Did Minaya really make this trade?

by architech on Jul 7, 2008 1:05 PM EDT

2002 - Bartolo Colon to the Expos for Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore.

!!!

Is that worse than the Kazmir trade? His skills are even more questionable than I thought unless I'm missing something...

Jayson Stark (under point #4)

4. Even the right moves can turn out wrong
We've been studying some of the biggest trades made at the deadline over the past half-dozen years -- those trades we all labeled "winners" at the time. What did they accomplish, in retrospect? Not what anybody figured. That's for sure.

Remember last year's blockbusters? Mark Teixeira to the Braves? The Braves were 3½ games out of first when he arrived. They finished five games out. Eric Gagne to the Red Sox? All he delivered was a 6.75 ERA.

Want some others, from previous years? Carlos Lee to Texas in 2006? The Rangers went from 1½ games back to 13 back. Bartolo Colon to the Expos in 2002? They played sub-.500 ball the rest of the season and finished 19 games behind -- and the three prospects traded for him (Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore) all turned into stars.

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the expos were moribund

a reprehensible trade in hindight but omar was playing with house money at that point. why wouldnt he mortgage the future? his bosses were selig and the rest of the owners. he served neither omar nor the other owners to keep the farm system stocked for whatever the franchise was to become.

but yeah looking back, disgusting. if i were a nationals fan (if such a thing existed) i would REALLY hate Omar.

by kendynamo on Jul 7, 2008 1:35 PM EDT reply actions

right

Completely different circumstances. If anything, Selig pressed him into making that deal in order to make the Expos seem better, and thus more valuable to any potential buyer.

Was it a bad trade in hindsight? Sure, but while I have many reasons to critcize Minaya, I leave this one out because the circumstances were completely different from those he’s dealt with as Mets GM.

Vote change: DePodesta/Acta in 2009!!!

by Greenpoint Ian on Jul 8, 2008 9:42 AM EDT up reply actions

“[T]he three prospects traded for him (Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore) all turned into stars. “

The fact that Cliff Lee has pitched awesomely well in the first half of 2008 does not make him a star. Over the span of his career, he’s an average pitcher (ERA+ 101). Phillips somehow managed to only OPS+ 105 last year even with 30 HR, although to be fair that’s very good for a 2B. A career OBP of .312 is not great though.

Sizemore, on the other hand, is awesome. He’s got a pretty decent shot at 40-40 this year.

by JoshNY on Jul 7, 2008 4:41 PM EDT reply actions

Did Omar really make this trade?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11162006/sports/mets/mets_get_new_endy_mets_mark_hale_and_joel_sherman.htm

Mets Get New Endy

by Sokojoe on Jul 8, 2008 6:21 AM EDT reply actions

Ouch.

Man, that one still hurts. Do we even have those guys anymore? Adkins only pitched 2 innings in the bigs last year, and Johnson hit something like .150. God, that’s easily one of the worst trades in team history.

by BobbyV_Incognito on Jul 9, 2008 7:43 AM EDT up reply actions

Someone remind me...

Who did we give up for Robby Alomar?

by JoshNY on Jul 9, 2008 10:30 AM EDT up reply actions

Off the top of my head

Alex Escobar, Matt Lawton, Jerrod Riggan.

Then I looked it up, and it turned out that we traded Escobar, Lawton, Riggan, Earl Snyder, and Billy Traber for Alomar, Mike Bacsik, and Danny Peoples.

No one from that deal really amounted to anything, but I wonder who else the Mets could have gotten for Escobar at that time.

by ams258 on Jul 9, 2008 2:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Bacsik didn't entirely suck, as I recall

That was one of those deals that looked so good at the time and then just turned out incredibly poorly, though. I mean, Alomar’s almost certainly a Hall of Famer who had an OPS+ of 150 as a 2B the year before we traded for him. He’d been the best 2B in the AL for like ten years. I guess in hindsight PEDs may have played a role, but at the time it was awfully tough to anticipate that he’d stay healthy and yet fall so far off a cliff so quickly.

by JoshNY on Jul 10, 2008 10:25 AM EDT up reply actions

Colon Trade

Don’t forget that the Expos were targeted for contraction at the time and Minaya was running a club owned by MLB—he was operating under the premise that the farm system /future was irrelevant.

by OronosFemur on Jul 9, 2008 5:19 PM EDT reply actions