Time for Blockbuster Pitching Trades to Pay Dividends in Postseason

Now is the time when blockbuster MLB pitching trades have to pay significant dividends. 

The immediate goal of these moves was propelling their teams into the postseason, but trades for big-time pitchers with massive reputations, resumes and pedigrees are meant for October. The goal here is a World Series, not simply a playoff berth.

Payoff time is upon us for names like Jon Lester, David Price, Jeff Samardzija, Jake Peavy and John Lackey. They were brought in to be difference-makers in their respective races, and while some have failed to live up to that billing during the regular season, autumn baseball is when their performances matter most.

Lester and Price were the biggest trade-deadline acquisitions, and their respective teams, the Oakland A's and Detroit Tigers, are licking their wounds as they drag themselves into the playoffs. Samardzija and Peavy were brought on as complementary pieces but have turned out to be very ace-like, while the St. Louis Cardinals obtained Lackey with the hopes he could find some leftover magic in his soon-to-be 36-year-old right arm.

Regardless of what these guys have done over the past two months, the next four weeks of games are what will crystalize these deals as unbelievable bargains or failures.

Lester is the big gun here. He will pitch Tuesday in Kansas City against Royals ace James Shields. It will be his first step in truly justifying the trade the A’s made to get him, one that has been criticized ever since because Oakland’s offense tanked after it sent Yoenis Cespedes to Boston in the deal.

“Now it’s my job to go out there and not screw it up and pitch the best game I can and give these guys a chance to win,” Lester told reporters after the team's final regular-season game. 

To this point, Lester has not given Oakland a reason to doubt he can do exactly that. The team crawled into the playoffs with a win Sunday after going 22-33 since the big trade, but Lester made 11 starts for the A's and went 6-4 with a 2.35 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. That second-half performance along with the meltdowns of Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir make Lester an easy choice for the team's win-or-go-home playoff.

“He’s the top pitcher in the game right now to have in that spot,” Oakland right fielder Josh Reddick told reporters.

Looking beyond just this season’s work, Lester has been a dominant postseason pitcher. In 13 appearances, 11 of them starts, Lester has a 2.11 ERA in 76.2 innings. That October success is part of the reason the A’s went with a win-now model when acquiring him.

The A’s won’t be able to afford Lester beyond this tear—he hits free agency once this season is finished—but a shutdown October will stand to raise his market value come this winter.

Had Lester busted, the A’s had another solid plan heading into October. Before pulling the trigger on one of the biggest trades of the season (Lester), general manager Billy Beane struck early on one of the other big trade targets, Jeff Samardzija. Nearly a month before the non-waiver deadline was imminent, the Oakland GM plucked Samardzija from the Chicago Cubs.

At the time, the right-hander owned a 2.83 ERA, but he has been arguably better since joining the A’s, minus one ugly start. Samardzija, whose only playoff experience came in 2008 with the Cubs (one run allowed in one inning), made 16 regular-season starts for Oakland and gave the club 11 quality outings and 12 starts of at least seven innings, including his last seven. In those seven starts, Samardzija put up a 2.08 ERA while opponents hit .207/.219/.319 against him. To tell you how bad the A’s were during that time, they went 2-5 in those starts.

So if Lester can get the A’s past Kansas City, the team has another quality ace waiting to pitch Game 1 of the American League Division Series because of two blockbuster deals aimed at setting up the franchise for its first World Series title since 1989.

Besides Lester, Detroit’s acquisition of David Price was the other knock-your-socks off trade of 2014, especially because the Tigers gave up so little in return and got glowing reviews for the transaction—essentially, they gave up Austin Jackson for a former Cy Young Award winner.

Since the deal, Price has been mediocre. This was a trade that was supposed to make the Tigers World Series favorites along with the A’s, but Price’s 3.59 ERA and Detroit’s modest 32-25 record since the move have left questions rather than the plethora of pitching it expected.

Price has also not been a playoff dynamo. In 32 playoff innings, Price has a 5.06 ERA, and he allowed seven runs in seven innings of his lone start in the ALDS last year.

But October is as much belief as it is track record, and Price’s 7.1 shutout innings in Sunday’s division-clinching win give the Tigers exactly that: a belief that he can be great in the postseason as the Tigers seek their first World Series championship since 1984.

Peavy has created no such questions with his performance since the San Francisco Giants tapped the Boston Red Sox for his services before the trade deadline. He had a 2.17 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 12 starts with the Giants, and if San Francisco can get through the National League Wild Card Game Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Peavy would most likely start Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Friday. 

“I want to pitch [next] weekend as bad as you can ever imagine,” Peavy told John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. “My heart and soul will be in prepping for my next start, I promise you that. We’ll see how it ends up, but we all in this room believe there’s going to be a weekend of baseball.” 

Peavy is a free agent after the season, but if his dominance continues deep into October, the 33-year old veteran might just end his career in the Bay Area.

The Lackey deal was clearly a win-now kind of move for the Cardinals, who traded away a younger arm (Joe Kelly) to gain some veteran postseason pedigree—Lackey has a 3.03 ERA in 104 playoff innings over his career. But since the trade, Lackey has been average at best.

His 4.30 ERA and 4.27 fielding independent pitching mark says he has struggled since becoming a Cardinal, so much so that the team skipped him in the rotation earlier this month, although they said it was because of a “dead arm” issue. Since then, Lackey has allowed three runs over his last two starts (14.1 innings).

Now, it’s time for Lackey’s championship experience—he’s won a World Series with the Los Angeles Angels (2002) and Red Sox (2013)—to shine.

“That’s why I’m here,” Lackey told Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Pitching wins in October, and all of these trades were made with that month as their focal point. Regardless of how a team got into the postseason or how any of these pitchers has performed with their new teams to this point, strong showings over the next month can cement those deals in franchise lore forever.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.