 |  |
 |
| Thursday, July 24 Updated: July 29, 11:56 PM ET Looking back on deadline deals By Gary Huckabay, David Cameron and Nate Silver Special to ESPN.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Baseball's deadline deals are a great place to watch philosophical stances turn into on-field reality. How important is the present compared to the future? A flag flies forever, but an absence of replacement talent means teams can mortgage their future for several years -- and pass up several flags in the process -- for an increased chance of making the postseason, and maybe, just maybe, winning that final game. Often, the young players exchanged in a deal never work out in the majors; other times, they work out years later for another team.
As this year's deadline transforms from a slurry of phone calls into a percolation of activity on the transaction wire -- the Cubs' acquisition of Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton may be just the first salvo -- let's review some of the deals that took place in the 1988-1993 time frame. Turning back the clock that far affords us the opportunity to perform a full and fair evaluation of what the prospects moved in those deals did -- or didn't -- turn into.
1988 Among certain subsets of Yankee fans, this deal still causes abdominal cramps. Phelps, long underappreciated because his value was so heavily concentrated in walks and power, had a great first half with the Mariners, posting a .981 OPS back when numbers like that meant something, but was unremarkable during the balance of his Yankee career, hitting 17 home runs and drawing 46 walks in just under a full season's worth of playing time. Considering that Phelps turned 34 shortly after joining the Yanks, the result shouldn't have been surprising; Phelps' most productive years were largely wasted in Seattle, and the Yankees paid a high price for the crumbs. That high price was Buhner, who went on to a long and productive career with the Mariners. Advantage: Mariners. July 29: Boston traded Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling to Baltimore for Mike Boddicker. This deal turned out great -- for the Phillies. With the advantage of hindsight, the price paid here might seem remarkably high, but Boddicker was a very important part of Boston's immediate future, not missing a start from 1988-1990, pitching better than league average ball, and giving the Sox some stability in the rotation behind Roger Clemens. Anderson was a very solid outfielder for the Orioles for a number of years, putting up one of the great fluke seasons of our time with 50 home runs in 1996. Schilling is still pitching in the big leagues, and the mention of his name and that of Glenn Davis in the same sentence is cause for justifiable battery within the city limits of Baltimore. Advantage: Even -- we can't in good conscience give the Orioles credit for Schilling. August 16: Los Angeles traded Pedro Guerrero to St. Louis for John Tudor. Everyone remembers Orel Hershiser's 1988, but Tudor wasn't far off Orel's pace, making nine starts for the Dodgers down the stretch, and putting up a 2.32 ERA for the season. Guerrero hit fairly well for a St. Louis team that was far out of conention, but the Dodgers didn't regret giving up their best hitter as the magic of Hershiser, Mickey Hatcher and Kirk "Roy Hobbs" Gibson propelled them to a World Series title. Both players were on the downside of their careers at the time of the trade, and both were out of baseball within a few years. Advantage: Dodgers. Neither team mortgaged their future, but the Dodgers came away with the title.
1989
Midway through the 1989 season, Henderson and the Yankees weren't seeing eye to eye, and the A's needed an outfielder that could get on base, as Stan Javier, Dave Henderson and Polonia simply weren't getting the job done. The A's had a ton of bullpen talent, led by the troika of Dennis Eckersley, Rick Honeycutt and Gene Nelson. Enter Henderson, the final piece to Oakland's world championship puzzle, who filled the leadoff spot like no one else has ever been able to, posting a .425 OBP down the stretch in Alameda, and winning the 1990 MVP. On the Yankees side, the take wasn't as bad as many seem to remember; Cadaret was pretty much a solid swingman for three years for the Yankees, throwing 100+ innings for two years. Plunk pitched well for a year and Polonia hit .300 before being shipped off to Anaheim. Advantage: Oakland.
1990 The mother of all moronic deadline deals. Bagwell was a third baseman in the minors who had demonstrated the ability to hit for a very high average, was young, and actually looked something like a young Wade Boggs. Andersen was a 37-year-old right-handed middle reliever, albeit a low-risk one. Andersen pitched a total of 22 innings over 15 games for Boston, and is best known for being quotable and disliking Rickey Henderson. Bagwell's the best player ever to wear an Astros uniform, recently hit his 400th home run, and will roll into Cooperstown on the first ballot. Red Sox GM Lou Gorman's mammoth blunder was the wakeup call for many people to more carefully examine minor league performances. In fairness to Gorman, Bagwell has demonstrated greater power in the majors than in the minors, but this was still an inexcusable deal. Advantage: Houston is an understatement.
1992
Sometimes, things work out for everybody. Cone came to Toronto, and spent the final weeks of the season blowing opponents away. He relieved Toronto fans who had grown used to watching an aged Dave Stieb and a green David Wells dig a hole for the Jays at the outset of every fifth game. Cone made seven starts, allowing just over two and half runs per game, and the Blue Jays went on to win their first World Series. The Mets grabbed Kent out of the deal, and got several years of very productive second base play from him before moving him to Cleveland in 1996. A classic "present value for current value" deal, and another deal that, in the form of Thompson, included an Overrated Blue Jays Outfield Prospect. (See also Sil Campusano and Turner Ward.) Advantage: Even. August 31: Texas traded Ruben Sierra, Jeff Russell, and Bobby Witt to Oakland for Jose Canseco. At the time, this was something of a problem swap. Canseco's welcome had been worn out in Oakland, and picking up a flailing outfielder and a couple of arms with some unrealized upside didn't seem like a bad idea to A's GM Sandy Alderson. Of course, Sierra was a bust with Oakland, earning the moniker "The Village Idiot" from a sainted former A's manager. Canseco was effective and healthy in small doses, if nothing more than a shadow of the player he was during 1988, when he won the MVP and was the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases. The A's, in an apparent spasm of self-justification, made this deal a very bad one when they re-upped Sierra after the 1992 season to a three-year, $15 million deal. Sometimes, the moves in the offseason after the deadline deal have a far bigger impact than the deal itself. Advantage: Rangers.
1993 Score one for the Braves. McGriff gave them the first baseman they so desperately needed, not just for the 1993 stretch run, but for the next three years, including their 1995 championship. Crime Dog's career line with the Braves:
McGriff was healthy and excellent. What of Nieves, Elliott and Moore? Elliott pitched in 31 games over two seasons for the Padres, Moore never made the show and Nieves bounced around for seven years as a corner outfielder and DH, hitting .231/.314/.438 for his career. Advantage: Braves. * * * In the mainstream media, most deadline deals are couched in terms of "Player X for two minor leaguers," which is something akin to saying "I paid $25,000 for a new car." That's a great deal if the new car's a Porsche, but not really a great deal if your new rig's a Daewoo or Suzuki Esteem. History reminds us there are plenty of examples on both sides of the parking lot -- our straw poll reveals three wins for the contending team, three for the rebuilding team, and two that were too close to call. As awareness and coverage of the minor leagues grow, there will be more pressure on GMs to avoid giving up a tremendous prospect in a deadline deal. In today's MLB, finance is as much of a part of any deal as performance is, and in many cases, the quality of the prospects traded is more dependent on who agrees to pay the lion's share of the established player's salary than on how effective the established player is on the field. Still, there are always going to be lopsided trades. Fifteen years from now, embittered Cubs fans might well be talking about the Curse of Matt Bruback. Then again, maybe not. You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus at baseballprospectus.com. |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
