In one of the more dizzying days in recent baseball history, 12 deals involving 37 players were completed on Thursday before the 4pm deadline for trades without waivers. All-Stars and prospects, and many players in between, were on the move in a flurry of activity that could change the landscape of the pennant races.
It was the kind of day that baseball fans relish, with one deal after another to debate.
Appropriately enough, one of the biggest trades was the first one to be announced, with the news emerging at about 10am on Thursday that the Boston Red Sox, buried in last place after winning last fall’s World Series, had traded their left-handed ace, Jon Lester, and outfielder Jonny Gomes to the Oakland Athletics in exchange for the slugging outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.
However, the Red Sox were hardly done. They then traded starter John Lackey to the St Louis Cardinals for outfielder Allen Craig and starter Joe Kelly; sent reliever Andrew Miller to the Baltimore Orioles for a prospect, and also shipped infielder Stephen Drew to the New York Yankees for Kelly Johnson in a rare trade between those two rivals.
Counting two other starting pitchers dealt in recent days — Jake Peavy to the San Francisco Giants and Felix Doubront to the Chicago Cubs — the Red Sox unloaded seven players from their roster in less than a week.
In acquiring Lester, the A’s picked up a pitcher with a glittering World Series pedigree who can now front their already formidable rotation.
Hours later, as the deadline approached, the Detroit Tigers answered back, acquiring David Price, the 2012 American League (AL) Cy Young Award winner, from Tampa Bay with help from the Seattle Mariners, who obtained center-fielder Austin Jackson from the Tigers as part of the three-way deal.
Jackson was pulled from the field in the middle of the Tigers’ afternoon game at Comerica Park as the trade was being completed.
Detroit also sent the left-handed starter Drew Smyly to the Rays, who got infielder Nick Franklin from Seattle and Willy Adames, an 18-year-old infield prospect, from the Tigers.
As for the other deals, the most notable ones included the Arizona Diamondbacks sending outfielder Gerardo Parra to the Milwaukee Brewers for prospects; the Cleveland Indians trading shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, a two-time All-Star, to the Washington Nationals for infielder Zach Walters; and Oakland reacquiring outfielder Sam Fuld from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for the left-handed pitcher Tommy Milone, who was 6-3 with a 3.55 earned run average in 16 starts for Oakland. Fuld is a useful player, but he will not supply any of the power Cespedes is taking with him to Boston.
In addition, the Cubs traded the left-handed pitcher James Russell and infielder/outfielder Emilio Bonifacio to the Atlanta Braves for a minor league prospect, which is what Arizona received in exchange for shipping infielder/outfielder Martin Prado to the Yankees, for whom he will play right field. The Houston Astros traded right-handed starter Jarred Cosart to the Miami Marlins as part of a six-player deal, while the San Diego Padres shipped outfielder Chris Denorfia to Seattle for two minor leaguers.
The Athletics had startled the baseball world when they signed Cespedes, a slugging outfielder from Cuba, to a four-year deal before the 2012 season. They made an even bigger splash when they traded him, acting boldly to give themselves the best chance to win their first World Series in 25 years.
The A’s have baseball’s best record and seem well on their way to their eighth playoff appearance in the last 15 years. However, for all of the celebrated innovation of their general manager, Billy Beane, they have advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs just once, in 2006, when they were swept by Detroit in the AL championship series.
They lost two starters to Tommy John surgery in spring training, yet patched together a rotation that still kept the team strong. Beane then fortified it on July 5 by trading two top prospects to the Cubs for Jeff Samardzija, an All-Star righthander, and Jason Hammel.
The A’s bolstered an already strong rotation, with Lester and Samardzija to go with Sonny Gray and All-Star Scott Kazmir, who are both 12-3 with a sub-3.00 earned run average this season.
Lester is 6-4 with a 2.11 ERA in 13 postseason appearances, including a 3-0 record and a 0.43 ERA in three World Series starts. He was beloved in Boston, not just for helping the team to two championships, but for overcoming cancer early in his career and expressing a desire to stay with the team for less money.
The Red Sox seemed to dare him to back up those words, offering him a widely reported contract extension this spring worth just four years and US$70 million, a figure that represented roughly half of his market value. A similar 30-year-old left-hander, Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies, has a six-year, US$144 million deal.
Lester turned it down, but said last week that, even if he were traded, he would be open to re-signing this winter with Boston, the team that drafted him in the second round in 2002.
Cespedes, a two-time Home Run Derby champion with tremendous pull power that should play well at Fenway Park, can be a free agent after next year. He is hitting .256 with 17 homers and 67 runs batted in, but his on-base percentage is only .303 — more numbers to contemplate on a day in which the deals just kept coming.
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