Worst trades in Blue Jays history

[North_of_Border]

I started watching the Jays in the early 2000s. So I don’t know about the past. I would like to though. What are some of the worst trades in Jays history. I’ll name a few from my experience.

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- The Tulo trade looks like a professional heist by Colorado. They managed to sign Tulo through his prime and dump him to us just as he fell off a cliff. With a 20 million per salary for several years left.... oh and we paid them Jeff Hoffman to do so. Just plain Awful.

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What are your worst memories of dealings?

[Secueritae]

Dickey for Thor, TDA and fillers is one of the worst in recent memories. I still remember that Season open stinker.

[JN]

I go back to a Jays fan since about 1984... I was just thinking of trades prior to 1991.

Many Jays fans were bitter about the 1989 trade of Jesse Barfield for Al Leiter, as Leiter took forever to overcome injuries and become decent. Barfield only had 2 good years left after the trade, a WAR of 4.1 and WAR of 5.2 (and then 0.7 for the rest of his career). He certainly could have put them over the top to win the division in 1990.

But in that time frame there really is nothing else even close to really bad. I scanned baseball reference and the worst I could find was dumping Mitch Webster to the Expos for Cliff Young in 1985. Webster was fairly serviceable outfielder from 1985-1988. But that is hardly a major mistake.

[North_of_Border]

AA somehow uses his ninja senses to dump Vernon Wells to the Angels. And while at it he get 2 serviceable players in return. Notably catcher Mike Napoli. That was a masterpiece.

However, he then flipped Napoli to Texas for reliever Frank Francisco.... Francisco was garbage out of the pen, while Napoli turned into a star.

An Awful end to a great first move.


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[JN]

David Cone has an interesting trade history, one where they gave up a near Hall of Famer.

The 1992 trade for David Cone, where they gave up Jeff Kent. Hard to argue that getting a front line starter for the World Series, which you ultimately won, is a bad deal. And it may not be. But Jeff Kent did turn out to have one hell of a career.

Then in 1995, the Jays traded for Cone again after he won the Cy Young in 1994. The 3 prospects they traded turned out to be bums (Chris Stynes a little bit better then no value, but not much). By mid-season the Jays flipped Cone for 3 prospects who were also garbage.

[Schad]

I go back to a Jays fan since about 1984... I was just thinking of trades prior to 1991.

Many Jays fans were bitter about the 1989 trade of Jesse Barfield for Al Leiter, as Leiter took forever to overcome injuries and become decent. Barfield only had 2 good years left after the trade, a WAR of 4.1 and WAR of 5.2 (and then 0.7 for the rest of his career). He certainly could have put them over the top to win the division in 1990.

But in that time frame there really is nothing else even close to really bad. I scanned baseball reference and the worst I could find was dumping Mitch Webster to the Expos for Cliff Young in 1985. Webster was fairly serviceable outfielder from 1985-1988. But that is hardly a major mistake.

Including 1991, you get the Glenallen Hill/Mark Whiten - Tom Candiotti trade. That's pretty fringy: Candiotti was pretty damned good down the stretch in his few months with the club, but given that we won the division by a mile and he got lit up in the playoffs, it's hard to say he really made a difference. Hill and Whiten went on to be mostly okay over the course of their long, sometimes-productive careers.

When that's one of your worst deals in a several year span, you're doing rather well.

Edit: yeah, I'm never sure how to rate the Cone trade. Trading a borderline HOFer for a rental is never great per se, and it'd definitely be top of the list if not for that bit where we won the Series. But we did, so hey.

[North_of_Border]

Darwin Cubillan and Michael Young for Esteban Loaiza from Texas.... one of the worst trades in Jays History.

To be fair to the JP. The Jays had two very good young players at SS in Alex Gonzalez and 2B Homer Bush, not to mention Tony Batista at 3B. And I guess they needed pitching help.... however, Loaiza was trash, while Young would have become one of the greats in team history.

[Schad]

Bush was in the process of losing his job when the trade went down...he had flatout sucked (made worse because Jim Fregosi believed in always having some slap-happy hitter in the #2 spot, which was often whichever light-hitting infielder popped into mind that day). When the Jays made the trade, they were fairly close to the AL East lead, but in a crowded field. By the time the trade deadline rolled around, they were fading fast both in the division and Wild Card.

Oh, and the other twist of the knife: after a couple fairly indifferent seasons (indifferent was Loiaza's stock in trade), Loiaza left in free agency and joined up with the White Sox, where he proceeded to be spectacular. Easily the second-best pitcher in baseball, behind Roy Halladay.

[North_of_Border]

Roy Halladay to Philly for Kyle Drabek, Travis D’Arnaud & Michael Taylor

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This trade looked great at the time. Philly had an elite level farm and the Jays got elite prospects back. However no it didn’t work out. Drabek was bust. Taylor was flipped for Brett Wallace who both were busts and D’Arnaud was traded to NY but he’s nothing spectacular anyway... Halladay was considered the best pitcher in Baseball


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[Al_Oliver]

Marlins deal, Syndergaard deal both up there for being terrible

[Skin Blues]

Roy Halladay to Philly for Kyle Drabek, Travis D’Arnaud & Michael Taylor

—-

This trade looked great at the time. Philly had an elite level farm and the Jays got elite prospects back. However no it didn’t work out. Drabek was bust. Taylor was flipped for Brett Wallace who both were busts and D’Arnaud was traded to NY but he’s nothing spectacular anyway... Halladay was considered the best pitcher in Baseball


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d'Arnaud alone has almost made that trade worthwhile. And Taylor was eventually turned into Devon Travis after a series of trades. That's a pretty good return for one season of a 33 year old starting pitcher that at best would have turned a 4th place team into a 3rd place team, especially considering the centerpiece in the return was a dud.

[Lateral Quicks]

Mike Sirotka for David Wells. Gord Ash didn't do his due diligence and got an injured player in Sirotka, whose career ended up being over. Wells was coming off an all-star, 4.8 WAR season for which he finished third in the Cy Young balloting.

[Tanner]

You can pretty much include every trade Gord Ash ever made except for Jose Cruz Jr. in here and it would apply.

[flatjacket1]

d'Arnaud alone has almost made that trade worthwhile. And Taylor was eventually turned into Devon Travis after a series of trades. That's a pretty good return for one season of a 33 year old starting pitcher that at best would have turned a 4th place team into a 3rd place team, especially considering the centerpiece in the return was a dud.

Can't say I agree. His age 32 season (last year with us) he put up 239 innings, with 208 K's and a 2.79 ERA (1.126 WHIP). He went on to win the Cy Young the next year for the Phillies, after finishing 5th with us after his age 32 year.

Josh Thole had a .313 career OBP while d'Arnaud is steady at .303 right now. Sure he hits some HR's but overall pretty bad. Since 2014 (his first season full time) he finished 24th out of 35 qualified catchers.

It's hard to judge trades in hindsight, the Phillies were loaded with top prospects. Michael Taylor was already going to be moved in a deal assuming the trade cleared, so really we did it on the contingency of receiving Brett Wallace. Wallace was ranked #40 in baseball that year, which today would be higher than any prospect on the Jays 2017 list except Guerro (#20). Drabek was ranked #25 in all of baseball three months later on the 2010 list (without playing a single game for the Jays), with d'Arnaud bring just behind at #81.

We got three top 100 prospects for Halladay, which is really quite a haul. Obviously none of those guys really panned out, but still was a good trade relative to information available at this time. Just like if we traded Vlad Jr. for Brett Cecil tomorrow, it would be a bad trade even if Vlad ends up never playing a ML game due to a unforeseen circumstance in the future and Cecil becomes a #1 starter and wins the Cy Young. You can't really base trades off of what happened, but more what was relevant at the time. Wallace looked better to the same scouts in 2009 than Bo Bichette did in 2017 (pre-season). Based on what was known I'd say that was a great trade.

[Duffman100]

Shawn Green trade?

[The_Hater]

Roy Halladay to Philly for Kyle Drabek, Travis D’Arnaud & Michael Taylor

—�-

This trade looked great at the time. Philly had an elite level farm and the Jays got elite prospects back. However no it didn’t work out. Drabek was bust. Taylor was flipped for Brett Wallace who both were busts and D’Arnaud was traded to NY but he’s nothing spectacular anyway... Halladay was considered the best pitcher in Baseball

Wallace was quickly flipped for Anthony Gose who was years later flipped for D Travis. So that branch of the deal ended up the best of the 3.

2 solid MLB starting position players isn't bad, even if they're both injury prone and one doesn't play for us. Plus we need to realize that the other option was watching Hallday walk and just getting a comp pick out of it 12 months later.

[The_Hater]

Jon Olerud for Robert Person. Another Gord Ash special.

[Wally West]

Shawn Green trade?

Was just reading up on this trade a couple of weeks ago as you can read here ---> http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/big-read-shawn-greens-abrupt-blue-jays-departure-still-stings/

Ouch! As talented a Blue Jays player as we've had in our history.

[Duffman100]

Shawn Green trade?

Was just reading up on this trade a couple of weeks ago as you can read here ---> http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/big-read-shawn-greens-abrupt-blue-jays-departure-still-stings/

Ouch! As talented a Blue Jays player as we've had in our history.

Could you imagine if that trade happened today. Fans would go berserk.

[bluerap23]

I go back to a Jays fan since about 1984... I was just thinking of trades prior to 1991.

Many Jays fans were bitter about the 1989 trade of Jesse Barfield for Al Leiter, as Leiter took forever to overcome injuries and become decent. Barfield only had 2 good years left after the trade, a WAR of 4.1 and WAR of 5.2 (and then 0.7 for the rest of his career). He certainly could have put them over the top to win the division in 1990.

But in that time frame there really is nothing else even close to really bad. I scanned baseball reference and the worst I could find was dumping Mitch Webster to the Expos for Cliff Young in 1985. Webster was fairly serviceable outfielder from 1985-1988. But that is hardly a major mistake.

Including 1991, you get the Glenallen Hill/Mark Whiten - Tom Candiotti trade. That's pretty fringy: Candiotti was pretty damned good down the stretch in his few months with the club, but given that we won the division by a mile and he got lit up in the playoffs, it's hard to say he really made a difference. Hill and Whiten went on to be mostly okay over the course of their long, sometimes-productive careers.

When that's one of your worst deals in a several year span, you're doing rather well.

Edit: yeah, I'm never sure how to rate the Cone trade. Trading a borderline HOFer for a rental is never great per se, and it'd definitely be top of the list if not for that bit where we won the Series. But we did, so hey.

This was the one I was thinking about, but they did win the world series. AA's two deals mentioned above (Tulo and Dickey) are far worse. I loved AA, but man he made some bad moves.