Now to the last in this series. Trades Cleveland fans would like to but can't seem to forget. Just like the rotted refuse in your garbage cans that have you begging for garbage day to arrive so that stank can go live somewhere else.
Surprisingly it's hard to find enough real trades to make up a list like this so I have thrown in some DFA situations that were really ripe, too.
1. Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn
You are not a Cleveland baseball fan over 75 years old if you don't know this trade. Just like Moe goes into a crazed trance when he hears the word "Ticonderoga" in the Three Stooges skit, older, avid Cleveland fans generally go ballistic when you mention the name Rocky Colavito.
You see, the orginal "Rock", as in "Don't Knock the Rock", was the face of the franchise before he was traded for Harvey Kuenn, the guy who beat out Tito Francona for the batting title in '59.
Colavito would eventually come back to the Indians but not until he deposited 173 of his 374 career HRs in the cheap seats during his 5 year tour of Detroit and Kansas City. Throwing salt on the wound was that Kuenn hit 9 HRs and lasted 1 season before he was traded to San Francisco. Now between Kuenn and Willie Kirkland who we obtained from San Francisco for Kuenn, we kinda covered 2 of Colavito's 5 years in exile with decent stats.
But still...
"The Curse of the Rock" still haunts Cleveland to this day as they have not won a WS since that trade. For that reason this, for right or wrong, is acknowledged as the worst trade in Cleveland baseball history.
2. Brandon Phillips for Jeff Stevens
You ever wonder why guys like Bradley Zimmer, Yu Chang, Bobby Bradley and Oscar Mercado got all the shots they did? Did you ever wonder why one Cleveland Baseball GM/President once said "You don't know what you have until a guy has 1000 major league at bats"? People in the Cleveland organization may not admit it, but the origin of these long looks come from three sources (1) Brandon Phillips (2) Gio Urshela and (3) Yandy Diaz. Urshela had his chances but couldn't hit enough to match his Gold Glove-caliber defense. Diaz didn't get a long-term look but they just couldn't find a way to get him to lift the ball in Cleveland. But Phillips? Well, he got the shot that Urshela did with the same results. The issue was that Cleveland did not have a decent secondbaseman when they traded Phillips. They could have given him a season, a real chance. But they didn't. They gave his roster spot to Ramon Vazquez who was a career replacement-level player.
The rest is, as they say, history. Phillips, now unfettered by Cleveland's coaching staff and front office, went on to start an 11 year, 3 all-star game stretch in Cincinnati, doing all the things the Indians said he couldn't do, like hit the ball the other way. In a pricelessly ironic moment, I distinctly remember watching the Indians in St. Louis that year. During the game they were showing highlights of other games in progress. The highlight of the Reds game showed Phillips hitting a line drive the other way to plate two runs. Again, incredibly ironic but ROFL deliciously priceless, in a film noir kinda way.
3. Brian Giles for Rincardo Rincon
An example that I hope is hung on the wall in the Guardians' FO, this trade is the poster child for why it is NOT OK to trade your excess prospects for a useful bit part just because you HAVE an excess. Giles' career in Pittsburgh and San Diego was legendary and Rincon faded away into nothingness. In thinking about this, this trade may, in part, be the reason the Guardians didn't treat their MIF prospect depth lightly this winter, remembering what happens when you undervalue your prospect depth (see Sexon and Giles, for example).
4. Pedro Guerrero for Bruce Ellingsen
The reason this trade is so low on this list is that few people remember it. I alluded to it in my Tobias Myers for Junior Caminero trade post last year. Guerrero was a kid signed as a 16 year old by the Indians in 1973 and traded a year later for Ellingsen, a guy who had pretty much lost his 40 man roster spot for the Dodgers. Ellingsen pitched 42 non-memorable innings for the Indians that year and never pitched again in the majors, retiring the next year. But since the development path for a kid still playing in the DSL at the time is so long, the connectivity of Guerrero to the Indians and how he was lost for nothing is often forgotten.
Guerrero went on to an excellent 5-all-star year, 12 year stint in LA.
If you asked 10 objectve fans for other teams to look at these 10 trades, maybe 5 of them would say this is the worst trade in Cleveland history as we got nothing back for a 5-time all-star
5. Shoeless Joe Jackson for Ed Klepfer, Braggo Rotha, Larry Chappell and $31,500
There wasn't a lot to like about this deal from the get-go. Jackson went on to play 6 great seasons for the White Sox before he was kicked out of baseball. The ironic thing was that if Jackson had stayed with Cleveland the White Sox would not have won the pennant in 1919 as Cleveland finished 2nd and likely would have won the league if Jackson had stayed with them. Whether that would have averted the bribing scandal I don't know but the Jackson-less Cleveland team still won the 2020 WS championship, although none of the guys we received for Jackson made a significant contribution. But to think what might have been had Jackson stayed with Cleveland! Things that make you go hmmmm.
6. Jeremy Burnitz for Kevin Seitzer
Now this is the type of deal I would have liked to see the Indians/Guardians make, in reverse. Seitzer was an excellent bench piece. Burnitz was just starting his career, a career that would lead to him hitting 315 ML HRs, 9 more than Sexson. I had forgotten that. Not a good deal and. like Phillips and Giles, one we had to be reminded of year, after year, after year.
7. Richie Sexson, Marco Scutaro and Paul Rigdon for Jason Bere, Bob Wickman and Steve Woodard
Sexson, like Giles, was just coming into his prime. Scutaro, though he never played for the Brewers, had a good ML career. Bere and Woodard did little in Cleveland. As Sexson was mashing 306 HRs, mostly elsewhere, the only thing that saved this trade from being higher on the list was Wickman recording almost 150 nerve-wracking saves over his time in Cleveland, includng leading the league one year with 45. People can argue that this was not a terrible trade of the ilk that would put it on this list. Maybe so but it certainly was not a good traded for Cleveland.
8. Victor Martinez for Nick Hagadone, Justin Masterson and Bryan Price
To be fair, Martinez was out the door at the end of the season and Cleveland wasn't paying him what he could get in free agency. So we got what we could for him but it was extra pieces who never helped this club get over the next hump. But, as you can see, it is getting harder to find bad trades.
9. Jay Bell for Felix Fermin and Denny Gonzalez
If Bell couldn't have played SS this would not have been that bad of a trade as his production at 3rd or 2nd base, more offensive positions, would have looked not as good. But as a SS, he had it all over Fermin. In a sense, however, this trade is almost negated as Fermin netted us Vizquel. You know, 5 degrees of Rocky Colavito and all.
10. Junior Caminero for Tobias Myers
Just setting a placeholder for this one.
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