There Were the 2011 Phillies and 90's Braves, Too, kiddies
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The 2014 Oakland A's traded a 115 OPS+ hitter, Yoenis Cespedes, for a playoff ace, Jon Lester. They also traded for Jeff Samardzija, pushing all their poker chips into the rotation pot.
You might have noticed that this didn't work. It might very well have been the most extreme case, in all of baseball history, for the failure of this particular strategy.
But! Let's hand the mike to Aristotle at Hey Bill:
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Hey Bill--Mattingly is going to bring back Kershaw tonight on short rest in a must-win game rather than start Dan Haren. Haren is a good pitcher in his own right, he has pitched well over the last month, and he's fully-rested. Does it make sense to bring an ace back on short rest, even someone as good as Kershaw (who of course got shelled Friday)? Is Kershaw on three-days' rest really that much better than Haren on full rest? This strategy always reminds me of Gene Mauch and the '64 Phillies. Thanks.
Asked by: Ted
Answered: 10/7/2014
Well, why does the one time that the strategy failed count more than 50 times (in the same era) when the same strategy was used successfully?
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That'll do for us too.
