TRADING PLACES
Behind the scenes story on how Piazza went from L.A. to Miami to the Mets in a wild week
WE START with improbability. Mike Piazza simply being a major leaguer falls into unassisted-triple-play terrain for likelihood. That he was elected to the Hall of Fame is winning Powerball stuff.
No one drafted as late — 62nd round and 1,390th pick — had ever previously gained Cooperstown induction.
Which makes his trade from the Dodgers to the Marlins to the Mets — in a one-week span of May 1998 — fitting. For there is a butterfly effect to it all: Remove one item from the chain of events and Piazza never gets from there to there to here. So much had to go just so for Piazza to come to New York: 1. Piazza was a free agent after
the 1998 season. Piazza’s representative, Dan Lozano, initially set the start of spring training as a deadline to have a long-term deal with the Dodgers. That was relaxed until Opening Day, but the negotiations were contentious in spring.
Piazza had been Rookie of the Year. He was a five-time All-Star and five times had finished in the MVP top 10. He was 29. Fred Claire, then the longtime Dodgers GM, said Piazza wanted seven years at $105 million — to become the first $100 million baseball player. The Dodgers countered with six years at $81 million. That, too, would have made him the highest-paid player.
“I don’t dispute that Mike was unhappy,” Claire recalled. “But I had been through many negotiations. We were making every effort to get Mike signed. We were offering to make him the highest-paid player in the game.”
The negotiation, though, had made the moody Piazza bitter. He unleashed his disappointment via quotes that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Opening Day. In his autobiography, Piazza would even say that beloved announcer Vin Scully had turned the fans against him.
The marriage was definitely fraying, if not irreparably harmed.
2. News Corp, the parent company of The Post, bought the Dodgers in September 1997 and was approved as owners a few months later. Had the O’Malley family continued to own the club, would Piazza have been traded? Claire does not believe so — he thinks Piazza would have been signed to stay a career-long Dodger. That is what he was trying to do even beyond the Opening Day mandate. It fit the more traditional mode of who the Dodgers had been under the O’Malleys.
But News Corp executives either became concerned they would get nothing for Piazza at the end of the season or felt they would not be bullied by a player or had business interests involving FOX TV rights and the Marlins that superseded holding on to Piazza.
The deal was dodone above the heads of then MarlinsMarl GM Dave Dombrowski and ClClaire, who first heard a trade was dodone after it was completed. Claire waswa called in his box by teamteam presidentpresiden Bob Grazianono and informed PiazzaPia and Todd Zeile had been dealtdea to Florida for Gary Sheffield, BBobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson, JiJim Eisenreich and Manuel Barrios.
One problem was Sheffield’s notradetrade provision waswa overlooked and Claire had to be brought in to work through the mamatter. The deal was finalized May 1616.
“I was adamant ththat we needed to keep Mike, enteringente the peak years of his career,” Claire said. “I told Bob Graziano ththat it was very important we keep him on the team. … This is why tthis absolutely was a jolt out of the blue.”b
3. The Marlins werew in a fire sale. Florida had wowon its first title in 1997. But ownerowner WWayne Huizengaga insisted hehe waswas lolosing too much money. There was bbelief he wanteded to severely drop payroll as a prelude to selling the franchise. The Marlins dealt 12 membersbers off the cchampionship club in the offseason.o But that was stistill not enough. The order was to do more.
“WeWe werewere in an unusual position,” Dombrowski said. “We were coming off a championshipcham and under ordeorders to clear all the payroll we could. It was one of the unusual times in mmy career. We were just trtrying to move as much mmoney as possible.” Nearly $100 million was leleft on the con
tratracts of Piazza,
Zeile, Sheffield, Bonilla, Johnson and Eisenreich — most of it going West to Los Angeles. The Marlins had completed a transition from the sixth-largest payroll to the fifth lowest in a matter of months.
But that wasn’t enough. As Dombrowski remembers: “Once we made the deal for Mike, there was no reason to mislead anyone. The situation was we were looking to move his contract as quickly as we possibly could.”
4. Todd Hundley was injured. The Mets catcher underwent reconstructive right elbow surgery on Sept. 26, 1997. He was due back midseason 1998. He had set a record for homers by a catcher in 1996 with 41 and followed that with 30 in 1997. Management viewed him as an important clubhouse voice.
So, while the Mets were looking for offensive upgrades, their initial inclination was to just let players such as Alberto Castillo, Todd Pratt and Tim Spehr hold the fort at catcher until Hundley returned and find offense elsewhere. For example, the Mets had talked to the Marlins in the offseason about outfielders Sheffield and Moises Alou.
Nevertheless, at the time the Marlins received Piazza, the Mets did not have a true starting catcher.
5. The Mets had gotten good. From 1993-96, they had the NL’s worst winning percentage (.437). But in 1997, Bobby Valentine’s first full season as manger, they surprisingly won 88 games. They obtained Al Leiter and Dennis Cook that offseason to try to fortify the pitching staff.
They were playing fine in 1998. But the Yankees — en route to 114 wins — were dominating New York baseball. The crowds at Shea remained sparse.
“You know what Shea looked like when there were 8,000-to10,000 there,” said then Mets assistant GM Jim Duquette. “Dead.”
Then GM Steve Phillips remembered: “The internal discussion came back that we should not duplicate an area of strength where we already had Hundley. But Piazza was a marquee/billboard-type player and we were lacking that. We were a good little team. Piazza would give us an identity. We needed to get a superstar.”
6. The Mets had an edge because they already had done so much recent business with the Marlins. They had obtained Cook and Leiter in separate deals, and discussed Alou and Sheffield. The Mets and Marlins also had affiliates in the same leagues in the minors, so their officials saw each others’ players constantly.
“So we knew who they liked in our organization,” Duquette said. The Marlins loved the Mets’ top prospect, outfielder Preston Wilson, plus pitchers Ed Yarnall and Geoff Goetz, who went to high school in Florida and was a Marlins target with the 12th pick in the 1997 draft before the Mets took him at No. 6.
There was another advantage, Phillips believed. He said Dombrowski liked to be given lists of players to pick from — you can have an elite prospect from Group A, here is what is possible from Group B and Group C. And that Dombrowski also liked to be the one to say yes to a deal. So, Phillips said, he was sure to spread out the three prospects in each of the groups and leave it for Dombrowski to make a final call.
“I had replaced Joe McIlvaine as kind of the main talent evaluator,” said Omar Minaya, also a Mets assistant GM at the time. “Steve asked me to see our guys and my advice was to give them up for Piazza. But that was what all of baseball operations thought. There was not much debate about it.” But there was debate. 7. Fred Wilpon was able to be swayed. The legend that has built up around the trade is Nelson Doubleday wanted to do the deal and Wilpon did not, but that public pressure exerted, particularly by Mike Francesa and Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, moved Wilpon to change his mind.
Wilpon refused comment for this piece. But five then-members of the front office say Doubleday and Wilpon essentially played parts familiar to those in the organization — Doubleday did not sweat details and always wanted great players, Wilpon was more concerned about day-to-day business and needed to be convinced.
One member of the front office noted each man owned 50 percent of the team and, thus, they ended up agreeing more often than the public perception because either could block a move and if they didn’t concur nothing would get done.
Wilpon was particularly worried the Mets would be giving up big prospects and, thus, Piazza would have all the leverage in negotiations as a free agent that offseason because the franchise did not want to lose the youngsters and have Piazza for just a few months.
All involved at the time felt Mets executive VP of business David Howard played a key role. The Mets had recently redone their TV deal with Cablevision and were getting significantly more money annually for their rights. Howard convinced Wilpon the money was there to re-sign Piazza or another big star if Piazza left. He also demonstrated the potential Piazza would bring to sell tickets and move the Mets to a more prominent place in the baseball landscape.
Howard’s appeal to Wilpon: Piazza was a marquee star, had Hollywood looks, was articulate, an East Coast guy, Italian-American and could more than anyone transform a team just hoping to sneak into the playoffs into something greater. Wilpon relented. The Mets and Marlins made the trade on May 22.
“We never had anything like him in a Mets uniform,” then Mets manager Bobby Valentine said. “I know I was bullish on the trade, but I never thought it would happen. I am pretty sure I was in the bathroom in my office and Steve came down and through the door said we had gotten Piazza. I thought he was kidding. When I came out, he said, ‘ No, we really got him.’ I was amazed and surprised. It seemed out of the realm of possibility. But I guess it was a perfect world. I am glad all the stars aligned.” joel.sherman@nypost.com