Cespedes, Lester, Beane, Statheads versus players

[Hollyw00d]

Beane's quote on chemistry just means he doesn't understand it at all. It's not about fWAR, or who is the better player according to metrics. Lester impacted one out of every 5 games. Beane removed the other four days of productivity that players say they missed and couldn't seem to find the right combination to fill the gap in the field, at the plate and in the clubhouse. The wins Lester brought they lost in the other four days of the schedule.

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that a good point. No doubt about that.

[floplag]

why would they care? Do you think its these guys lifelong dream to spend their whole career playing for the A's? Maybe a couple but I really doubt it. They just want to play ball, get paid, and maybe win some games.

you act like they're little leaguers. These are grown men, sometimes.

 

Grown men playing a game for kids... yes, i think some measure of pride and loyalty matters for those who arent just mercenaries.  I know, hard to believe... one more thing not in any stat book.   I think there is a reason Trout signed the extension to stay with the Angels when we all know his heart is in Philly so to speak.

I think the As are getting a bad rep in the league today to be honest.. especially if they have this upcoming firesale that everyone expects is coming.  Chemistry matters.. how do you build chemistry knowing a guy is likely to get dealt the better he becomes?  I think the As rep in the player base3 is taking a serious hit to be honest, the comments these guys made seem to suggest im right, but it isnt in the box score so im sure it doesnt matter.

 

[stormngt]

Who has a "love affair" with him? I've been one of his staunchest advocates on this forum, although that's mainly to balance out the ridiculous hatred. I think Beane is a very good GM, probably one of the best in the game. And the record simply doesn't agree with you - no, he hasn't won a World Series, but in his 17 years as GM, he's made it to the postseason 8 times, with winning records 11 times. That's pretty damn good for a team with a pretty low payroll. He can only do so much, and what he does do is give his team a fighting chance year in and year out.

For many winning is a WS championship or bust.

 

For those there is a lot of disappointments because only one team can win a the WS.

 

I view success differently.  A WS championship is obviously the top goal.  But it doesn't negate the successes you may have had over 162 game season.

[wopphil]

Cespedes wasn't worth the 11 games the A's finished behind the Angels. If the A's had kept him, best case scenario would have been that the WC game would have been played in Oakland. Worst case scenario, they wouldn't have even made the WC game.

[Hollyw00d]

Grown men playing a game for kids... yes, i think some measure of pride and loyalty matters for those who arent just mercenaries.  I know, hard to believe... one more thing not in any stat book.   I think there is a reason Trout signed the extension to stay with the Angels when we all know his heart is in Philly so to speak.

I think the As are getting a bad rep in the league today to be honest.. especially if they have this upcoming firesale that everyone expects is coming.  Chemistry matters.. how do you build chemistry knowing a guy is likely to get dealt the better he becomes?  I think the As rep in the player base3 is taking a serious hit to be honest, the comments these guys made seem to suggest im right, but it isnt in the box score so im sure it doesnt matter.

chemistry doesn't win games on the field, period. Player performance does.

there have been teams than won the WS and went far in the playoffs with clubhouses that hated each other. How do explain that? Somehow they all managed to sack up and perform when it counted.

[Hollyw00d]

And beane is mostly right. Winning games produces chemistry. Just look at the angels.

you think any losing team has great chemistry?

[Hollyw00d]

Grown men playing a game for kids... yes, i think some measure of pride and loyalty matters for those who arent just mercenaries. I know, hard to believe... one more thing not in any stat book. I think there is a reason Trout signed the extension to stay with the Angels when we all know his heart is in Philly so to speak..

trout wanted to get paid, and the angels were willing to pay him. His desire to make millions overcame his desire to wait all the way until 2017 to sign with the Phillies

thank you for making my point for me.

[floplag]

chemistry doesn't win games on the field, period. Player performance does.

there have been teams than won the WS and went far in the playoffs with clubhouses that hated each other. How do explain that? Somehow they all managed to sack up and perform when it counted.

 

i never said it wins, but it is a factor.

The A's didnt perform, but when i see players talking about the moves and team chemistry, it tells me it matters.

[floplag]

And beane is mostly right. Winning games produces chemistry. Just look at the angels.

you think any losing team has great chemistry?

 

im sure some have yes.. just as some winning teams have had bad chemistry... it isnt an absolute.

the angels have had good chemistry even last year on a down year... we werent seeing blowups in the dugout such.

again, not saying its everything, but it is a factor when you hear players basically tossing their GM under the bus

 

[floplag]

trout wanted to get paid, and the angels were willing to pay him. His desire to make millions overcame his desire to wait all the way until 2017 to sign with the Phillies

thank you for making my point for me.

 

how you got that out of what i posted is your judgement of every player to be a mercenary clown...  Trout shows no indication of being that kind of player, none.  You projecting that onto him doenst make it real

[WallyWorld]

as is almost always the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The people claiming the Cespedes trade cost the A's their season are just as wrong as all these statheads claiming it had little to nothing to do with it. We'll never know what would have happened if the trade wasn't made. There were a ton of factors at play, but it's an undeniable IMO that trading Cespedes away had a significantly negative impact on the team's performance.

[Hollyw00d]

I didn't call him a "mercenary clown.". You did. Seems like you have a grudge against athletes that take the best offer made to them.

im guessing if someone offered you a ton more money to work somewhere else, you would probably be a mercenary clown too.

[Torridd]

Good quote, and I agree. But again, it isn't either/or. And let us not forget that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. I think the trade had something to do with the Athletics' collapse, but that there were other factors.

 

If you look at Cespedes numbers, his reputation far exceeds his actual performance. Consider that, in 2014 he was: 58th in fWAR and 72nd in wRC+ among all major leaguers. Or, if you want more conventional stats, he was 93rd in BA, 126th in OBP, and 45th in SLG - all among 146 qualifiers.

 

Now to be fair to Cespedes, he's a solid defender and baserunner. His overall fWAR, 3.4, is tied with Kole Calhoun, albeit in 25 more games. So he's certainly a good to very good player but isn't the kind of star that many seem to believe him to be, at least in 2013-14.

 

As for Lester: 8th in fWAR, 6th in ERA, 8th in strikeouts, etc.

 

In other words, Jon Lester was easily one of the 10 or so best starting pitchers in baseball this year, and Cespedes was maybe top 50. It is hard to fault Beane for making the trade.

Junky, they didn't need Lester. He gambled that they could do w/o Cespedes and stock up on pitching. He was wrong.

[Torridd]

as is almost always the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The people claiming the Cespedes trade cost the A's their season are just as wrong as all these statheads claiming it had little to nothing to do with it. We'll never know what would have happened if the trade wasn't made. There were a ton of factors at play, but it's an undeniable IMO that trading Cespedes away had a significantly negative impact on the team's performance.

True, we'll never know, but they were in first place with a comfortable lead before the trade. I think those who say the trade cost the a's are much more likely to be correct than the "statheads."

[Oz27]

There's lots wrong with the notion the Cespedes trade screwed the A's. Most importantly, Lester is a much better player than Cespedes who provided better value this season. In fact, Cespedes is seriously overrated. Since his rookie season he's been a nice but unspectacular player - a low OBP, high power guy who is pretty good with the glove and has an excellent throwing arm. Think a rich man's Mark Trumbo (prior to this year), who isn't totally useless with the glove. The idea that the loss of him is THE reason the A's lost the division by a massive margin (or even the biggest reason...actually even a significant reason) is simply wrong. As for chemistry, if one trade was enough to make all those players shit the bed, the A's did have a chemistry and personnel problem and it's much more to do with the rest of the team being sucky d-bags.

 

Would I have done it if I was them in that position? Probably, but not certainly. The only valid argument against it is whether it was too much of a gamble on this season.

[Torridd]

He's a heckuva better hitter than Lester though.

[floplag]

I didn't call him a "mercenary clown.". You did. Seems like you have a grudge against athletes that take the best offer made to them.

im guessing if someone offered you a ton more money to work somewhere else, you would probably be a mercenary clown too.

 

There is a huge difference between those who are playing solely for the money, and those who are playing because they love/want to play the game.

Many players have taken less than market value to play where they wanted to even in the face of the union pushing them to take the top dollar.. Jarred Weaver is another example of this.

I have no grudge against anyone, but appreciate those who realize how lucky they are.

[yk9001]

The trades paid off for the A's.

 

This is so Billy Beane.

http://deadspin.com/billy-beane-says-the-athletics-trades-paid-off-1641773949

[Kenny]

I don't fault him for the trade. A good SP trumps a good left fielder. But it was a gamble. Keep a valuable LF who is signed through 2015, or get a guy that will help down the stretch. And he did. Would Cespy have gotten a hit in that WC game and ended it before the Royals could walk off? Maybe, but without Lester who knows what would've happened.

I'm just happy that they won't have either player next season.

[Mark68]

Speaking as the "stathead" (maybe not *the* stathead, but one of them) that flop referred to in his opening post, it still seems to me that the whole argument centers around the trade being a turning point in the A's season. It was not. The offense was already down. Their best month was April. You can bash the stats all you want, but they certainly don't lie.

 

Maybe if Beane was paying attention to those stats (the team OPS decreasing every month except July, which saw a decrease in OBP but a spike in slugging pct), he might not have made the trade. But to say that trading Cespedes for Lester instantly made the A's worse is erroneous, IMO. They were already getting worse.

 

Did it effect the human "chemistry" aspect? Probably. Maybe Donaldson, Moss, Norris, etc thought they had to make up whatever difference they perceived Cespedes to have. Moss apparently couldn't because he was banged up. Players should know themselves and their capabilities and not try to do more than they're capable of. But they're human.

 

However, what all of this shows is that some of you believe that on top of every thing else a GM has to do, he needs to be a shrink, also.

[Angelsjunky]

Good post, Mark68, although I think a good GM needs to be one part shrink - he needs to have a sense of how people tick, how they work together. This is why I think the chemistry argument has SOME merit, although not as much as many are saying. In the end, the A's were a better team on paper without Cespedes and didn't perform. That isn't Beane's fault. At the end of the day, the GM's main job is to field as good a team as possible and that is what Beane did. If anything, more blame should be placed the manager, because it most definitely is his job to manage the chemistry of the team.