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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That'll do for us too.
(1) Yes, Dr. D knows all about "Critical Mass" on offense. He should; he was the original TV evangelist for the idea that --- > not all WAR are created equal, and for the idea that there exists such a thing as Baseball Critical Mass.
(2) Yes, Dr. D would prefer a #4 hitter this winter. Strongly. So would the Mariners. Strongly. The question is, what if you cannot get such a player.
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In this event, it is worth noticing that Jon Lester is worth a good solid 5 WAR per season, every season, and was worth 6.1 WAR in this last season. Victor Martinez is very, very capable of producing 1 WAR; he did exactly that, in 2013.
In this article at Bill James Online ... maybe you want to give in and cough up the $3 per month to access it ... James lists the 33 greatest rotations in baseball history. He is looking at depth, more than the 1-2 punch, but still. Do you think all of these rotations lived the 2014 Oakland Experience? Here are a few of his, and my, greatest rotations ... let's take a few that had weak offenses.
Remember, the M's OPS+ last year was 95:
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| Year, Team | SP's | Offensive OPS+ | Remark |
| 2002 DBacks | Unit, Schilling | 93 (!) | Not on James' list*; WS winners |
| 2002 Braves | y' know | 93 (!) | 101 wins. Several Braves teams had weak lineups |
| 2011 Phillies | Halladay, Hamels, Oswalt, Lee | 95 | 102 wins |
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You know what, I think I'll stop right there. This blog is here to try to tell you stuff you didn't already realize. Which is that an epic rotation, plus a weak offense, can easily add up to a great team.
Further, there is a very realistic possibility that the 2015 M's offense could improve past 95 OPS+, and improve substantially. Seager and Cano ain't going anywhere, and which of these young players do you NOT expect to hit better?
- Ackley (99 OPS+)
- Austin Jackson (54 OPS+)
- Miller (88 OPS+)
- Zunino (.199 AVG)
- Morrison (111 OPS+ on year, but 127 in 2H)
- Jones (71 OPS+)
- D.J. or Kivlehan or somebody
Taking the above young players as a group ... it would be anti-sabermetric to expect the group to do less than "significantly better." Keeping sabermetrics in proportion, that's one thing. Anti-sabermetric is anti-rationality.
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If I'm GM, yes, I do want to address the "Critical Mass" issue in the lineup. Lloyd McClendon is clamoring, loudly, for two bats to address this.
But if my backup strategy is to build a 2011 Phillies rotation, I'm ready. I had +100 runs last year and I'll take any +50 runs asset I can get.
Cheers,
Dr D