Have Billy Beane’s Trades Hurt the Oakland Athletics?

The Oakland Athletics headed into July with the best record in baseball, and sizeable division lead. They made the first big deal of the trade season, sending 2013 first-round draft pick Billy McKinney and consensus top 10 prospect Addison Russell along with Dan Straily and a player to be named later to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel. Next, they swung a big deadline deal with the Boston Red Sox, trading power-hitting outfielder Yoenis Cespedes for a few months of Jon Lester.

Even into the beginning of August, the A’s were rolling. On August 9 they owned a 72-44 record, and a four game lead in the American League West. Since then things have gone sour. The A’s have gone 11-24, and while they still own a two-game lead in the wild card race, their World Series odds have dropped to eight percent.

A’s hitters have struggled mightily since the Cespedes trade. Over the last 30 days, they own a miserable .224/.293/.332 batting line. They have scored just 92 runs in that stretch. That’s a far cry from what they were producing earlier in the year. In the first half of the season, they had a .251/.328/.400 slash line and had scored 466 runs, the second-highest total in baseball.

While the Cespedes trade and the A’s offensive declined have followed roughly the same timeline, it’s foolish to suggest that one caused the other. Sure, the A’s have been hurt by the loss of Cespdes, who was their best right-handed power threat. However, he’s hardly tearing it up with Boston. Though his overall offensive production was solid, it was hardly better than the average A’s hitter.

Lester has been excellent for the A’s, and has provided a much-needed boost to a tiring pitching staff. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the year, and the A’s won’t have the cash to resign him. Cespedes on the other hand, has an additional year of team control. With his $10.5 million salary for 2015, the A’s would likely have shopped him this offseason in any case.

Surrendering Russell, who is one of the best prospects in baseball for Samardzija, who is under team control through 2015 and Hammel, who has pitched terribly, is looking like a poor deal at this point. Samardzija was among the NL leaders in ERA with the Cubs, and he’s performed admirably with the A’s. But, he’ll command a sizable chunk of the A’s payroll with his 2015 arbitration salary, and will be a free agent after the year. Meanwhile, the Cubs have six years of cost-controlled performance from Russell, who tore up Double-A pitching as a 20 year-old. The A’s paid a high price for the Shark, and they may regret it.

The A’s recent collapse has made Billy Beane’s trades look significantly worse then when he made them. He paid dearly to acquire Samardzija and Hammel, and dealing away the popular and exciting Cespedes hasn’t won him any fans. This collapse can’t be pinned solely on his shoulders, but if Russell blossoms into a star for the Cubs, A’s fans won’t be happy.