Running 2017 MLB regular season thread

Glenn DAVIS for Schilling, Pete Harnish and Steve Finley

 

Yeah, don't remind me. Awful.

 

I thought the discussion was veterans for prospects. The list changes if you include young major leaguers in the return.

Tony Pena to the Cardinals for Andy Van Slyke, Mike Lavalliere and Mike Dunne was a key part of building the Pirates' teams that won three consecutive division championships in the late '90s.

 

That bum Jake Arrieta held the Diamondbacks to a single earned run through seven innings tonight. His earned run average is down to 3.88 and his WHIP is 1.20, better than Jon Lester in both categories.

 

The Astros turned around and traded Schilling to the Phillies straight up for Jason Grimsley, and Harnisch to the Mets for one guy who never made the majors and another who pitched in two games.

A couple of years later, they traded Finley, Ken Caminiti and Andujar Cedeno (among others) to the Padres for Derek Bell and a bunch of schmoes.

They also dealt Kenny Lofton and a utility infielder to the Indians for Eddie Taubensee and Willie Blair, who was promptly left unprotected in the expansion draft (and taken by the Rockies).

Tal Smith loved to make trades. He just didn't make very many good ones.

 

Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps.

The thing is, Phelps was a very good hitter, and was hitting .284 with 14 homers in 72 games with Seattle in '88 and finished the year with 24 homers. Unfortunately, that was his last good year, while Buhner became a star.

The trade didn't really make much sense. Yanks had Henderson in left, Winfield in right and Claudell Washington, who hit over .300 that year, in center. They also had Jack Clark at DH. It's not like they had a spot for Phelps, except as a bench guy.

 

Kenny Lofton mention! Totally an excuse to post this:

 

Phelps was a DH/1B. But your point stands, as the Yankees had Clark and Mattingly.

However, as you mentioned, Phelps was an underappreciated player with the Mariners — a low-average, high-OBP power-hitter who couldn't field, sort of a poor man's Carlos Santana in his time. And as anyone who played Strat-O-Matic/Pursue the Pennant/Statis-Pro Baseball could tell you, he was a simulation game God.

 

Yeah, my mistake. I had looked at Buhner's fielding stats on Baseball Reference.

 

Ahem.

 

The Mark Langston-Randy Johnson deal is the granddaddy of all bad trade deadline deals.