SELLER BEWARE
Trading HR champs tends to prove costly — on field
WHEN the Marlins trade Giancarlo Stanton — and despite Derek Jeter’s suggestion they could hold onto the slugger, it really does look like when and not if — he would become the 12th player dealt in an offseason immediately after winning a home run title.
So it is not uncommon, and neither is the reason. In nine of the previous 11 cases money was a front-burner issue, as it is with the debt-ridden Marlins and their desire to unload as much of the 10 years at $295 million Stanton is still owed.
Dead Ball Era homer champs Dave Brain and Fred Beck were both sold in the first decade of the 20th century by the Boston Doves, who would become — for one season — the Boston Rustlers, then the Boston Braves, Milwaukee Braves and Atlanta Braves.
You might have heard of the next guy, Babe Ruth, who was sold by the Red Sox to the Yankees after setting a record with 29 homers in 1919. Some kind of Curse followed.
Philadelphia was among the most devastated cities by the Great Depression. Attendance cratered for its teams, leading to the Phillies dealing Chuck Klein following the 1933 season and the Philly A’s trading Jimmie Foxx following the 1935 campaign, the last great piece from the 1929-31 dynasty moved by the financially plagued Connie Mack.
After 44 homers in 1946, Hank Greenberg engaged in a contract squabble. So Detroit sold him to Pittsburgh, co-owned by Bing Crosby. The team moved in the left-field wall at cavernous Forbes Field to exploit the righty pull bat. The area was dubbed Greenberg’s Garden, but Greenberg mentored another young player, Ralph Kiner, and soon after Greenberg’s Garden became Kiner’s Korner.
The next two trades of homer champs — Rocky Colavito after 1959 and Dick Allen after 1974 — were not on the surface financially motivated. Colavito was moved from Detroit to Cleveland for Harvey Kuenn — the homer champ for the batting-title winner — by GM Frank Lane, who was the Jerry Dipoto of his day, so much did he trade. Lane gave up Colavito because he said home runs were overrated.
Allen did not hit another homer after Aug. 16, 1974, yet still led the AL despite announcing his retirement and leaving the White Sox in early September. He was traded in December to the Braves, but said as a black man he had no desire to play in Atlanta, and then was moved to the Phillies in May.
Reggie Jackson hit 36 homers for the 1975 A’s, demanded a three-year, $600,000 contract, penurious owner Chuck Finley said he would not budge from the $140,00 Reggie had made the previous year, Jackson balked and Finley cut his pay by 20 percent. Jackson was due to be part of the first full free-agent class the next offseason and not wanting to lose him for nothing, Finley dealt Jackson to the Orioles just before the season began. Jackson initially held out because he did not want to leave Oakland, but ultimately spent 1976 with the Orioles, his kind of lost year between the A’s and Yankees. I want to offer a little more detail on the final two because they might provide lessons for the Marlins and any acquiring team:
Ken Griffey Jr.: The Mariners tried to sign Griffey after the 1999 season with one year left on his contract. They were horrified they would lose both Griffey and Alex Rodriguez as free agents after the 2000 campaign. Griffey requested a trade and at some point told Seattle he would only go to Cincinnati (like Stanton he had a no-trade clause), his father’s original team and one that trained in spring closer to his Florida home.
Griffey had just completed a decade in which he was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner each season of the 1990s, and got MVP votes in all but one year. The completion to the trade was Griffey accepting a nine-year, $116.5 million deal with the Reds. A few lessons: 1. Griffey, like Ruth, Klein, Foxx, Greenberg and Reggie are Hall of Famers — if they can be swapped, so can Stanton.
2. The Reds haggled and nearly lost out on the player because they would not give up several prospects the Mariners demanded, namely Pokey Reese. So teams interested in Stanton should do thorough self-scouting and know if they are trading Pokey Reese or Pee Wee Reese.
3. The Reds were so gung-ho to get a hometown hero they ignored that Griffey did not have great work habits and he began to break down almost immediately. Stanton is known as a worker, but he already has had a series of significant injuries and has 10 more years on the contract. Griffey limped to the end of his long deal.
Alex Rodriguez: parallels Stanton. Both had just won an MVP in their age-27 season. Both had played three years on contracts that when signed had guaranteed the most money in MLB history. Both had opt outs looming in the future and complete no- trade clauses. Both played for l osing organi- zations that felt they needed to get out of those contracts as a way to better set up their futures.
In the what is old is new department: The Rangers’ GM trying to trade Rodriguez in the offseason of 2003-04 was John Hart, who recently resigned as Braves president of baseball operations amid an international signing scandal. The Yankees needed a third baseman because Aaron Boone suffered a season-ending knee injury while playing pickup basketball in the offseason. Boone interviewed for the Yankees managerial opening. Helping thencommissioner Bud Selig navigate through the complexities of any deal involving A-Rod was his executive VP of baseball operations: Sandy Alderson.
It was a soap opera, of course, because Rodriguez was involved. A trade agreed upon with the Red Sox was nixed by the union because of how much value Rodriguez would lose in the restructuring of his contract.
The Rangers picked up $67 million of the $179 million A-Rod was owed over the final seven years to appease the Yankees and acquired Alfonso Soriano.
The lesson: The Marlins, with an understaffed and perhaps overmatched baseball operations department, better truly know the value of prospects offered for Stanton. Because the Rangers had a list of five prospects to pick from for the second player in the deal. They chose Joaquin Arias. But sitting on the list was a young second baseman who, coincidentally, one day would be mentored as a Yankee by Rodriguez: Robinson Cano.