Met Trades: Bad

I posted my list of the best Met trades about a month ago and I wanted to get this out sooner, but Omar was just too busy. So, here are some of the worst trades in my opinion of the New York Mets franchise...and there are some doozies.

December 10, 1971

New York Mets traded Nolan Ryan, Leroy Stanton, Francisco Estrada and Don Rose to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi.

The Mets did pretty good not making any stupid trades until 1971. However, they decided to make up for it big time with this one and the definitely succeeded.

May 11, 1972

New York Mets traded Charlie Williams to the San Francisco Giants for Willie Mays.

Alright, this was not that bad since Charlie Williams turned out to be nothing special, but he did pitch until 1978 while Mays hit .238 for the Mets with 14 homers and 44 RBIs in two years. This may be bad in my mind because this started the Mets 40 year philosphy of bringing in stars past their prime.

December 3, 1974

New York Mets traded Tug McGraw, Don Hahn and Dave Schneck to the Philadelphia Phillies for John Stearns, Del Unser and Mac Scarce.

Although the Mets received John "Bad Dude" Stearns in the deal, anytime you trade Tug it's a bad move.

October 13, 1974

New York Mets traded Ray Sadecki and Tommy Moore to the St. Louis Cardinals for Joe Torre.

For no other reason that Joe Torre is the face of the Evil Empire™

June 15, 1977

New York Mets traded Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds for Doug Flynn, Pat Zachry, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.

No words necessary on this one.

June 15, 1977

New York Mets traded Dave Kingman to the San Diego Padres for Bobby Valentine and Paul Siebert.

As much as I like Bobby V., his .222 average with the Mets is forgettable. While Kingman ended back up on the Mets, he hit 111 home runs in the 3 full seasons and one partial season in between his stints. Bad move.

December 10, 1982

New York Mets traded Mike Scott to the Houston Astros for Danny Heep.

Mike Scott won a razor blade aided 86 games from 1985 to 1989 while Danny Heep hit .263 from 1983 to 1986 in a Met uniform.

December 16, 1982

New York Mets traded Charlie Puleo, Lloyd McClendon and Jason Felice to the Cincinnati Reds for Tom Seaver.

Just because you trade a future Hall of Famer does not mean it makes sense to bring him back when he's pushing 40.

December 11, 1986

New York Mets traded Kevin Mitchell, Stan Jefferson and Shawn Abner to the San Diego Padres for Kevin McReynolds, Gene Walter and Adam Ging.

Kevin had seven straight solid seasons after being traded. Kevin McReynolds did good, but not as good as Kevin Mitchell.

June 18, 1989

New York Mets traded Lenny Dykstra, Roger McDowell and Tom Edens to the Philadelphia Phillies for Juan Samuel.

Trading Nails was not one of the prouder Met moments.

August 1, 1989

New York Mets traded Mookie Wilson to the Toronto Blue Jays for Jeff Musselman and Mike Brady.

Trading Mookie is never, I repeat, never OK.

December 6, 1991

New York Mets traded Kevin McReynolds, Gregg Jefferies and Keith Miller to the Kansas City Royals for Bret Saberhagen and Bill Pecota.

While Saberhagen had one good year for the Mets, Jefferies ended up having a number of solid years for the Cardinals after he was subsequently traded again.

August 27, 1992

New York Mets traded David Cone to the Toronto Blue Jays for Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson.

This would have been a good move for both sides if the Mets actually held onto Jeff Kent. He had a few good years with the Mets but the Mets traded him to the Indians in 1996 (see below). Jeff Kent is currently one of the best second baseman of all time. David Cone was considered one of baseball's elite pitchers through the 90's and threw a perfect game as a Yankee as well as winning a Cy Young award in 1994 with the Royals.

Who cares right? The Mets have plenty of perfect games..er...no hitters....ummm..forget it.

November 30, 1994

New York Mets traded Fernando Vina and Javier Gonzales to the Milwaukee Brewers for Doug Henry.

Fernando Vina turned out to be a very solid baseball player while Doug Henry was a below average middle reliever.

July 29, 1996

New York Mets traded Jeff Kent and Jose Vizcaino to the Cleveland Indians for Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza.

This one is just ugly. Very ugly. The best thing I can say is that Carlos led Mets in getting hit by pitches with 6 in 1998.

July 25, 1999

New York Mets traded Terrence Long and Leoner Vasquez to the Oakland Athletics for Kenny Rogers.

This not so much a case of me thinking Terrance Long was too good to lose, this is a case of Me hating Kenny Rogers. The Braves defeated the Mets, 10-9 in 11 innings, to take the NLCS, 4-games-to-2. Kenny walked in the winning run with one out in the last half of the 11th. SCREW YOU KENNY!!!

December 29, 1999:

New York Mets traded Jason Isringhausen and Greg McMichael to the Oakland Athletics for Billy Taylor.

Taylor pitched in 18 games for the Mets and posted a 8.10 ERA while Izzy saved 77 games in the next two years for the A's.

July 24, 1998

New York Mets traded Mike Kinkade, Melvin Mora, Pat Gorman and Lesli Brea to the Baltimore Orioles for Mike Bordick.

I guess the trade looked OK back then, but it looks really shitty right now.

December 27, 2001

New York Mets traded Kevin Appier to the Anaheim Angels for Mo Vaughn.

OH THE HUMANITY!!

July 31, 2002

New York Mets traded Bobby Jones, Jason Bay and Josh Reynolds to the San Diego Padres for Jason Middlebrook and Steve Reed.

Good thing Phillips gave up Jason Bay for Steve Reed during the big the playoff run.

January 26, 2004

New York Mets traded Jaime Cerda to the Kansas City Royals for Shawn Sedlacek.

As a causality of the 40 man roster, Cerda was jettisoned to make room for Todd Zeile. Left handed relievers that are young and cheap who can pump the ball around 93 mph come along all the time.

July 30, 2004

New York Mets traded Scott Kazmir and Joselo Diaz to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato.

Jury is still out on this one in reality, but it still looks pretty bad. Kazmir ends up pitching in the majors while Zambrano ends the year with an injury. The irony of it all.

August 27, 2004

New York Mets traded Dan Wheeler to the Houston Astros for Adam Seuss.

Not that Wheeler was so good he couldn't be traded, but the question is why? He was at least useful. Adam Seuss, while I'm sure he's a nice guy, will never make it into the majors. Perplexing to say the least.


* * *

"As a general manager, you have to make some tough decisions," Minaya said. "And this was one of those tough decisions I had to make.

"I can tell you I had to speak with Jeff about it ... it was tough on Jeff. But I had to make decisions that are best for this year and future years."

This is one of the reasons I like Omar. He has the cajones that Duquette did not have and the clout to back up his decisions when he got re-hired.

Leiter told Alan Hendricks to tell Minaya that he was going to remain a Met. Even though the offer was slightly lower than some of the others he had received, his place was at Shea. Leiter said Hendricks left this message on Minaya's voice mail at 10 a.m. Nov. 20, 16 hours after the imposed deadline: "We've got great news. Al is coming back. Call us. Let's do a press conference."

Oooopps..Guess that press conference did not happen. It's tough getting rid of guy who meant so much to a team for seven years, but at some point winning has to be valued over being loyal. Did the Mets handle it the right way? Judging by history, probably not, but Al Leiter needed to go somewhere else. I'm guessing this means a spot in the booth in 2005 is out of the question for the Mets network.

You'll pardon me if the re-signing of Cory Liddle and the signing or Jon Leiber do not scare me. Unless the Braves pull of a deal for Hudson by trading Giles, it looks like no one is going to upgrade as much as the Mets.

Baseball America updated what the 2005 first round would look like with all the currently moves and the current status of last year's remaining unsigned first round picks in AskBA:

First Round
17. Yankees (from Phillies for Type B Jon Lieber)
22. Marlins (from Giants for Type A Armando Benitez)
29. Braves (from Yankees for Type A Jaret Wright)

Supplemental First Round
31. Rockies (for Type A Vinny Castilla)
32. Indians (for Type A Omar Vizquel)
33. Marlins (for Benitez)
34. Athletics (for Type A Damian Miller)
35. Angels (for Type A Troy Percival)
36. Braves (for Wright)
37. Mets (for failure to sign Philip Humber*)

I almost lost my breakfast thinking about that one.

Why must I continue to read the word failure in sentences that include the Mets?

One has to wonder what the 4 year $45 million deal that the D-Backs gave to Glaus will do for the Sexson signing. It cannot do any good from the Mets standpoint if they really did offer him a contract for $10 million per year.

With their options starting to dwindle, the Red Sox have made it a priority to bring Pedro back. Sorry Omar, but this may be best for the team.

In one of the bigger surprises this off season, the Yankees plan to pursue Beltran.

Jermaine Dye is Magglio's replacement for right field. He signed a two year deal for $9 million. A good pickup as this guy was very, very good ballplayer before his injury. He could put up some very good numbers for his price tag and be one of the better bargains of this off season.