My Baseball People Love Ken Phelps' Bat: Worst Trades Ever

Surprisingly no thread. Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of the Jays trading John Olerud to the Mets for Robert Person (I'm surprised to say I have no recollection of this). Looking at the particulars--and conceding that Olerud was coming off three subpar seasons (though not terrible by any means) and they had Delgado standing by--what a godawful trade.

https://www.thestar.com/sports/blue-jays/inside-the-trade-of-blue-jays-batting-champion-john-olerud-a-deal-former-gm-gord/article_c6260ba5-55e0-52f9-8bcf-98aeae1095c3.html

Weird thing about two of the most infamously lopsided trades ever. Larry Andersen actually pitched really well for the Red Sox down the stretch in 1990: 15 games, 1.23 ERA. And they did win their division. Same with Doyle Alexander for the Tigers in 1987: 9-0, 1.53 ERA, and they also won the AL East. (Should be mentioned that both pitched poorly in the ALCS.)

But trades are what you get and what you give up. And Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz did pretty well on the other side of those transactions.

Forgot I started this thread...I'd say the Sale trade at least has the potential to be historically bad.

July 31, 2018: Chris Archer traded by the Tampa Bay Rays to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a player to be named later, Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows. The Pittsburgh Pirates sent Shane Baz (August 14, 2018) to the Tampa Bay Rays to complete the trade.

• The Chris Archer Trade Could Go Down As One of the Worst in MLB History
• Disastrous Chris Archer trade comes full circle for Pirates as RHP returns to Tampa Bay

I was just thinking about Chris Archer (and hence this catastrophic trade) the other day. Guess where he is now? Working with his best bud Tyler Glasnow as a player-development/baseball operations guy for the Dodgers

I promise I'm not trying to make everything about the Dodgers but wtf all roads are currently leading to Rome what can you do?

Forgot I started this thread...I'd say the Sale trade at least has the _potential_ to be historically bad.

It'll probably work out for both teams, but the potential is there. It's almost always this kind of trade that ends up famously bad, a player near the end for blank potential--like the Archer trade, like the two I mentioned. Even if Atlanta gets to the postseason (which they almost certainly will) but doesn't win the Series, it could still become notorious--as I posted above, both Detroit and the Red Sox won their divisions in '87 and '90 but lost their league championships. Especially if Sale were to pitch poorly in the playoffs, like Alexander and Andersen did. At that point, it would depend on Grissom, and that story will take at least another decade to unfold.

Grissom was at Trevor Story’s camp for young infielders this week, they are certainly high on him.

A whole bunch of similar pieces online:

https://www.hummbabybaseball.com/documentaries/the-20-most-lopsided-trades-in-mlb-history

Reminding me of one that is far from the veteran-for-potential template, involving two young shortstops: Ozzie Smith for Garry Templeton.