The Ten Most Lopsided Mid-Season Trades in Baseball History

If you're a Brewers fan, you were probably paying attention this week, as Prince Fielder carried the National League to victory in the pretty much meaningless All-Star Game.  It's probably a little bit less likely you were paying attention as, just minutes after the game, the Brewers essentially stole Francisco Rodriguez from the Mets for two players to be named later--likely to be two long-shot prospects.  It instantly legitmizes a bullpen that, other than John Axford, has been quite shaky.  It also brings in a player with big-time postseason experience.  All the Brewers have to do is keep him in a set-up role--a clause in his contract stipulates that he will be owed an additional $17 million if he finishes 21 more games.

While it's clear that this trade is quite one-sided--the Mets main victory in the trade is avoiding the $17 million paycheck at any cost--it will likely not even crack the Top 10 list of lopsided mid-season trades.  Every year around this time, teams take inventory of who needs to add a player or two to make the push to the postseason, and who needs to get something, anything in return for a superstar who is going to depart anyway.

Sometimes the trade works out great for both sides.  Two examples of this are often cited as bad trades, but they miss out Top 10 list.

1990: Red Sox send Jeff Bagwell to Astros for Larry Andersen
1987: Tigers send John Smoltz to Braves for Doyle Alexander

Bagwell and Smoltz both went on to Hall of Fame careers for their new teams.  What's often forgotten is that Anderson and Alexander both did EXACTLY what their new teams wanted them to do.  Andersen complied a 1.23 ERA for his partial season in Boston, shoring up their bullpen.  Alexander was even more spectacular--posting a Sabathiaesque 9-0 record and 1.53 ERA down the stretch as the Tigers won their division.  Because of this, I just can't include either trade on the list.

Sometimes a team has their back up against the wall.  Their star player is eligible for free agency in the winter, and he has made no secret about his desire to leave whatever hellhole he's stuck in.  Alternately, he might not be headed for free agency, but he's being paid a hell of a lot more than a losing team can afford to spend on any individual player, and by the time a contender could be built around him he'll either be too old or gone anyway.  Might as well get something back in return, am I right?  Oftentimes these trades are ripped after the fact, but the context is lost to history--hey, can't let a little thing like "reality" get in the way of ripping on the GM.

1993: Padres send Fred McGriff to the Braves for Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott, and Melvin Nieves
1995: Blue Jays send David Cone to the Yankees for Marty Janzen, Jason Jarvis, and Mike Gordon
1996: Brewers send Greg Vaughn to the Padres for Bryce Florie, Ron Villone, and Marc Newfield

In each case, the team in question had to move the guy, which put them at a great disadvantage.  When everybody else knows you have to make a sale, they will lowball you to death.  However, as we will see, plenty of teams have still engineered gamebreaker trades out of this situation--and the Padres, Jays, and Brewers got next to nothing in return for their stars.

1997: A's send Mark McGwire to the Cardinals for TJ Matthews, Eric Ludwick, and Blake Stein
1989: Rangers send Sammy Sosa, Wilson Alvarez and Darrin Fletcher to the White Sox for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique

These two trades are being kept off the list.  Had McGwire and Sosa not pumped themselves full of ungodly amounts of artificial muscle, they would both look a hell of a lot better.

So now that we've taken care of the Honorable Mentions, let's get on to the main event.

10.
1996: Indians send Jeromy Burnitz to the Brewers for Kevin Seitzer

A month after whiffing on the Vaughn trade (still haunts me to this day--Marc Newfield?!  Marc Newfield?!) the broken clock that was Sal Bando got the time correct for once.  By '96, Seitzer was nothing more than a DH--and not even a particularly good one at that.  He could still touch .300 with his batting average, but had never provided any kind of home run threat, and his speed had long since left him.  In return, the Brewers got Burnitz--left as the odd man out in Cleveland's star-studded outfield, he turned into a legitimate star with the Brewers, though nobody outside of Milwaukee remembers it today.

9.
2000: Indians send David Justice to the Yankees for Jake Westbrook, Ricky Ledee, and Zach Day

Yikes.  Justice turned into a monster for the Yankees down the stretch, and would end up being named the ALCS MVP that season.  Westbrook developed into an injury-prone back-end starter, Day never pitched for the Indians and didn't pitch in the majors a whole ton for anybody else either, and Ledee would turn into a journeyman backup outfielder for over half a dozen teams, hitting a robust .243 for his career.

8.
2001: Pirates send Jason Schmidt and John Vander Wal to the Giants for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong

Fact: We could easily make it to a respectable Top 10 list using only examples from the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Schmidt deal stands out as particularly putrid, however.  He had reached double digit wins in 1997-99 with Gawd-awful Pirates teams, and was regarded as an elite pitcher stuck behind a team that would not help him win games.  In return, the Pirates got Rios and Vogelsong--two notoriously injury-prone prospects who turned into notoriously injury-prone and ineffective major leaguers.  It makes you wonder if Dave Littlefield bothered reading the scouting report on them, or just decided "Screw it--we'll roll the dice and see if these two guys work out!"

How did Schmidt do after leaving the baseball purgatory of Pittsburgh?  He went 7-1 down the stretch in 2001, then ran off with the 2003 Cy Young award, compiling a 17-5 record with a league-best 2.34 ERA for the Giants.  San Fran got 78 wins out of Schmidt.  Pittsburgh got a Mitchell Report mention out of Rios.

7.
2007: Braves send Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, and Matt Harrison to the Rangers for Mark Teixeira

Teixeira is a great player, don't get me wrong.  Why do the Braves make the list for this then?  Well, they paid a very princely sum for Tex--Feliz is an All-Star closer, Andrus is an All-Star shortstop at the tender age of 22, and Harrison is a steady back-end starter.  Only Salty Balls didn't work out.  And after that, the Braves kept Tex for only a year, trading him to the Angels next July for the craptastic Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek.  I decided to include this trade on the list instead simply because the Braves gave up so fucking much for a player they weren't 100% sure they were going to be able to re-sign a year and a half later.

6.
1988: Yankees send Jay Buhner to the Mariners for Ken Phelps

This one gets bonus points for being immortalized by Seinfeld.  Sorry I couldn't embed the video.  But Frank speaks for pretty much every baseball fan--particularly Yankees fans--in regards to this trade.  Phelps was 34 years old at the time and, as is often the case with players of his age, he hit the fan quickly--batting .240 with 17 home runs for the Yankees, who quietly dumped him off on Oakland a year later.  Meanwhile, Buhner would go on to become best known as the bald-headed power threat who protected Ken Griffey Jr throughout most of his Seattle years.  He would total 310 home runs in a Mariner uniform.

5.
1996: Mariners send Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe to the Red Sox for Heathcliff Slocumb

Like the Buhner trade for Seattle, only the exact opposite.  I don't know what's the worst part about this deal.  Is it the fact that Varitek and Lowe both played key parts in ending the Red Sox title drought?  Is it the fact that Slocumb sucked something awful?  Personally, I think it's the fact that the 2001 Mariners were arguably the greatest team assembled in recent memory--and instead of a young Varitek behind the plate, they were stuck with a rapidly-aging Dan Wilson.

Regardless, this one screwed the Mariners in every way imaginable.  Slocumb spent a season and a half as the M's "closer," losing 9 games while converting only 13 save opportunities.  Unsurprisingly, the Mariners had zero interest in re-signing him at this point.  Meanwhile, Lowe had his ups and downs but his performance in the 2004 postseason helped carry Boston to the title.  And while Varitek is most likely not a Hall of Famer, his name will never be forgotten by Sox fans.

4.
1964: Cubs send Lou Brock to the Cardinals for Ernie Broglio and Bobby Shantz

Yeah, we're going old school for this one.  Brock turned into a Hall of Famer, one of the most threatening baserunners of his day, a man who once stole 118 bases in a season.  But at the time, the Cubs were fighting for the playoffs, and--not a lot of people remember this--the deal was considered a steal for them.  Broglio was a 21-game winning in 1960, and in '63 had won 18 and put up an ERA just below 3.  He instantly collapsed into mediocrity upon joining Chicago, posting a mediocre 7-19 record and 5.29 ERA over his two-plus years with the team.  This one is oftentimes cited as the worst trade of all-time.  I give it a pass for just bad luck.  Broglio was only 28 at the time--and the Cardinals got the break of all-time by dealing him just before his career nosedived.

3.
1977: The New York Mets "Midnight Massacre"
New York Mets send Tom Seaver to the Reds for Pat Zachry, Steve Henderson, Doug Flynn, and Dan Norman
New York Mets send Dave Kingman to the Padres for Paul Siebert and Bobby Valentine

Has any team ever seen such a dramatic, negative roster turnover in 24 hours?  Seaver was a Hall of Famer, and Kingman was a talented, productive power hitter who history seems to forget--but who had put up 73 home runs in the past two seasons, and was the only offensive threat on an otherwise pedestrian Mets club.  In return, the Mets got--nothing.  Henderson would be swapped to return Kingman a few years later, Flynn was a standard good-field-no-hit middle infielder, Zachry provided one All-Star season before collapsing, and Norman struggled to maintain a major league job.  Siebert and Valentine would both be out of baseball by the end of the decade.

Ownership had been locked in a dispute with Seaver over his contract all season, and New York Daily News columnist Dick Young ripped into Seaver all season.  When Young eventually wrote that Seaver was being forced into asking for a raise because his wife was jealous of how much money Nolan Ryan was making in California, Seaver demanded to be traded.  So you can't exactly give the Mets a break for being forced to trade Seaver--they brought it on themselves.  And in renting out Kingman for three years, the Mets missed two of his most productive ones.  Just a traumatic day all around.

2.
2002: The Montreal Expos send Lee Stevens, Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore, and Cliff Lee to the Cleveland Indians for Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew

I can actually smell this turd of a trade through my laptop screen.  In 2002, the Expos were on life support--owned and operated by Major League Baseball until a suitable owner could be found.  General manager Omar Minaya, then, was given extremely limited financial resources to work with.  Colon would be re-traded for the much less attractive package of Rocky Biddle, Orlando Hernandez, and Jeff Liefer the next offseason.

Stevens was a replacement-level player much of his career, and he faded away shortly after the trade.  But the other trio of players would combine for multiple All-Star appearances and Gold Glove awards, and (Cliff) Lee would end up adding a Cy Young Award to that resume.  Meanwhile as Philips, Sizemore, and Lee enjoyed their respective primes in Somewhere That's Not Montreal Or Washington, the now-Nationals bottomed out and landed Stephen Strasburg.  However, by that time, Minaya was long gone--and rightly so.

1.
2003: Pittsburgh Pirates send Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton to the Chicago Cubs for Matt Bruback, Jose Hernandez, and Bobby Hill

Protip: Any time you give up the best short-term rental (Lofton) and the best long-term prospect (Ramirez) involved in a deal, it's gonna end brutally.  Ye gods, did this one end brutally.

Ramirez was only 25 years old at the time, and had blossomed into a streaky, but talented third baseman.  Lofton was a few years from retirement, but still fleet-footed for his age and a good veteran lead-off hitter.  Lofton led off for the Cubs as they came a Steve Bartman away from the World Series, and Ramirez is still their starting third baseman today--and one of the best veteran bats in the league.  Bruback never made the major leagues, Hernandez's 2002 All-Star season in Milwaukee turned out to be a contract-year fluke, but his record-setting strikeout rate didn't.  And Hill had been a prime second base prospect once upon a time, but he never reached his potential and by that point in his career he was not even performing at replacement level.

I'd like to imagine the deal also involved Cubs GM Jim Hendry and Littlefield also involved the hushing up of some lifeless hooker bodies that Hendry saw Littlefield moving.  Otherwise, I see absolutely no other justification for it.