Heck, I’ve got one even more recent than all of you. The Angels traded Jim Edmonds for Adam Kennedy and the remains of Kent Bottenfield (but he won 18 games the year before! :rolleyes: ).
Not the worst, but up there: Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliffe Slocumb.
Bagwell was struggling at 3B in AA ball, with Wade Boggs and future All-Star Scott Cooper ahead of him. That’s the kind of player who gets labeled trade meat during a pennant drive, and there was not much criticism of it at the time. Boston made up for it by getting Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe from Seattle for Heathcliff Slocumb, don’tcha think? And do you want to add Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson for Mike Boddicker while you’re Sox-bashing? The worst *sports * trade of all time for Boston might be the draft-day pick swap with the Niners that turned out to be Jerry Rice for Trevor Matich, but few know about that even now.
To add to the list:
The Reds’ shuffling Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas. Robbie got the Triple Crown for the O’s the next season.
While I’m Reds-bashing, Tony Perez, a Hall of Famer and the Big Red Machine’s true leader, along with top closer Will McEnaney to Montreal for Woody Fryman and Dale Murray. GM Dick Wagner showed who’s boss, but that was it for one of the great teams of all time.
While I acknowledge the existence of Boggs and Cooper in the Sox plans…in no way was Bagwell ‘struggling’ in the minors. Check out those numbers above.
And again, I remember significant criticism for it. Like I said ‘If there’s any justice in the world the Bagwell trade will haunt [the GM of the Red Sox] until the day he dies’. That came out with the first book of that off-season.
I know we’re playing hindsight here. But all the numbers on Bagwell we’re pretty fine. If anything let Boggs go another year and then see if you can turn Cooper (who’s minor league numbers weren’t adding up as well as Bagwells) into something.
Again, in hindsight…
Looking through ‘The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract’ (2001 edition) in which he lists the top 100 players at each position we find Boogs at #4 for 3B (behing Schmidt, Brett, and Mathews) and Bagwell is listed at #4 for 1B (behind Gehrig, Foxx, and McGwire). Toss in the fact that Cooper doesn’t even make the top 100 3B and oofah.
And note that the Slocumb for Varitek and Lowe is another one of those idiotic deals for middle relief. Ouch. We should just make a list of deals for middle relievers that look astoundingly painful in hindsight. I betcha that would make quite a list.
Slocumb for Varitek and Lowe= Best. Trade. Ever:D
He *was * struggling to get out of AA. It wasn’t going to happen without a trade, and it wasn’t going to be Boggs they dealt.
As do I, but not for trading him per se, but for perhaps not getting enough for him.
Yep, and it might be instructive to compare this deal with others of promising prospects who never panned out to see just how unusual this one was.
Murray was later traded by Toronto to the Yankees for a minor league first baseman named Fred McGriff, which is WAY worse.
The Mariners wanted Slocumb to be their closer, not middle relief, didn’t they? Not that that would make this deal a good one, of course.
Looking at players still in the league, you gotta think the Devil Rays are still kicking themselves about this one - on the day of Tampa Bay’s expansion draft, they drafted Bobby Abreu from the Astros and promptly dealt him to the Phillies for Kevin Stocker.
The White Sox sending Sammy Sosa to the Cubs for a rapidly deteriorating George Bell in 1992 (Bell - 38 HR after the trade; Sosa - 541). Caveat - this was pre-juice Sosa, who had just 33 hr in 1,214 career ab’s to that point, so maybe the Sox thought it was a great deal at the time.
Oakland A’s traded Mark McGwire to the St. Louis Cardinals for T.J. Matthews, Eric Ludwick and Blake Stein. While the Cardinals didn’t win the WS, or even the NLCS, in McGwire’s time here, he was a big reason for improved revenue for the team via merchandise and attendance, allowing for the current ability of the team to pay Rolen, Pujols, Edmunds, and probably Renteria top-shelf salaries.
Heck, the way closers come out of nowhere I think the phrase ‘ace closer’ should be banned.