. I wonder why Boston pulled the trigger on that deal.
Cespedes has been injured for much of the season, hasn’t he? Playing through it, if he has, has to have hurt his numbers. That’s why agents now urge their players not to come back until they’re 100%, the team be damned, so their numbers look better in free agency.
Yes, I think Boston is looking to next year, not the year after. Not only is a big-market team able to compete *every *year, they *have *to.
What’s Cespedes’ excuse for LAST season, then? 
2013 his slash line was: .240/.294/.442
In addition, Cespedes’ fantastic rookie season was bolstered by a great second half… led by a .341 BAbip.
For fairness sake, his BAbip this year is low at .278, so he is slightly better than his current numbers. But .278 is far closer to normal (.290 to .310).
For the cost of two months worth of Lester and Gomes in a lost season.
Well, if it works as expected, *three *months. Good to see Beane actually wants to *win *in October now.
Y’all have to get to the postseason first ;).
It won’t be this year, so hopefully next year, because after that Cespedes is a FA.
This is a great trade for Oakland, just stunningly fantastic. The assumption was that whomever got Lester would have to give up blue chip prospects, and Oakland gave up no prospects at all. Cespedes is a 28-year-old corner outfielder with a .303 on base percentage. The .350 batting average in the playoffs is in ten games and not even Yoenis Cespedes thinks that proves he’s a better hitter in October than he is in July. Frankly, it won’t be hard for them to find an outfielder who can hit almost as well as Cespedes, but now they have a rotation that can destroy anyone.
I don’t know why Boston wanted Cespedes, actually, though of course if they think they can re-sign Lester, he’s basically free, aside from his contract through next year, which isn’t gigantic. He doesn’t have a ton of upside. Acquiring Cespedes essentially amounts to making a bet that not only are you going to compete in 2015 (which is a realistic assumption) but that Cespedes is, at age 29, suddenly going to become a better hitter (which isn’t.)
Now, granted, Boston has the worst offense in the American League right now, and their corner outfielders were both ineffective and old, so this probably does make Boston a little better in 2015. Not a lot, though, and probably not beyond that.
I was amazed that they were willing to take nothing more than Cespedes, given that they were, while in negotiations with the Orioles, apparently playing hardball for a bunch of top-level prospects. Baltimore wasn’t willing to sacrifice so much future potential just to get Lester for a playoff run.
I guess, though, that considerations are somewhat different when you’re negotiating with a team in your own division, a team you have to play 18 times a year and with whom you’re competing directly for a division title.
As an Orioles fan, i would have been pretty happy to get Lester, but i’m not too disappointed that they chose not to give away the farm to get him. Baltimore is already better than average in run prevention this season, and have allowed the fewest runs of any team in the AL East. I think they’re a decent shot at the playoffs anyway, although i’m not counting the Yankees or the Blue Jays out yet, and if they did make the playoffs, having a top-tier pitcher like Lester in October would have improved their chance of actually advancing past the Division Series.
The Cardinals get John Lackey from the Red Sox for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly. The trade deadline is more fun when there are actual trades.
Yes, I know, play up the numbers you like, dismiss the ones you don’t, ain’t talkin’ baseball grand? 
That’s enough right there, besides the fact that they get him for all of 2015, presumably healthy, and for effectively nothing. Getting *anybody *immediately useful under the circumstances counts as a coup.
There’s a lot of wank dreams here about getting Giancarlo Stanton and how Cespedes might be the centerpiece of that deal, but don’t bet on *that *happening.
The more I think about the Cespedes trade the dumber I think the Red Sox were. They basically now have Yoenis Cespedes for one year. Big whoop. That’s all they got for trading a Grade A ace? They coulda gotten something better, right?
However, that’s assuming anyone else was offering something better. We are assuming that to be the case, because the media was reporting that teams like Pittsburgh, St. Louis et al. were actually considering it, and that teams lacking enough prospects couldn’t make it work. If in fact that is true and Pittsburgh was offering two top-level prospects for Lester, then Ben Cherington just made one of the dumbest trades you can imagine… but we do not know that is true. Maybe the media was wrong. Maybe in fact the Red Sox shopped him around and everyone said “We’d love to have Jon Lester, but I’m not giving you that much for two months of him.”
And as further proof of this theory, now the Red Sox have dealt away John Lackey - who has a cheap option for 2015 - for a 29-year-old corner outfielder having a terrible year, Allen Craig, and Joe Kelly. No real blue chippers there. That’s what they could get for him. I don’t think teams are willing to trade the farm away for a few months’ worth of a guy anymore.
Craig is another corner hitter who’s older than most fans think and not quite as good as most fans think. He’s also been horrible this year. Amazingly it’s likely that trading him away improves the offense, especially if having no competition sparks Oscar Taveres into hitting like he can.
I’m imaging Mozeliak re-enacting the Moneyball scene about Carlos Pena: “Mike, you can’t start Craig today”. “The lineup card’s mine, Mo”. “No, you can’t start Craig - I just traded him. Start Taveres”.
Lackey vs. Kelly - slightest of upgrades. But what really matters is that the Cards start hitting. I do wonder if trading for two SPs tips the teams’ hand about Wacha coming back at all this season though…
Yeah, I think this makes it clear that Wacha is done for the season. Too bad! A fun guy to watch as well as being an important member of the starting staff.
Craig probably improves Boston’s offense too, sadly. There is no real outfield talent in their system coming up, just a load of starting pitchers (the position you’d most *want *to have a load of, though) and infielders. Further, getting him allows Cespedes to play CF and Bradley to go back to AAA where he never spent enough time learning to hit.
Lackey’s come up big in October more than once (and he’s been a real slacker at times, too - too many injuries due to poor conditioning, hopefully a thing of the past now). A very nice pickup for the Cards, who know how important that is. And yes, it’s pretty late already for a pitcher with a major injury to come back in time.
For the rest of Boston’s housecleaning, there’s still Mike Carp, who’s asked to be dealt, and Will Middlebrooks, who needs to be. Or maybe they’re in the Stanton package too.
I was at Petco Park last night watching the Cards get clubbed 12-1 by the Padres. More pitching certainly won’t do them any harm, although, to be fair, they are actually better than average in the NL for runs allowed per game this year.
His previous game he got no decision after pitching 9 innings and allowing 1 unearned run.
He looked real good, but to be fair, the Mariners offense sucks to an unimaginable degree.
I thought there were plenty of reports of the Orioles offering prospects, but the Red Sox wanted more and the O’s balked at the asking price. I mean, I realize they are in the same division, but c’mon, it really isn’t likely that Lester would resign a long term deal with the O’s. For even one decent prospect it’d a better deal than Cespedes.
Lackey is pitching really, really well this year, and Kelly is pitching badly. At least for this stretch drive that is not a slight upgrade.