The unacknowledged arms race between the Oakland Athletics and Detroit Tigers escalated at baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline on Thursday night.
The Athletics obtained the Boston Red Sox ace Jon Lester, only for the Tigers to answer a few hours later by picking up Tampa Bay’s best pitcher, David Price.
A month ago, Oakland obtained Jeff Samardzija, the Chicago Cubs’ best pitcher, and Justin Verlander of the Tigers reacted by saying: “Really, when I saw that trade, I thought that they made that trade for us. No doubt about it in my mind.”
They likely were thinking of each other again on Thursday.
Detroit may have come out slightly ahead. The Tigers now have three former Cy Young Award winners in their starting rotation: Justin Verlander (2011), Price (2012) and Max Scherzer (2013). Their starting five is rounded out by Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello, who is 12-5.
Oakland sets up with Lester, who helped the Red Sox to two World Series titles, Samardzija, Sonny Gray, their ace until a month ago, Scott Kazmir and Jesse Chavez.
The Athletics and Tigers lead their divisions but they seem to be overlooking the Baltimore Orioles, the other division leader, as well as the Los Angeles Angels, hot on Oakland’s tail, and the Kansas City Royals, who are chasing the Tigers.
Dave Dombrowski, the Detroit general manager, said, “The question we asked ourselves is: What gives us the best chance of winning the world championship this year? We thought adding Price to our rotation would give us the best chance to do that.”
Price left a Tampa Bay team not entirely out of contention, but giving up their ace likely will hurt their chances of reaching the play-offs.
“Compared to other possibilities, it was by far the most prudent thing we could do for the best interests of the franchise,” said Andrew Friedman, the Rays’ vice president of baseball operations – code for “we could not afford to keep him”.
The deal also involved the Seattle Mariners, with Detroit trading outfielder Austin Jackson to the Mariners, who sent infielder Nick Franklin to Tampa. The Rays also got pitcher Drew Smyly from Detroit.
Boston made the Lester deal in part because he will be a free agent at season’s end.
Even though he is enjoying his best year, they seemed leery of having to pay something like US$23 million (Dh84.5m) per season to keep him, having been burnt recently by big, multi-year signings of players on the high side of age 30.
Boston received the outfielder Yoenis Cespedes from the A’s, whose 17 home runs this season matches the total hit by all Red Sox outfielders this season.
Billy Beane, Oakland’s general manager, was focused on the acquisition of Lester, the 30-year-old left-hander.
“Players like this really don’t come along too often,” Beane said.
Boston also sent Jonny Gomes to the Athletics, who, like the Tigers, apparently see themselves as successors to the Red Sox as American League champions.
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