NBC on Yahoo SportsReport: Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes heading to Oakland for Yoenis Cespedes
We didn’t see this coming: WEEI’s Alex Speier reports that the Oaland Athletics have acquired Jon Lester and outfielder Jonny Gomes from the Red Sox for Yoenis Cespedes.
This makes the third front line starting pitcher added to the A’s rotation in less than a month, with Lester joining Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel who came to Oakland from Chicago at the beginning of July. Along with Sonny Gray, this gives the A’s perhaps the best starting rotation in the American League. Possibly in all of baseball. It certainly signals that the A’s are going for it without hesitation or pause in 2014.
For the Red Sox: a big problem — production in the outfield — is solved. They didn’t get the sorts of prospects everyone expected they’d get. But in Cespedes they received one of the most powerful hitters in the game who is under team control through 2015. And of course the Red Sox have the means to extend Cespedes if they like what they see from him over the next year and a half. It is worth wondering if his batting line — already good on the power side, even if lacking in the on-base side of things — improves in a more hitter-friendly park like Fenway.
We’ll have much more on the fallout from this monster deal, including what it means for Boston, for Oakland and for the rest of baseball as the day goes on.
