lester and gomes for cespedes
i have so many feels right now but trading 2 months of a player who we have a mediocre chance of resigning after the season + 2 months of a platoon player for a year+ of a legitmate power hitting OF who we have the money to resign anyway makes sense to me
then again they should have just sacked up and gave him 6 years / 100+ mil like he wanted before the season
Meh coming into the year a 6 year 100m deal for lester would have been an awful lot. He'd been all of a 2.7 war per year player over the past three years (by baseballreference, although his underlying numbers were a bit better, so a fip based war probably likes him more), which going by the standard 6m per win says he would have needed to average ~3 wins per year through age 30-35... Expecting a player to do better in that age range than at their usual peak is an awful gamble. This year he's been better, but that just hits the problem with big deals, that pitchers are very unpredictable (It also doesn't help that playing every 5th game really limits value). Almost all high end recent pitcher deals have been at best mediocre values (verlander, sabathia etc).
In general I see the best value in getting a large number of number2ish starters and going for quantity over quality (coincidentally this is roughly what the A's have done this year, lester excluded), as they tend to provide 3/4ths of the value of elite starters, for at most half the cost.