Each team’s best and worst offseason trade of the last 20 years

Arizona – Atlanta – Baltimore – Boston – Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox – Cincinnati – Cleveland – Colorado – Detroit
Houston – Kansas City – LA Angels – LA Dodgers – Miami
Milwaukee – Minnesota – New York Mets – New York Yankees – Oakland
Philadelphia – Pittsburgh – St. Louis – San Diego – San Francisco
Seattle – Tampa Bay – Texas – Toronto – Washington

Philadelphia Phillies
Best trade: Acquired Eric Bruntlett and Brad Lidge from Astros for Michael Bourn, Mike Costanzo, and Geoff Geary (November 7, 2007)
This was actually a tough decision, because the Phillies have made some sneaky trades that upgrade the team a decent bit for a year or two without giving up much of anything. I ended up going with the Brad Lidge trade that took place a year before the club won the 2008 World Championship, simply because of how important Lidge was to that team. He tossed 69 1/3 innings for the club and managed to finish fourth in the NL Cy Young voting. He pitched to a 1.95 ERA, struck out 95, and saved 41 games without blowing one. I mean, that’s a pretty awesome relief season, and he capped the year off by striking out 13, walking three, and allowing one run over 9 1/3 Postseason innings, saving seven of the Phillies’ 11 wins that October. What a run.

Of course, it wasn’t all rainbows and ponies for Lidge in Philadelphia – he was awful in 2009, and a shell of himself in 2010 and 2011. He’d finish his four year Philly career with a 3.73 ERA in 193 innings, but he helped raise that 2008 flag at Citizens Bank Park. That’s all that matters.

Eric Bruntlett was a key reserve on the Phillies 2008 and 2009 teams. He hit only .202/.273/.278 in 356 plate appearances, but played every position aside from pitcher and catcher over those two seasons. There’s value in that.

The return to Houston was highlighted by Michael Bourn, who looked like Willy Taveras in 2008 with the Astros before improving his overall offensive game and defense and becoming one of the most undervalued center fielders in baseball. Houston would eventually trade him to Atlanta after 193 stolen bases over four seasons. Mike Costanzo was traded by the Astros to the Orioles a month as part of the Miguel Tejada deal a month after the Lidge trade. Geoff Geary had a 3.86 ERA in 84 innings coming out of the bullpen for the Astros over the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

Worst trade: Acquired Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and J.C. Ramirez from Mariners for Cliff Lee (December 16, 2009)
The day you acquire a pitcher like Roy Halladay, you don’t go ahead and TRADE ONE OF YOUR BEST PITCHERS TO “REPLENISH THE FARM SYSTEM”. Yet, that’s what Ruben Amaro did five years ago. I think the worst part about this trade is the domino effect it set into motion – if the Phillies don’t trade Cliff Lee, they don’t need to trade for Roy Oswalt in the summer of 2010. If they have Cliff Lee instead of Roy Oswalt, maybe they win the 2010 World Series and the team doesn’t panic in 2011 and trades for Hunter Pence. All of this could have been avoided had the Phillies just not traded Cliff Lee five months after originally acquiring him from the Indians.

And it’s not as if the package of players that the Phillies got back was even highly touted at the time. It was slammed from the get go. It really *didn’t* help reload the farm system at all. Phillippe Aumont has thrown 39 2/3 innings in the majors with the Phillies, and has a 6.13 ERA. J.C. Ramirez threw just 24 innings with the club before being granted free agency, and had a 7.50 ERA. Tyson Gillies still hasn’t made it to The Show, and has a .217/.279/.303 line in 106 career games at AAA.

Predictably, Lee was spectacular in 2010 before making his way back to the Phillies in 2011. In 13 starts with the Mariners, Lee had a 2.34 ERA in 103 2/3 innings, striking out 89 and walking six. After Seattle dealt him to Texas at the trade deadline, Lee’s ERA rose to 3.98 in 108 2/3 innings with the Rangers, but he still managed to strike out 96 and walk 12. All in all, that’s a 3.18 ERA over 212 1/3 innings, along with 185 strikeouts, 18 walks, and an AL All-Star nod. Again I ask – imagine if the Phillies kept him that season.

Pittsburgh Pirates
Best trade: Acquired Brian Giles from Indians for Ricardo Rincon (November 18, 1998)
Ricardo Rincon was a solid enough pitcher for the Pirates in 1997 and 1998, pitching to a 3.17 ERA over 125 innings out of the club’s bullpen. But he was a reliever that would be 29 in April of 1999 – that’s not a building block. So when the Indians wanted some bullpen help, the Pirates were obviously willing to deal Rincon. And while I’m sure they expected Brian Giles to be a pretty good player, I don’t think they expected him to be an MVP candidate.

Sure enough, that’s what he was. In just five years with the team, he received MVP votes in four seasons and was a two-time All-Star. He also was one of the unofficial faces of the franchise as they moved into the gorgeous PNC Park in 2001. Over those five years, Giles was a legitimate superstar in baseball, hitting .308/.426/.591 with 165 homers and nearly 200 more walks than strikeouts. And when the Pirates made the inevitable trade to send Giles out of town, they didn’t get ripped off by the Padres – they got Oliver Perez and Jason Bay, the 2004 NL Rookie of the Year. Now that’s how you churn talent.

Worst trade: Acquired Brant Brown from Cubs for Jon Lieber (December 14, 1998)
Jon Lieber was really the definition of a league average pitcher. In five years with the Pirates, he had a 4.36 ERA over 682 2/3 innings, which translates to an ERA+ of exactly 100. In five years with the Cubs, he was better, posting a 4.04 ERA in 874 1/3 innings. That’s good for a 108 ERA+. Again, neither mark is really all that great, but Lieber was a guy that could eat innings in your rotation and not kill you out there. There’s plenty of value to that.

Naturally, the Pirates traded him as he was about to get expensive, and all they got was a 27-year old outfielder named Brant Brown who hit .278/.331/.483 with 24 homers over 601 plate appearances. Brown’s issues with plate discipline before a major factor during his 1999 season with the Pirates, and in 371 plate appearances, he hit .232/.283/.449 with 16 homers, 22 walks, and 114 strikeouts. In case you’re curious, that’s a 5.9% walk rate and a 30.7% strikeout rate to go along with a .217 ISO – he’s like a poor man’s Oswaldo Arcia! The Pirates traded him to the Marlins after the season for utility player Bruce Aven, and that was that. Lieber would have looked pretty good as the final man in a Pirates rotation that was always a man or two short, huh?

San Diego Padres
Best trade: Acquired Adrian Gonzalez, Terrmel Sledge, and Chris Young from Rangers for Adam Eaton, Billy Killian, and Akinori Otsuka (January 6, 2006)
Adrian Gonzalez was the first overall pick by the Marlins in the 2000 draft out of a California high school, and had been traded twice before he even turned 24. His minor league numbers never dazzled, despite the fact he was always young for his league. But the Padres picked him up as the main piece in the Adam Eaton/Akinori Otsuka trade, and they were committed to playing him every day at first base following the trade of Phil Nevin and Ryan Klesko’s shift back into left field.

Their faith was repaid with a high level performance. Gonzalez blossomed into one of the best players in the National League with the Padres, missing a total of just 11 games over his five years with the club. He made three All-Star teams, received MVP votes in four years, won a pair of Gold Gloves, and immediately established himself as the best hitter on the team. In those five years, he went yard 161 times (insane considering he played his home games at Petco) and hit .288/.374/.514. The trade of Gonzalez to the Red Sox didn’t exactly work out as well as imagined, and the team’s trade of Anthony Rizzo to the Cubs is actually eerily reminiscent of the Rangers’ trade of Gonzalez to the Padres.

Oddly enough, the second-best player in the deal also came to the Padres – Chris Young. Young slotted in behind Jake Peavy in the Padres rotation, and pitched to a 3.30 ERA in 35 1/2 innings over his first two seasons with San Diego. Injuries began to take a toll on him over the last three years he was in San Diego, and Young made only 36 starts to close out his run with the Padres. But hey, those first two years were pretty damn good. Terrmel Sledge was a non-factor in the trade, banking only 311 plate appearances as a Padres reserve and hitting .215/.310/.359. He went to Japan following the 2007 season, and put together four pretty good seasons before an injury-plagued 2012 ended his time abroad.

The return for the trio was minimal. Billy Killian never made it above high-A, minus an eight plate appearance stint in AAA at the end of the 2004 season. Adam Eaton lasted one year in Texas, pitching to a 5.12 ERA in 13 starts. Akinori Otsuka actually lasted two seasons with the Rangers, but was done after 92 innings of 2.25 ERA ball. Three spare parts for a franchise first baseman, with an effective starter thrown in for good measure. Well done, Kevin Towers.

Worst trade: Acquired Jim Edmonds from Cardinals for David Freese (December 14, 2007)
From that to…this. Jim Edmonds was coming off of a down year with the Cardinals in 2007, so he seemed like a nice buy low opportunity for the Padres. To say that Edmonds didn’t work out was an understatement. He lasted just 26 games with the Padres, and was released on May 9th. A week later, he caught on with the Cubs and thrived, driving the point home that maybe the San Diego thing just was never going to work out at all. In those 26 games, Edmonds hit just two doubles and one home run, and posted a ghastly .178/.265/.233 line. Journeyman Jody Gerut replaced him in center, and shined for a half season.

Oh, what about the player that the Padres gave up? Well, he was a 24-year old that just finished a year in high-A, and hit .302/.400/.489. The Cardinals jumped David Freese over AA to AAA in 2008, and watched him smash the International League to a .306/.361/.550 line in 131 games. Injuries were an issue for Freese in 2009, 2010, and 2011, but when he was on the field, he beat the crap out of opposing pitchers. Freese was healthy in the second half for St. Louis in 2011, and hit out of his mind during that year’s Postseason. In 18 games that October, Freese hit an absurd .397/.465/.794 with five home runs, winning the NLCS and World Series MVP awards and bringing another World Series trophy to the Cardinals.

Then to top things off, the Cardinals traded him to the Angels for Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk last winter. Some teams just know when to flip players, man.

San Francisco Giants
Best trade: Acquired Jeff Kent, Joe Roa, Julian Tavarez, and Jose Vizcaino from Indians for Trent Hubbard and Matt Williams (November 13, 1996)
Matt Williams was coming off of three straight All-Star seasons with the Giants when they traded him to the Indians, and was just two years removed from a runner-up finish in the 1994 season that saw him smash 43 homers during the strike-shortened season. But in hindsight, it seems like the team knew that a decline was coming from his age 31 season on – after the trade, Williams would make just one All-Star team (1999 with the Diamondbacks, when he also finished third in the NL MVP race) and homered 20 or more times on just three occasions after passing the mark in his prior seven seasons.

Trent Hubbard and Joe Roa were both players to be named later in the trade, and neither made much of an impact. Hubbard played only seven games with Cleveland, while Roa tossed 65 2/3 innings of 5.21 ERA ball with the Giants in 1997.

Jose Vizcaino spent only one year with San Francisco, but was a productive player. In 151 games and 630 plate appearances, he hit .266/.323/.350 as the club’s every day shortstop before signing with the Giants for the 1998 season. Julian Tavarez had a more substantial career with the Giants, working out of their bullpen for three seasons. In those three years, he had a 4.34 ERA in 228 1/3 innings, which was actually good for a 96 ERA+ in the late-90s.

Jeff Kent was obviously the big get in the deal for San Francisco. The Giants were the fourth stop of his career, and he hadn’t been able to put it together at the prior three stops. But at 29 with the Giants, something clicked. Kent finished in the top ten of NL MVP voting in both 1997 and 1998, and made his first career All-Star team in 1999. He’d make two more All-Star teams with the Giants and took home the 2000 NL MVP award, somewhat controversially over teammate Barry Bonds. Kent would win three Silver Sluggers as a Giant, and added another top ten MVP finish in 2002 before signing with the Astros. As a Giant, he built a solid, overlooked Hall of Fame case, hitting .297/.368/.535 in six seasons with the team, homering 175 times. Not bad for a past his prime Matt Williams, right?

Worst trade: Acquired A.J. Pierzynski from Twins for Boof Bonser, Francisco Liriano, and Joe Nathan (November 14, 2003)
We touched on this earlier, but what a disaster this trade ended up being. The Giants expected Pierzynski to be a long-term answer at catcher for them, and instead, he was a year-long headache. The majority of the reps went to veteran Mike Matheny in 2005 and career minor leaguer Eliezer Alfonzo in 2006 before Bengie Molina took over in 2007. Finally in 2010, the Buster Posey era began and the catching issue was solved.

The Giants also could have used Nathan in their bullpen during those dark years – the closing position in San Francisco was manned by such luminaries as Matt Herges, Dustin Hermanson, Tyler Walker, Armando Benitez, and Brad Hennessey before Brian Wilson took a firm grasp of the job in 2008.

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