The Blue Jay Review: Did Anyone Shuffle???

The Subject of this edition is worst trades in Jays' history. It will be balanced by the best trades in Jays’ history sometime in the coming weeks.

The thing about trades in baseball is that it can often take years to determine a winner. As was detailed in a previous BLOG the Fernandez and McGriff for Carter and Alomar deal is a rarity in that you can make an assessment pretty quickly. It doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily agree, but you can assess.

The more common situation in baseball is that you trade someone who is currently good for someone who you hope will be good later. The question isn’t necessarily whether the prospect will be better than the person you gave up; rather the question is more, will the prospect to able to contribute, or flipped into someone who will contribute at the major league level by the time the team is ready to compete. The theory being that that the able-bodied person you gave up would be past his prime by the time the team was able to win.

Anyway, my convoluted point is that trying to assess the Halladay or Marcum deals would be folly so soon after they took place. Instead....let’s look at the top 10 pitiful deals. As a final preview note, this BLOG is not a J.P. Ricciardi indictment. While he is mentioned, his multitude of errors were more around the handling of players, payroll and media. Fun for another time.

#5 Michael Young and Darwin Cabillan (To Tex) Esteban Loaiza (To Tor)

July 13^th, 2000

GM: GORD ASH

This was one of Gord Ash’s last deals with the Jays. It sucked. A lot of people didn’t like Loiza, but I didn’t mind him. He was a serviceable number 4-5 starter for the club getting 25 wins in 69 starts over two and half years. The fact that the Jays decided to pay him like a number one or two starter was their mistake; not his.

But the failure of this deal wasn’t what Esteban Loaiza delivered, it was with what Michael Young delivered. First off, Darwin Cabillan was 1-0 in his career with a 6.85 era and would never be heard from again. But then there is Michael Young. Let’s see....in 10 years with the Texas Rangers (still playing obviously), he’s a career .300 hitter, he’s been an all-star six years, has won a gold glove and had has a batting title. In the 10 years he’s been in Texas the Blue Jays opening day 3^rd basemen have been Tony Batista, Eric Hinske, Kory Koskie, Troy Glaus, Marco Scutaro, Scott Rolen and Juan Encarnacion.

Had this deal NOT been made there would have been ‘corner’ stability with Young and Delgado for years. Alas.

What might have been! Esteban had his moments, but a bad deal is a bad deal!

#4 Cesar Izturis and Paul Quantril (To LAD) for Chad Ricketts and Luke Prokopec (To Tor)

December 13^th, 2001

GM: J.P. RICCIARDI

Possibly one of my more favourite JP moments. Chad Ricketts was a 10 year career minor leaguer who never had so much as a cup of coffee in The Show. That’s okay, you gamble, worry about filling minor league rosters, try to get lucky - it happens. Prokopec was coming off an 8-7 season with the Dodgers in just 22 starts. The Dodgers were 86-76 in 2001 so it had the appearances of being a decent young pitcher breaking through on a pretty decent team. However, it would pay to look at more than wins. Buried in that 8-7 were 27 home runs in only 138 innings. Young Luke “The Aussie” would improve on those numbers (in a negative way) in his first season in Toronto. How does 2-9 with a 6.78 ERA sound? 19 home runs allowed in 71 innings. He went from giving up a home run every 5.1 innings to one ever 3.7 innings. At a million dollars a year! He never pitched again in the majors due to shoulder and elbow problems (although I think his neck was hurt from looking back to the right field fence) and now coaches the Australian National team.

Cesar Izturis? Oh, another Gold Glove at Short, an All Star appearance, and then the Dodgers were able to trade him straight up for a pitcher you may have heard of – Greg Maddux. Yes, Maddux was at the back end of his career but still went 6-3 with a 3.30 ERA in about a 1/3 of a season with the Dodgers.

Meanwhile Paul Quantril pitched for the Dodgers for 2 years in middle relief and he was his usual, reliable self. He led the league in most appearances by a reliever in both of his seasons in LA. Combined he was 7-9 with a tidy 2.22 ERA. He left the Dodgers via free agency to go to New York where he would win a World Series. Nice.

A bull pen innings eater Not an innings eater

#3 Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson for David Cone

August 27^th 1992

GM: PAT GILLICK

I was in the minority that hated this deal at the time. It has been championed by many as the right thing to do and the move that led to the Jays first World Series .... but I don’t buy it. Considering that NO ONE agrees with me, this will probably be the only one that sparks any debate. I thought that Jeff Kent could be as good as Craig Biggio at 2^nd base. I’ll never know if I was right because he moved to 3^rd base by the Mets. If you look at the Michael Young deal you’ll quickly realize that stability at third base has long been a problem for this team!

Because the deal was made late in the season (August 23^rd) Cone only got 7 starts with the Jays. He was 4-3 with a 2.55 ERA. He averaged better than 7 innings per start. He was good; I’ll even give him really good. But certainly not great. In the post season he had two starts in the American League Championship Series and two more in the World Series. Combined he was 1-1 with an ERA over 3.00 and averaging just over 5 innings per start. The Jays won the World Series, but it isn’t like it was done on Cone’s back. It begs asking if Jimmy Key, Todd Stottlemyre or David Wells (all relegated to the bullpen) could have matched those numbers. Would there have been a World Series win without the Cone deal? Unanswerable of course, but my guess would be "yes".

On the other side, Ryan Thompson played parts of 9 seasons in the majors and none of them were spectacular. He was a serviceable 4^th outfielder and pinch runner. And Jeff freaking Kent. Along with Michael Young, at the top of the “ones that got away” pile. With the Mets he played 498 games driving in 267 runs and hitting .279. He was then traded for Carlos Baerga in a typical Met blunder. Overall, Kent’s career numbers over 17 years in The Show were .290 average, averaged 107 RBI a year, averaged 27 home runs a year, 93 runs scored, 5 all star appearances and 4 silver sluggers.

And we got 7 starts in the regular season and a 1-1 post season record from Cone.

Good stick, stupid 'stache Hired gun?

#2 David wells and Matt DeWitt (To Chi) for Mike Sirotka, Mike Williams, Kevin Beirne, Brian Simmons (To Tor)

January 14^th 2001

GM: GORD ASH

So, this is sort of a minor improvement on some other deals in that the Jays sold high and got volume in return. David Wells was coming off of a season in which he tied for the AL lead in wins going 20-7. He lost the Cy Young to Roger Clemens who went 20-3. Matt DeWitt had 10 minor league season with a about 60 major league relief appearances thrown in.

Essentially for what amounted to only Wells, the Jays got Brian Simmons (252 major league at bats .212 average), Kevin Beirne (0-0, 12.86 ERA in 5 games with the Jays), Mike Williams (never made it passed single A ball) and Mike Sirotka. Just in case you thought Luke Prokopec sucked, here is Mike Sirotka’s line with the Jays ( , , , , ). Sirotka never pitched an inning for the Jays due to a torn Labrum in his left shoulder. J.P. accepted the deal on good faith and waived the right to do physicals. He maintained that Kenny Williams, a former Jays outfielder and now the White Sox GM screwed him by not disclosing the information. However, buyer beware! The MLB story on the feud click on “shouldergate”. In Sirotka’s defence, he made up for not pitching by cashing a $3,000,000.00 cheque in 2001 and then getting an $800,000.00 raise to 3.8 million in ’02.

So, we lost a 20 game winner and gained....

Yeah.

BOOMER No pic of Sirotka in a Jays hat.

#1. Bill Caudill for Collins and Griffin

December 8^th, 1984

GM: PAT GILLICK

If ever a deal set a team back...this was probably it. A lot of people thought that losing Griffin wasn’t that big a tragedy because it opened the door for future hall of famer (sorry) Tony Fernandez. While that is true, people forget that Tony played parts of the ’84 season and actually debuted at third base. Fernandez played over 200 games in his career at both second and third base. While it is completely revisionist thinking, there was always the option to have them both.

I don’t want to speak too badly of Caudill, but it was an absolute train wreck. Gillick didn’t panic often, but here’s an example. In 1984 the Detroit Tigers got off to a 35 and 5 start that is now the stuff of legend. What has been a little lost in the Detroit lore is that while Detroit was 35 and 5, the Jays were 26 and 14 and had the second best record in either league. If there was no Detroit in ’84 the Jays would have had a 4 ½ game lead on all of baseball a quarter way through the season. Instead they were 8 back. Toronto hung tough, continued to have the second best record in baseball and after the all star break had only shaved one game off the lead making it a 7.0 for Detroit. Again, people dismiss Detroit's season as an easy wire-to-wire victory. While Toronto never got closer than 7.0 games, they never backed off.

So, in my opinion, it was the Jays determination that the real difference between Toronto and Detroit was one Guillermo “Willie” Henandez. Hernandez had 9 wins and 32 saves in 32 opportunities. Toronto had Jimmy Key and Roy Lee Jackson combine for 20 saves. But Jackson was not a solution and Key was heading to the rotation. They needed an answer. Fast

Enter Bill Caudill. Prior to Hernandez’ breakthrough season he had 8 years and as a career reliever, he had never had more than 10 saves. I wouldn't say it was a 'fluke' year, but he sort of burst on the scene. Caudill actually had a track record. Before coming to Toronto he had 6 years in the majors, his most recent three seasons saw 26, 26 and 36 saves. There was no reason to believe that the trend would do anything but continue.

It didn’t.

Caudill was 4-6 with 14 saves in 1985 and then a tragic 2-4 with 2 saves and a 6.19 era in 1986.

And now the supreme irony...the Jays wouldn’t win a World Series for 8 more seasons. Caudill had been retired for 5 years by then and BOTH Griffin and Fernandez were back on the Jays roster sipping champagne after the Series win. Gotta love baseball.