Two years ago the Yankees made a six-player trade with the Philadelphia Phillies the day before the July 31 nonwaiver trading deadline. The key player in the deal was Bobby Abreu, who proceeded to hit .330 for the Yankees and post assorted other impressive statistics.
The Yankees, who were in second place at the time of the trade, finished in first in the American League East so it’s fair to conclude that the deadline-beating trade was beneficial. It was not so beneficial to the other player the Yankees received in the deal, Corey Lidle, but that’s another story.
What about the players the Phillies got from the Yankees? They were all minor leaguers – pitchers Matt Smith and Carlos Monasterios, catcher Jesus Sanchez and shortstop C.J. Henry.
When teams make such trades, the team giving up the established player justifies the deal by saying the young prospects it received in return will help in the future. More often than not, though, the minor leaguers are never heard from.
In the case of the Abreu trade, Monasterios and Sanchez are in the Phillies’ minor league system and Smith is there, too, recovering from Tommy John (elbow) surgery. The Phillies released Henry last September, and the Yankees re-signed him in November, but he’s on the disabled list at the moment.
In other words, the Phillies shouldn’t expect to reap great benefits from the trade. The Pittsburgh Pirates should have similar expectations from their recent trade with the Yankees. The trade, in fact, created a chorus of head shaking among major league executives.
The Pirates gave the Yankees an established good-hitting outfielder (Xavier Nady) and a serviceable reliever (Damaso Marte), and what did they get in return? Three minor league pitchers, two of whom have spent time with the Yankees but didn’t stick, and a-once-but-no-longer-touted outfield prospect, Jose Tabata.
The trade prompted a friend of mine to ask if the Pirates have become the modern-day Kansas City team that years ago served as a major league feeder for the Yankees.
Between 1955 and 1960 the Yankees and the Athletics completed 16 trades involving about 60 players, including Roger Maris, Clete Boyer, Ryne Duren and Ralph Terry, all of whom went to the Yankees.
Whether Nady and Marte help the 2008 Yankees win anything will be seen in the next couple of months, but more interesting to watch will be the teams that benefited from the Athletics, now of Oakland, and their trading practices.
Nine days apart earlier this month the Athletics traded Rich Harden to the Cubs and Joe Blanton to the Phillies. Last December they traded Danny Haren to the Diamondbacks. Three-fifths of their starting rotation gone in a seven-month span.
“We’re rebuilding,” Billy Beane, the Oakland general manager, said. “We set out to rebuild our farm system. We had exhausted our farm system the last decade. Now we’ve gone from the lower end to the upper end. We’ve made major strides in achieving what we wanted to do. Now the goal is to do that on the major league level.”
For anyone who wants to keep a scorecard and judge the Athletics’ success with their three trades, these are the players they received:
Pitchers Dana Eveland, Greg Smith and Sean Gallagher (all in their starting rotation), Brett Anderson, Josh Outman; catcher Josh Donaldson; infielders Chris Carter, Adrian Cardenas and Eric Patterson and outfielders Carlos Gonzalez (their center fielder), Matt Murton (a reserve), Matt Spencer, and Aaron Cunningham.
For much of the first half of the season the Athletics stayed with the Angels in the American League West, but their presence in the race turned out to be a mirage. Injuries to too many players undermined any chance of their continuing to contend.
“What we’re trying to do is create a team that teams are chasing, not a team that is in it halfway through the season,” Beane said. “We made a commitment to rebuilding and we’re not rebuilt yet. It’s not where you are but where you’re headed is the way I view it. We want to do it right and do it for the long term, not exceed someone’s expectation one year, then fall short the next few years.”
The teams that traded for Beane’s pitchers this month want to win this year. Harden posted a 1.04 earned run average in his first three starts for the Cubs but had only a loss to show for it on his won-lost record. The Phillies won Blanton’s first two starts but with no thanks to him. He emerged from those games with a 7.88 e.r.a.
The Milwaukee Brewers, on the other hand, hit the trading jackpot with their acquisition of CC Sabathia. Sabathia had a 6-8 record and 3.83 e.r.a. with Cleveland but produced a 4-0 record, three complete games and a 1.36 e.r.a. in his first four starts with the Brewers.
Sabathia and Harden will have much to say about the outcome of the National League Central race. Blanton could affect the N.L. East race but in a negative way for the Phillies if he continues pitching as he has so far.
Mets fans were disappointed that the Mets didn’t re-acquire Nady, who played for them in 2006 until the Mets had to make an emergency trade for a relief pitcher at the deadline because Duaner Sanchez sustained a shoulder injury in a taxicab accident.
But the Mets already had their Nady on their roster in the form of Fernando Tatis. Going into their final July series with Florida, Tatis had a .410 batting average, a .486 on-base percentage and an .820 slugging percentage in July. The surprising left fielder, who previously had been a third baseman, also hit six of his seven home runs in the month, including game-tying and game-winning home runs.
If the Mets had acquired Tatis in a trade July 1 and he had produced that performance, he would easily be the hit of the mid-season trading season. As it is, he will probably just be the N.L. player of the month. He is also the player who made it unnecessary for the Mets to give up a good young player or two for a much-needed outfielder.
The Angels, on the other hand, gave up a good young player, first baseman Casey Kotchman, and a minor league pitcher, Stephen Marek, for first baseman Mark Teixeira.
Three-hundred-sixty-four days earlier the Braves acquired Teixeira from Texas for five young players, including the catcher with the longest name in the majors, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and a pitcher, Matt Harrison, who joined the Rangers starting rotation earlier this month.