[BBL] 28-Jul-10

MLB Top 5: Midseason deals of the decade

By Aaron Schuldiner

In late July of last year, the Cardinals acquired Matt Holliday from Oakland for a trio of prospects. He went on to hit .353 the rest of the way, with a 1.012 OPS and 55 RBI in 63 games. Holliday helped lead the Cardinals to an AL Central title and their first postseason appearance since 2006.

With this year’s trade deadline less than a week away, we’re counting down the five biggest midseason additions of the last decade. We’re focusing on trades that made a relatively quick impact, so we’ve omitted deals like the one that sent Bartolo Colon to Montreal for Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Brandon Phillips in 2002. At the time, Sizemore, Lee, and Phillips were prospects and it was years before they developed into stars.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll stick mostly to deals that impacted the season in which they were made, with one notable exception.

2008: Los Angeles Dodgers acquire Manny Ramirez

To say that Manny Ramirez got hot in 2008 after a three-way trade landed him in Los Angeles might be the understatement of the decade. Boston’s favorite idiot wore out his welcome with Red Sox Nation and the Dodgers reaped the benefits. Ramirez hit .396 with 17 homers and 53 RBI in 53 regular season games for Los Angeles.

The Dodgers, who were 54-54 when they acquired Ramirez, won the NL West and swept the Cubs in the first round of the playoffs, before being eliminated in the NLCS by the Phillies.

Ramirez was an offensive juggernaut in the postseason, batting .520 with four homers, 10 RBI and 11 walks in eight playoff games. His postseason OPS of 1.747 was the seventh-highest of all-time and the highest among qualifying batters since Juan Gonzalez posted a 1.901 OPS in the 1996 playoffs.

2008: Milwaukee Brewers acquire C.C. Sabathia

When Milwaukee acquired C.C. Sabathia in early July 2008, he had thrown seven complete games since the beginning of the 2007 season. He went the distance seven times in his next 17 starts. In the last game of that stretch, Sabathia held the Cubs to one run over nine innings to propel Milwaukee into the playoffs on the season’s final day.

As a Brewer, Sabathia was 11-2 in the regular season with a 1.65 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP, while averaging more than seven and two-thirds innings per start. Unfortunately for Milwaukee, his worst start as a Brewer came in Philadelphia in game two of the NLDS. Pitching on short rest, Sabathia failed to make it out of the fourth inning, allowing five earned runs and taking the loss. The Phillies eliminated the Brewers in four games and Sabathia signed with the Yankees in the offseason.

2009: Philadelphia Phillies acquire Cliff Lee

Why can’t Cliff Lee find a home? One of baseball’s premier starters, Lee has pitched for four teams in the last two seasons.

The Phillies acquired Lee from Cleveland for four prospects on July 29 of last year. For the remainder of the regular season, he went 7-4 with a 3.39 ERA. But it was Lee’s postseason performance that landed him on this list.

Lee was 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in the playoffs, leading the Phillies to their second consecutive World Series. Though they were defeated by the Yankees in six games, Lee won both his World Series starts, including a complete game victory over C.C. Sabathia in the series opener.

2000: Arizona Diamondbacks acquire Curt Schilling

Alright, so Curt Schilling didn’t really make his mark in Arizona until 2001. We dropped him down a spot on our list to reflect that, but we can’t exclude it altogether. In July of 2000, the Diamondbacks, already with one established ace in Randy Johnson, sent Omar Daal, Vicente Padilla, Travis Lee and Nelson Figueroa to Philadelphia for Schilling. The result was one of the best one-two punches in baseball history.

Schilling was 22-6 in 2001 with a 2.98 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP, but he saved his best for the postseason. Schilling went 4-0 in the playoffs with a 1.12 ERA, 0.64 WHIP and three complete games, as he and Johnson led the Diamondbacks to their first and only championship. The two shared World Series MVP honors, were named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsmen of the Year and Schilling finished second to Johnson in the NL Cy Young voting in both 2001 and 2002.

2004: Houston Astros acquire Carlos Beltran

The Astros were 38-34 when they landed Carlos Beltran in a three-deal on June 24, 2004. Beltran hit 23 homers and drove in 53 runs in his 90 regular season games with Houston, but he did his real damage in October.

In one of the most memorable playoff performances in baseball history, Beltran hit .435 with eight homers and six steals. He had a postseason OPS of 1.557 and scored 21 runs, an all-time playoff record. Beltran also tied all-time records for home runs (eight) and total bases (47) in a single postseason, but the Astros ultimately fell one win short of their first World Series appearance in franchise history. The following year, Beltran was the starting center fielder for the New York Mets and the Astros won the pennant.