Maybe I’m in a bad mood today. It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain local football team’s performance though… Anyway, I saw this today and every time I see it, it enrages me. Just ridiculous. Omar Minaya truly ruined this Nationals franchise for years during his tenure as GM of the Expos. But nothing is more ridiculous than this trade. This picture, by the way, comes from Bartolo Colon’s Baseball Reference Page:
Yeah, that’s correct. Omar got the Expos Tim Drew and Bartolo Colon in exchange for the indomitable Lee Stevens. Oh yeah, also in that trade were BRANDON PHILLIPS, CLIFF LEE, and GRADY SIZEMORE. In case you live in an NL-only cave, these guys are good. I will give you a little run down of the players Omar got rid of:
- Cliff Lee – after a few up and down seasons, including a great 2005 season, he finished 2008 22-3, with a 2.54 ERA and 170 Ks. Also he did win a Cy Young award.
- Grady Sizemore – Just finished his 4th full season, and probably his 3rd as the best center fielder in the AL. His career splits are .279/.370/.491 at the age of 25. He hit 33 HRs this year, stole 38 bases, played great OF and according to Baseball Prospectus, finished 2nd in the AL in VORP last year.
- Brandon Phillips – In 3 seasons he has now hit 17, 30, and 21 HRs. He’s not a big walker – the years he bats below .280, his OBP is gonna dip below .330. But he hits the crap out of the ball, and he’s better than most starting 2Bs in the league
- Lee Stevens – The only guy in this trade that the Expos gave up that wasn’t worth keeping. He was 34 and it was his last season.
In case you were wondering Colon did great that season with the Expos. He went 10-4 with a 3.31 ERA. And of course, that led to their division title. No wait, they finished 2nd in the NL East… 19 games out of first place. But that was why they won the wild card. Oh, sorry, check that. They were 12.5 games behind the Wild Card winning Giants. And 9 GB the 2nd place Dodgers. AND 1 game behind 3rd place Houston. When the trade was made, on June 27th, the Expos were in 2nd place, 6.5 behind the Braves, and were 7.5 back in the WC in 6th place there. So any thoughts of selling the future to win today weren’t realistic at the time.
Meanwhile, the other guy they got was Tim Drew. Also known as the Cooper Manning of major league baseball. He is the brother of JD Drew and Stephen Drew, but much like Cooper decided to be a WR, Tim decided to be a pitcher. He was not good at it, which is why you never knew he existed. It’s almost like the whole trade was made just to give an example of how to make a terrible, terrible trade.
I am not really sure that this has anything to do with anything right now. I was just thinking what it would be like if Sizemore was playing CF, Phillips was playing 2B and Lee was the #1 pitcher. Maybe then we’d feel comfortable trading one of the 800 outfielders this team has.