Why The Athletics Should Trade For 'The Cuban Missile'
The Oakland Athletics have made a handful of trades this week to bolster its minor league system, but the one trade they haven't made yet could be the one to turn the franchise around the quickest.
This will be music to every A's fan's ears. Oakland needs to make a trade for the former Athletic, Yoenis Cespedes.
Doesn't that just sound glorious?
The Detroit Tigers are shopping the Cuban Missile around the trade market. The team is far from making the playoffs, and with Cespedes in the last year of his contract, they are looking to rebuild a team which has underachieved in recent years.
Cespedes is having one of the best years of his career batting .289 with 17 home runs and 58 RBI in 100 games.
Now, would this make complete sense for the Athletics? Well, not really, unless a couple things go in the A's favor.
They could trade some of the prospects which they just received for Ben Zobrist, Tyler Clippard, and Scott Kazmir to the Tigers for Cespedes. If the A's can convince the Cuban to resign with the team for a couple years, the trade would be completely worth it.
The A's have not been the same team since Cespedes left. As we have seen, Cespedes was not the only great player on the team (i.e. Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss, Derek Norris), but he was the engine that kept everything running at a high power in that lineup.
This is clearly just a hypothetical and something fun to think about over the trade deadline, but it's nice to consider for a moment.
The Athletics were the best team in baseball before the Cespedes trade, and have been one of the worst teams since.
There is no doubt that Cespedes was a fan favorite. Of all the trades Billy Beane has made over the years, trading Cespedes to the Boston Red Sox may have been the toughest one for A's fans to swallow.
Cespedes is currently on his third team in the last calendar year. If he is in fact traded to another team, it would be his fourth in such a short time frame.
He is not the type of player who should be continually shopped. He is a player a team can build around.
Boston didn't see the potential for that, and it seems like Detroit doesn't either.
Cespedes had a home in Oakland and following from the fans which he won't get anywhere else (except maybe Miami because what Cuban player wouldn't in that city).
If Beane could pull off some type of trade to get the left fielder back, he would regain a lot of trust from the fans, as well as provide a reason for people to show up at the games.
I don't want to get any one's hopes up by saying all of this. Chances are, something like this will not happen, but if it did, you could bet the A's would be a contender in the American League West next year.
The A's were a non-playoff team for five straight years before Cespedes came to Oakland. While on the team, they made the playoffs for three consecutive years.
Coincidence? I think not. The Cuban Missile turned the entire franchise around, but now the team sits exactly where they were before he arrived; not in the playoff picture with the future of the team unknown.
Moral of the story: the A's need Yoenis Cespedes back in the Green and Gold.