Worst baseball trades thread, or, why did the Cubs trade Lou Brock?

In their defense, those Dodgers were one of the most stacked teams around. And losing Clemente didn't hinder their ability to field a contender for years to come.

Still, it would have been nice to have a player like him during the Koufax-Drysdale years, when there were a lot of 1-0 wins.

 

Sammy Sosa AND Wilson Alvarez for Harold Baines — George W. Bush's finest hour as a baseball owner

 

I was waiting for someone to bring up this one, because I vehemently disagree.

The Tigers needed a veteran arm to get them to the World Series. They won the title, thanks in part to Alexander.

Smoltz would have done them no good that season. If you believe you can win now, you do it. Sometimes you have to part with a promising young prospect to do so, but you do it because there are no guarantees you'll get another chance.

The Tigers rolled the dice and won. They got the ring. The Braves won, too. That hot young prospect turned intop a likely Hall of Famer.

No loser here. Good trade all around.

 

They give you a ring for winning the AL East?

 

Smoltz-Alexander was a great trade for the Tigers -- it won them the division title, and SHOULD have won them a World Series, except for a classic gag job against the Twins, whom they had finished something like 10 games in front in the standings, and had slapped around during the season series. They were the best team in baseball in 1987, better by far than any other team (except Toronto of course).

If they had kept Smoltz, EVEN if he had became the John Smoltz he later developed into with the Braves, they sucked so bad for most of the succeeding 20 seasons, Smoltz would have only improved them from "abysmal" to "slightly-below-mediocre" most seasons. 2006 would have been the first and only time Smoltz would have made a difference for the Tigers. You can't get gunshy on a trade in 1987 because you're worried about what might happen in 2006.

If you can make a trade that wins you a division, you make it. You can't win World Series without getting in the playoffs first.

97+ percent of the time, trading a Grade-A prospect for a 38-year-old .500 pitcher is insanity. But this was one of the 3 percent of the time it works.

 

Not a trade but a sale, and it's the biggest one in baseball history:

Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees for cash. Yanks also received a mortgage on Fenway Park.

Harry Frazee offered to get Ed Barrow some ballplayers to make it look more like a trade than a sale. Barrow declined, because he didn't want to have to play the players just to try to justify the trade.

 

The Texas Rangers traded Scott Fletcher, Sammy Sosa, and Wilson Alvarez to the Chicago White Sox for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique.

 

The Texas Rangers traded Ruben Sierra, Jeff Russell, Bobby Witt, and cash to the Oakland Athletics for Jose Canseco. Thus began the steroid era

 

Any Red Sox-Yankees trade circa 1919-22.

 

Thank you (i.e. Ruth to Yankees for CASH)

 

Mark Langston, "La Belle Precieuse," to the Expos for Randy Johnson and others.

 

The Tigers trading Billy Pierce for Aaron Robinson.

The A's trading Nellie Fox for Joe Tipton.

For two modestly-decent defensive catchers, the White Sox thus launched their 1951-67 run of .500 or better seasons.
Only the Yanks and Orioles have strung together as many consecutive non-losing seasons in the AL.