Were the Oakland Athletics a good team in the early 2000s because Billy Beane used “advanced” statistics to find under-the-radar talent? Or was it because the team was anchored by Legit Dudes named Tim Hudson and Barry Zito?
What would have happened if the A’s had kept Tim Hudson instead of trading him to the Atlanta Braves in 2004? Could they have won the World Series in 2006, instead of losing to the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS?
The Athletics fell off after that season, but they bounced back in a huge way in 2012 after signing free agent Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to a 4 year deal. After winning no more than 81 games the prior 5 seasons, they won 94 in 2012 and then 96 in 2013, winning division titles both seasons.
In both seasons they lost in the ALDS to the Tigers, but they looked poised to finally take the next step in 2014. Then, Billy Beane traded Yoenis Cespedes to the Boston Red Sox for Ace pitcher Jon Lester.
Cespedes was the leader of the team. The anchor of the lineup. Sure, Donaldson is a good player, but could he carry the team the way Cespedes had from the moment he walked in the door?
When the A’s traded Cespedes they had a 2 game lead in the division over the rival Angels. They had a 6 game lead earlier in the season, but it had been whittled down to 2 heading into the trade deadline.
Billy should have just sat back and let the team do its thing. But then, the team may have won a World Series. And then, the Oakland fans would have loved Cespedes more than they love him. Billy could not stand for that. And he knew that everyone would call him a genius regardless of what happened with his team. Cespedes had to go.
The team fell apart. They lost 2 out of 3 to the Kansas City Royals in their first series after the trade. The Royals had been playing well after a 48-50 start. But, had they not run into the A’s immediately after that trade, would the Royals have been able to sustain that? Or did the Royals waltz into Oakland on August 1, 2014 and steal chemistry from the A’s that propelled them like NOS in a car in The Fast and the Furious? They beat the A’s 3 out of 4 at Kauffman a week later too. That’s a lot of stolen chemistry. That’s a lot of Good Vibes.
The Athletics lost that first series after the trade to the Royals. But then they had a good week. They won 5 out of 7 from the Rays and the Twins, not that either of those teams was any good that year. Then, they went to Kauffman and dropped 3 out of 4 to the Royals.
Did the Royals’ Old School Vibe and Good Chemistry make the A’s feel like something was missing from their team? Something was missing from their team. The A’s had ceased to be a team the moment that Beane traded Cespedes. Once that happened, they were nothing more than a science experiment that was about to fail badly.
They got swept in Atlanta after KC. The Braves were not good that year. Says a lot about where the A’s were at. They stabilized back home, winning 2 out of 3 against the Angels. But The Big Kahuna aka Mike Scioscia’s team had been playing great while the A’s were getting beat up by Old School Baseball and The Chemistry Fairy. So, even after taking two out of three in that series, they still trailed the Angels in the race for the division title.
They were one game out heading into Anaheim for a huge 4 game series the last weekend in August. That’s when things got really bad. They got swept by The Big Kahuna’s guys. They could barely score a run. It was like they had been neutered. By the time the weekend was over, they trailed The Big Kahuna by 5 games.
The team kept losing. And losing. And losing some more. By Friday, September 19th they trailed the Angels by 11.5 games. A total collapse. They limped into the playoffs as the second AL Wild Card team. The Royals were the first AL Wild Card team. All of the good energy that had been built up in Oakland over the 2 and a half years before Beane traded Cespedes was stolen by the Royals that first weekend in August. Whatever Good Vibes and Good Karma and Mojo was left after that, well, the Royals snatched that up at Kauffman a week later. The Royals stole that energy from the A’s and it carried them all the way to the first AL Wild Card.
Energy Matters. Chemistry Matters. Analytics Destroys Teams.
The Wild Card game between the Royals and the A’s was an all-time classic. The A’s built up a big lead. They looked great. Then, they collapsed. The game itself was a microcosm of what had happened during the last 3 years.
This happened. If Cespedes was still on the team, 100 % he would have caught that ball. Sam Fuld may have a Super Awesome DRS and UZR but he isn’t Yoenis Cespedes. That was the problem for the A’s. Any statistic you can point to from the Wild Card Game or from the second half that season is a RESULT of the Cespedes trade. They didn’t collapse in the second half or in the Wild Card Game because of this stat or that stat. They collapsed in the second half because they traded their leader and the anchor of their lineup.
The Royals stole whatever the A’s had left that night in the Wild Card Game and rode it all the way to the World Series that year. They lost to the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland A’s rivals from across The Bay. Who was on that Giants team? Tim Hudson. In his final season. Go figure. Barry Zito, Hudson’s wingman all those years with the A’s had helped the Giants win the World Series in 2012. Go figure.
The Giants are a Legit Team. The Royals are a Legit Team. The 2014 Athletics were an Analytics Disaster. An Intelligentsia Fail.
The Athletics traded Yoenis Cespedes at the trade deadline in 2014. Then they collapsed. Would it have been the Royals and the Giants in the World Series if they hadn’t?
On Opening Day the next season, Cespedes did this. Just to remind Oakland fans what could have been.
SABR Skeptic 