Crazy Trade Proposals That Never Came True

[fieldslikebuckner]

Boggs for Mark Langston and Jim Presley of the Mariners seemed to be rumored everyday circa 1989.

 

[Rich Garces Belly]

What were the specifics on the Jose Bautista one? Don't recall that one at all.

 
Red Sox claimed him off of waivers from the Blue Jays in 2009, owners did not want to pay the 50K transaction fee and vetoed it, the following year in 2010 Jose Bautista became JOSE BAUTISTA with 54 home runs.  

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

I remember Donnie Sadler for Kevin Appier as well being turned down by the Duke. Ouch

 

[sackamano]

There are dozens of readily available reports that suggest the Red Sox were never awarded a waiver claim on Bautista in 2009.

 

[Pilgrim]

There were some good rumors about the competing packages for Pedro.  Mendoza & Posada from the Yankees, and Jaret Wright from the Indians.
 
Pretty crazy to imagine either of those teams with prime Pedro.

 

[edoug]

Jim Rice for Brad Komminsk

 

[moondog80]

2006: Rob Bradford on WEEI reports Atlanta offered Andruw Jones to the Red Sox for Jon Lester, Coco Crisp, and Craig Hansen last night. It was turned down, but "was a lot closer than you'd expect."

Jones' WAR, 2006: 5.6
Jones WAR, 2006-2012 (total): 4.9
 
Point, Red Sox.

 

[moondog80]

I remember Donnie Sadler for Kevin Appier as well being turned down by the Duke. Ouch

 
Wasn't there some deal where the Sox signed Appier, Sammy Sosa, and John Wetteland during the 1994 strike that was overturned somehow?

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

 
Wasn't there some deal where the Sox signed Appier, Sammy Sosa, and John Wetteland during the 1994 strike that was overturned somehow?

Yeah the strike made some players free agents early due to service time and those contracts were later invalid.

 

[Rasputin]

There were some good rumors about the competing packages for Pedro.  Mendoza & Posada from the Yankees, and Jaret Wright from the Indians.
 
Pretty crazy to imagine either of those teams with prime Pedro.

 
Les Expos wanted a guy who could be a future ace and Tony Armas, Jr. was it.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Lester, Jacoby, + for Johan Santana comes to mind.

Never offered/on the table, and I was told that from really high up.  Individually, yes;  together, no.
 
A new year is almost upon us.  Time to gather the youngun's around for a retelling of the Theo consolieri story?
 
(right around that same time, I want to say it was during the Winter meetings as IIRC it was getting toward the middle of Dec, a story broke in the middle of the night that the Sox had sent the medicals for both Lester and Ells to the Twins suite at the Twins request.  When I mentioned this to my neighbor months later, he said this was the very first we was even hearing of that, and he admonished me once again that I shouldnt put much faith in what comes out in the media)

 

[Ferm Sheller]

Jim Rice for Brad Komminsk

.

There was also a big Rice for Frank DiPino (Astros) rumor.

 

[cannonball 1729]

 
Red Sox claimed him off of waivers from the Blue Jays in 2009, owners did not want to pay the 50K transaction fee and vetoed it, the following year in 2010 Jose Bautista became JOSE BAUTISTA with 54 home runs.  

 
Of course, one of the reasons that Jose became JOSE was because Cito Gaston tinkered with his swing and told him to start swinging earlier.  So if he hadn't been on the Blue Jays at that point, Bautista might still be just another guy with a .700 OPS.

 

[Yelling At Clouds]

Never happened, and I was told that from really high up.  Individually, yes;  together, no.

I thought it was Lester, Lowrie, and Coco?

 

[richgedman'sghost]

That was 1990 when the A's got McGee despite having Rickey Henderson, Dave Henderson (an All Star that year, I think) and Canseco in the outfield and the newly acquired Harold Baines as DH.

The Boston media asked why Gorman didn't acquire McGee and Gorman famously said, "Where would we put Willie McGee?" I think the Sox OF at the time was Greenwell, Burks and Brunansky. With Jack Clark as the DH, they could have found room for Willie McGee (who had enough ABs to win the NL Batting Crown that year despite finishing the year in Oakland).

It went down with Gorman's other quote, "The sun will rise, the sun will set and I'll have lunch." I kinda miss Trader Lou.

The truly crazy or ironic thing is that the Red Sox eventually did get McGee in 1995 and he helped the Red Sox win the AL East that year. He then closed out his career by playing two more years with the Cards.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

How about the Bruce Hurst for Joaquin Andujar + deal back around 1983?

 

[curly2]

I thought Beattie hated the Yankees and asked for much more for them than anyone else?

 
Yes. I head he was still mad at Steinbrenner calling him "gutless" after a loss at Fenway in 1978.

 

[snowmanny]

There were some good rumors about the competing packages for Pedro.  Mendoza & Posada from the Yankees, and Jaret Wright from the Indians.
 
Pretty crazy to imagine either of those teams with prime Pedro.

I thought the Indians refused to give up Wright for Pedro.  Yeah, there's a good chance they take a couple titles from the Yankees 1998-2000 with Pedro.

 

[edoug]

How about the Bruce Hurst for Joaquin Andujar + deal back around 1983?

Gammons on the reasons that the Hurst trade didn't happen and on the rumored Rice deal too.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1985-12-15/sports/0340750037_1_boston-red-red-sox-brad-komminsk

 

[bosockboy]

Nothing on this yet? I was convinced this Nomar deal was legit:

http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/2004/07/nomar_to_dodgers.htm

I guess Millar would have moved to the bench for Delgado.

Won't link properly for some reason. Nomar for Delgado and Odalis Perez on 7/2/2004.

 

[Rough Carrigan]

This isn't a crazy trade so much as possibly a crazy refusal but the fire sale 1978 Oakland A's still run by Charlie Finley, offered pitcher Rick Langford to the Red Sox and Gammons says that Haywood Sullivan's response was "We've got enough pitching!".  Now, who knows just what they wanted in return.  Maybe only money considering it was Finley and he was going to sell the team in August 1980.  But you gotta love Sullivan's dumbass response.

 

[Rough Carrigan]

I thought the Indians refused to give up Wright for Pedro.  Yeah, there's a good chance they take a couple titles from the Yankees 1998-2000 with Pedro.

I think that you're correct.  I believe John Hart admitted as much once on MLB Network, that the Indians were higher than Snoop Dogg could ever dream of being . . on the promise of Jaret Wright and wouldn't give him up for Pedro. 

 

[Luis Taint]

Brian Rose and Carl Pavano for pretty much anyone good.

 

[curly2]

Well, Pavano wasn't traded for anyone merely GOOD.

 

[Luis Taint]

Well, Pavano wasn't traded for anyone merely GOOD.

Touche

 

[benhogan]

Weren't their a few guys around here pissed off that the Sox didn't trade Jon Lester for Will Myers a few seasons back?

 

[Yaz4Ever]

Weren't their a few guys around here pissed off that the Sox didn't trade Jon Lester for Will Myers a few seasons back?

I was one of them. Mea culpa, although I still think Myers will prove to be a stud.

 

[dcmissle]

 
Yes, I remember someone on the board saying the Sox HAD to pull the trigger on Jeremy Reed for Jon Lester.

Someone? Try plural. The Jeremy Reed love here was considerable.

 

[Fireball Fred]

The abortive 1994-5 signings that didn't happen because players weren't credited with service time during the strike included, I believe, Larry Walker as well as Sosa, Wetteland, and maybe Appier. This was Dan Duquette's first stab at rebuilding the Sox; he then went to plan B at did get them to first place in '95, acquiring a much-needed closer at the trade deadline. This, IMO, remains the best single-year performance by a Sox GM - and then he followed up by acquiring Pedro.

 

[jose melendez]

 
I distinctly remember Greenwell for Glavine talk around 1989-90.  

I think it was Greenwell for Glavine and prospects and the Sox said no.

 

[reggiecleveland]

Not a trade but the biggest error of all. As others have said the curse was racism.
http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/36622/george-digby-and-willie-mays-the-one-who-got-away
 

"I had Willie Mays bought for $4,500," Digby told me when I interviewed him in 2005. "I called up the Red Sox. I said, 'I got Willie Mays. He'll break the color line.'"

Digby, who had been a high school baseball coach in New Orleans, was the team's first full-time scout in the South, and in 1949 -- two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball -- recommended a 17-year-old Mays, who was playing for the Birmingham Black Barons. The Sox had a minor league team in Birmingham, the Barons, that shared the same ballpark, Rickwood Field, with the Black Barons.

Digby said he didn't know Sox GM Joe Cronin well enough at the time to make the call himself.

"Eddie Glennon, the GM of our club in Birmingham, called Cronin," recalled Digby. "The owner of the Black Barons had told us we could have Mays for $4,500. I said, 'I'll be back to you by tomorrow.' Glennon had asked me, 'What do you think?' I said, 'I think he's a big leaguer.' We could have had Mays in center and [Ted] Williams in left.

"Cronin sent another scout down to look at him, but [owner Tom] Yawkey and Cronin already had made up their minds they weren't going to take any black players."
 

 

[Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat]

Not a trade but the biggest error of all. As others have said the curse was racism.

Wow. I've never heard that story before.

Edit--I know my post adds nothing, but that story blows me away

 

[bob burda]

I had to get out my copy of Gammo's Beyond the 6th Game for this one, as this deal described below is not exactly a trade the Red Sox would have "made" but had more or less forced on them; I remember being shocked when I first read this almost 30 yrs ago:
 
"(Yastrzemski)...remembered times he could have made a bundle by going elsewhere, such as in the 1976 expansion draft, when if he'd allowed Toronto to draft him, he'd have gone to the Yankees for megabucks and the Blue Jays would have received a twenty-six-year-old pitcher with a 1-1 record named Ron Guidry."
 
My assumption is that Yaz had 5 and 10 rights (very recently provided through the MLBPA's bargaining) and that these rights would apply not just to trades but the "assignment" of a contract to another team in an expansion draft. This is probably why the Sox did not protect him.  So while this was a deal the Sox would not have intended to make, it would have been a three way trade: Yaz to Toronto for 175K (the player acquisition fee in the draft), then  Toronto shipping him to the MFYs for Guidry.  This was Steinbrenner at the height of his powers (this deal doesn't strike me as being Gabe Paul's idea) - and what a bad ass move this would have been If he could have pulled it off.  There had to have been some serious tampering going on, too...

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Gammons alluded several times in the past to trades with the Mets involving Manny. At the Winter Meetings post 2004 Minaya supposedly emerged from an early morning meeting with Theo dancing down the hallway and chanting "I got Manny!!. Gammons described the deal as Manny for the Mets farm system. It was during that time when Theo was trying to get Beltre and Drew so might have been a contingency deal.
Then there was the alleged Manny to Mets at the deadline in 2005 when Manny was in a "phase" where he wanted out. Theo gave him one last chance and Manny begged back in. M had been benched that day but delivered a game-winning PH single.

 

 
Yep, I think at the time, the hot names coming back were Lastings Milledge and Yusmeiro Petit.

 

 
I don't know what's crazier, Minaya's desire to do anything to get a player he wants, or that it would have been a hell of a trade for the Mets given how Milledge and Petit flamed out. 

 

[WenZink]

The book "Red Sox Century" recounts the story of how Billy Herman arranged to trade for Tom Tresh and Phil Linz from the Yankees ... for Carl Yastrzemski.
 
Dick O'Connell vetoed the idea

 
Yastrzemski was regularly mentioned in trade rumors before 1967.  Besides his conflicts with Mgr. Billy Herman, he was seen as diffident and unwilling to put in the extra effort to fulfill his potential.  After (what was regarded at the time) a disappointing 1966 season, the rumor was Yaz to the KC Athletics for the solid second baseman, Dick Green.  Almost 50 years later, just the thought of it sends shivers down the spine and a tightening of the sphincter.  (1967 OPS+ Yaz: 193; Green: 66.)

 

[Leather]

Is there anyone that opposed the Pedro trade?  There had to have been naysayers.

 

[snowmanny]

Seriously 12 years of cost-controlled players for one year of someone whose arm looks like it's going to fall off any second.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Is there anyone that opposed the Pedro trade?  There had to have been naysayers.

On sports radio, you better believe it.  I cant recall if it was the day of the trade or a day or two after, I just remember riding in the car with my Dad listening to (presumably) 'EEI, and explaining to my Dad why all of these callers were wrong, and that the Sox had just landed one of the best pitchers in baseball who was just hitting his prime.

 

[reggiecleveland]

I have more of a memory of some people claiming Clemens was traded for Pedro.

 

[Leather]

I recall rumors, circa 1989, that the Sox were going to trade Clemens for Canseco.
 
Of course, that may have been idle 5th grade fantasy, because when I tried to find record of it, all I got was this.

 

[rlsb]

One million 1957 dollars for Herb Score just before Gil McDougald shattered his face with a line drive.

 

[thurin68]

I seem to recollect a Steve Bedrosian and Dale Murphy from the Braves rumor for Jim Rice in the early middle 80's?

 

[sfip]

Is there anyone that opposed the Pedro trade?  There had to have been naysayers.

 
I'm sure there were many when both SportsCenter and CNN's version of SportsCenter both reported that Pedro said he wouldn't re-sign with Boston.

 

[Rasputin]

I recall rumors, circa 1989, that the Sox were going to trade Clemens for Canseco.
 

 
I remember in the 94-95 time frame, I suggested trading Roger Clemens for Ivan Rodriguez. I don't know if Texas would have done it, but they were pretty close to making the playoffs for the first time and they really needed pitching.