General

I’d Rather Have A Box Of Bats: A Short History of Bad Trades

May 27, 2008, 3:04 PM UTC

â†µAs far as our “minor league player traded for a box of bats” story from today goes, my attitude is this – sometimes you need bats more than you need another dude. And at least when you make a trade for something like bats, you know what you’re getting. Bats, innit? They’re reliable. They do what they do. It’s not like they’re suddenly going to get injured or get busted for dope-trafficking or retire to devote themselves to yoga or just unexpectedly start to suck for no reason. They break pretty often, but you know that going in, and hey, it’s a good reason to make sure you have a lot of bats.â†µ

â†µâ†µIn this spirit, I’ve listed below just a few of the infamous trades of the past where no doubt one team came away wishing they’d gotten some relevant equipment out of the deal instead of the crap lot of humans they actually dealt for.â†µ

â†µâ†µRed Sox trade Jeff Bagwell to Houston for Larry Andersenâ†µ

â†µ

â†µâ†µ

â†µâ†µIf you’ve watched the Phils in Philly, then you know that ole L.A. is one of their regular local broadcasters and their resident “character” on the mike. Every now and then on the air he refers to the fact that he was once dealt for Bagwell even up with a tone of sincere disbelief in his voice. It’s a little unfair, cause Larry was a rock solid middle innings guy in his day. But nevertheless the fact that the Red Sox passed on a talent like Bagwell to get a ham-and-egger like Andersen… it’s not quite a box-of-bats deal, but it’s not far off.â†µ

â†µâ†µBucs trade Steve Young to S.F. for draft picksâ†µAnd not even a frickin first-round draft pick neither. I mean, at least when the Falcons traded Favre to Green Bay they got themselves a first-rounder out of it.â†µ

â†µ â†µâ†µâ†µPens send Jaromir Jagr to the Capitals for Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk and Michal Sivekâ†µ

â†µâ†µDid Pittsburgh get pucks out of this, or like, some goalie pads or something? I hope so. I mean, yeah the Jagr and Lemieux thing wasn’t working out, and yeah it was a salary dump, but still the guy was an A-list player and these mamalucs they got for him were some real junior hockey material. â†µ

â†µ â†µâ†µâ†µBucks deal Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Walt Wesley to L.A. for Elmore Smith, Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters and Dave Meyersâ†µ

â†µâ†µWhen the big big dog DEMANDS a trade, well, you’re basically up a creek. And, you know, at the time it almost seemed like Milwaukee got value for Kareem. In retrospect, however, this turned out to be a box-of-bats caliber deal for the ages. Abdul-Jabbar went on to win three more MVP’s and five rings with the Lakers. Meanwhile, the Bucks, after winning a title on Kareem’s shoulders in ’71, have never been back to the finals.â†µ

â†µ â†µâ†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: