June 27, 2008

I think it's interesting that only 2 of those deals that I recall from the 22 they list actually had the a benefit equal or even greater for the team giving up the "big name" to get multiple lesser players.

• Seattle fans hated the Randy Johnson trade- especially since he "rediscovered" his skill after sucking ass in Seattle that last season- but Freddy Garcia, John Halama, and Carlos Guillen would have multiple productive years for the Mariners- including as part of that amazing 2001 116-win season- while the Astros couldn't even keep Johnson after the season.
• The Garciaparra trade is well known; Garciaparra hasn't really panned out like he should have- that wrist injury, tragically, seemed to take him from "Unanimous 1st Ballot HoFer" to "Questionable election at best"- while that risky trade move by Theo Epstein pretty much defined his ballsiness as a GM, and got the Red Sox a World Series trophy that can't really be properly valued.

Other than that... it seems every trade had the "big name" providing something key in that year, and in some cases over multiple years (obviously, this entire presentation is confirmation bias), whereas those are the only two examples where a team giving up a "franchise" type player got something equal or greater in return. Argh- sorry, not totally the place to vent, but Nomar still makes me cringe. His first 4 seasons were astounding- simply unbelievable. His 27th year, in 2000, he hit .372 for his second consecutive batting title. He was a modern day Williams or DiMaggio, it was incredible. But after an Al Reyes fastball in the wrist on September 25th, and re-injuring it in the spring of 2001.... and he's never been the same. Sure, he's had some good seasons, but he's been injury plagued ever since, and was just hitting his peak years looking to be a power-hitting batting champ every year.

posted by hincandenza at 08:49 PM on June 27, 2008