I love rooting for small market teams, but ever since the A's traded Cespedes for Lester I've been rooting against them. It seemed wrong to trade their best hitter when they were already the best team in baseball. Team chemistry aside, it's unfair to Cespedes. He was one of the main reasons the team had been successful and traded just like that. I'm not saying teams should never trade, but this type of trade seemed to go against the tradition of baseball. I'm normally not one for tradition, but you don't just send your hero to another team because you think you can marginally increase your playoff odds. Cespedes deserved to play for Oakland. I feel like if Oakland had had success with this move, other teams would try similar things. What if the Twins had traded Mauer or Morneau during one of their playoff runs? Am I overreacting or do others agree that Oakland losing is good for baseball?

Cespedes would have likely been traded  sooner or later as Oakland would not have resigned him to the type of contract he will get. Lester will net the A's a draft pick. It will be better than the draft pick they gave up. In the end, it ends up poorly for Oakland as they neither get a deep playoff run nor much in the end out of the trade. Boston was going nowhere this year. They have the resources to extdend Cespedes and sign Lester this off season. Thus for moving down in the draft they could end up with Cespedes to show for their efforts. A big win for the big market team. In the end the small market team lost. Bad for baseball. A good try by Beane. The reward was not there.

I cannot follow your logic whatsoever here.  How would Oakland losing be good for baseball?  Players are commodities in the game.  It sounds cynical to say so, but follow baseball for any amount of time, and you quickly see that players are not treated as people, but as assets.  Cespedes as an asset is much less valuable than Lester for possible postseason success, so it was (and still is) a good move to make.

 

It was good for Kansas City to win because no fan base should have to wait 30 years between playoff appearances, but not because it was good in some way for Oakland to lose...

Nitpic: Lester won't net the A's a draft pick.

If Oakland had won, it would have been good for baseball.

 

KC won, and that's good for baseball.

 

If there was any way for both teams to win and for the Tigers to get sent home, that would have been GREAT for baseball.

 

Billy Beane is one smart GM. I liked his moves before, and I still like them now. They came within 3 outs of moving on to the division series TWICE in the game. Their offense produced. Lester was cruising right along. They got to Big Game James and they scored against the Royals impressive bullpen. Hard to knock Billy Beane for anything that happened in that game, and Lester down the stretch for the A's was nothing less than impressive. His starts for Oakland in the 2nd half likely kept the A's in that playoff game despite their offensive blackhole.

"but you don't just send your hero to another team because you think you can marginally increase your playoff odds."

 

 

Why else would you make a trade? The whole idea is to get to the playoffs and win.