By Anthony Pucik
Have you ever heard the saying “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”? Apparently, the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers have not, and they paid dearly as a result.
The A’s and Tigers were two of the best teams in the American League and Major League Baseball this season. The A’s had one of the best records in baseball and the Tigers once again found themselves atop the AL Central, but they weren’t exactly cruising to division wins. The A’s had the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim battling them for the top spot in the AL West, while the Tigers had a pesky Kansas City Royals team to deal with in the Central that they struggled to pull away from. As a result, the Tigers and A’s felt the need to make drastic moves at the trade deadline in order to solidify their chances of winning their respective divisions and making the playoffs.
Oakland traded away two first round picks (one being a top prospect Addison Russell), a pitcher and a player to be named later to the Chicago Cubs for starters Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel. It also acquired Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes from the Boston Red Sox for their number four hitter, Yoenis Cespedes, and a draft pick. The Tigers also bolstered their starting rotation, acquiring David Price in a three team deal with the Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners. The Tigers ended up sending outfielder Austin Jackson to the Mariners and pitcher Drew Smyly to the Rays.
When these trades occurred, nearly every baseball fan and beat writer already had the American League Championship Series set between the A’s and Tigers. The stacked pitching staffs of the two teams made them seem like a lock to meet in the World Series come October. But, what happened? The Tigers edged out the Royals by a game in the Central, only to be swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Division Series. The A’s, on the other hand, posted the worst record of any team to make the playoffs, came in second by 10 games in the West to the Angels and lost in the Wild Card game to the Royals. The ALCS features neither the A’s or the Tigers, but the Orioles and Royals.
The A’s and Tigers didn’t need to make the moves they made at the trade deadline in order to be successful. They already were successful. The A’s were the best team in the league with the pitching staff they had, but felt the need to make trades in an attempt to make it better. When they acquired Hammel and Samardzija and gave up a very good prospect in Russell, I figured that would satisfy them. But, when I saw they traded for Lester and gave up Cespedes, I was almost in disbelief. Billy Beane wasn’t implementing Moneyball tactics with this team; he was going for it all, and it backfired tremendously.
Without Cespedes in the lineup, the A’s simply could not hit. Pitching notwithstanding, teams still need to be able to hit in big situations to win, and Oakland could never fill the void Cespedes left. They barely made it to the playoffs and didn’t even get a win out of Lester, who most likely will return to Boston or sign elsewhere in the offseason. So, the A’s traded away top prospects and Cespedes for an extra inning loss on the road in a win-or-go-home wild card game. Worth it? Probably not.
The Tigers didn’t make moves as drastic as the A’s did, but they still felt the need to deal some players in order to acquire Price and have the last three AL Cy Young Award winners in their rotation. Unlike Oakland, they were able to squeak by in their division, but got swept by the Orioles in the playoffs. Even with Price and Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, the Tigers couldn’t win a five game series.
Very quickly, the A’s and Tigers went from looking like geniuses to looking like suckers after their deadline moves. They were bested by young teams in the Orioles and Royals who didn’t make huge splashes at the deadline and stuck with the team and the chemistry they had. As a result, they were the two best teams in the American League this season.
Perhaps the A’s would still have collapsed late in the season if they didn’t make the Lester trade and the Tigers still could have lost to the Orioles in the ALDS, but we will never know. One thing we do know, howevers, is that Oakland and Detroit are watching the playoffs from their couches when they were expected to be the ones playing, and the only thing that changed from the middle of the season to the end of the season is the trades they made that reshaped their teams.
Maybe Oakland and Detroit will think twice before trading away their successful starters in an effort to make them better, because if they didn’t, this postseason might have had a completely different ending.
