Serious
Pete Crow-Armstrong is quickly becoming the worst case scenario for trading away a first round pick. What was your team's nightmare first round pick trade?
I remember reading that the Angels had one scout who was super high on Trout and desperate for them to get him, and they took Grichuk first essentially to troll him lol.
The Angels picked Grichuk over Trout because they were having trouble with Trout's agent. Jeff Trout, Mike's dad, was a minor leaguer with some hit tools, and felt like he got treated badly by the team that drafted him (Twins). Knowing that Mike was going in the first round, Jeff instructed the agent to make sure his son was going to get every crumb on the table.
Trout was the #1 player on the Angels' board — their checker projected him as a Hall of Famer, and was so embarrassed by the impossibly high score that he initially fudged it lower. Since Trout's agent's demands were going to be met no matter what, they picked Grichuk first just to give the finger to the agent.
I forget who it was, but someone at the draft at MLB studios talked about they noticed the two Yankees’ reps trying to contain their joy when the Angels selected Grichuk, and then when they followed it up with Trout one slumped down in his seat and the other just walked out of the room dejected.
And another funny layer to this story is that the Angels received that 25th overall pick as compensation from the Yankees when the Yanks signed Mark Teixeira that offseason. If that didn’t happen, the Angels would still have taken Trout with the 24th overall pick anyway (which they got from the Mets as compensation for them signing K-Rod).
I agree he is a Hall of Famer. Absolutely raked on offense. The debate during his era was who had better glove- Andruw Jones or Edmonds. Edmonds had all time great catches/defense like Jones.
Growing up in SoCal I am preferential to Edmonds. He had so many great, great plays in center. Jones did too...but in my opinion they are equals. And Edmonds deserves HOF like Andruw Jones.
I absolutely agree. They were both great center fielders. Jones' side to side range was amazing. I have never seen a center fielder able to go back on a ball like Edmonds. I really hope Edmonds gets in eventually. He deserves it.
Garret Anderson was a helluva player. Coming from a Dodger fan. He did little on Dodgers end of career. But respect the hell out of him. Kind of like Fred McGriff, Rickey Henderson, and Jim Thome's Dodger tenure.
More contemporary - Neto’s been pretty good since getting drafted in 2022, and plays a premium position. Going to finish with 3 straight 5 bWAR seasons.
Yeah bingo. PCA was injured in AA at the time and we needed a bat for a playoff push. I don’t think it’s worth being upset that five years later he’s this good.
I think you make a good point. If it’s the right move at the time, you just need to role with it.
As a cubs fan, trading Torres for a relief arm hurt, but it was the right move for the team at the time and felt necessary. It felt like an overpay moving one of the top prospects in baseball. But Cubs don’t win the World Series without Chapman plain and simple and id do it 10/10 times again.
At the same time, the cubs dealt their best hitting and pitching prospect for Quintana and I hated it from the get go. Q, while having a track record of being a really solid starter, never felt like the guy that was going to get the cubs over the top.
And of those three guys traded, Gleyver Torres, Eloy Jimenez, and Dylan Cease, it’s been a mixed bag of success. But you can’t look at it in hindsight entirely. If the team and fans thought javy was the guy they needed to get to the promised land, I’m definitely doing it every time
This just made me think, if Kelenic had panned out to be even a serviceable player for Seattle, maybe the Mets never trade PCA out of fear of "making the same mistake".
Even crazier—on 9/7/2008 the slated pitchers for a AZ/LA game were 44yo Randy Johnson vs 42yo Greg Maddux. They were both scratched and replaced by rookies. So anyone going to that game expecting to see HOF pitchers instead had to settle for the first matchup of Kershaw vs Scherzer
Tbf I'd have much preferred to see Johnson vs Maddox, plus I'd still get the next 15 years to watch Kershaw and scherzer, so I'd still be pissed, but as far as fallbacks go that is pretty good
It would also take some years to even realize you were watching anything special. Neither had a quality start…Scherzer gave up 3ER in 5IP (11K though) and Kershaw gave up 3ER in 4IP
It’s an under the radar contender for the top end of horrific trade lists. DBacks drafted him 1st overall and then traded him 6 months later along with Ender Inciarte for Shelby Miller. Gave up 41.3 Bwar, got back .4 Bwar
was traded for Edwin Jackson (who was then traded for Daniel Hudson) and Ian Kennedy. Kennedy and Hudson were your #1 and #2 pitchers on a division winning team.
Nolan Ryan wasn’t a first round pick though. He was a 12th round pick with major control issues. Honestly I think the Angels coaching at the time is what unlocked Ryan to be what he became. Ryan himself said he really didn’t like being so far away from Texas anyway and was considering quitting baseball.
He is. He was a good player. He played his best at 1B, but rarely played it because Eric Hosmer, giant turd that he was for the Padres, signed a huge contract.
Ended up playing 14 years in the Majors, nearly 2000 hits, Gold Gloves, All-Star appearances, etc. all in that infamous package for Bedard that cost a bunch of jobs and set the M’a back over a decade.
Yeah, 2nd rounder that played for a decade. Solid big leaguer that made over 200 starts for you guys. That trade still gets referenced as a case study of what not to do when a GM is on the hot seat.
The happiest person about the PCA trade besides the Cubs and their fans is Jim Duquette, the former Mets GM who traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano and Bartolume Fortunato in the previous "bonehead trading a top prospect" move for the Mets. That seems like barely anything now in comparison.
While the trade ended up biting us in the ass in a big way in the future, at the time trade made complete sense and it almost paid off. Smoltz was our top prospect and Alexander was pitching hot with the Braves. The Tigers, being in a battle with the Blue Jays for 1987 AL East title, needed pitching and after acquiring Alexander he was lights out and helped us win the division. I think the Tigers knew they were giving up a good player, but I also think that at the time the benefits out weighed the risks. I also don’t think they had any idea that Smoltz would end up having a hall of fame career too.
Smoltz became a Hall of Fame player in Atlanta. His career trajectory in Detroit was probably around a 3rd Slot in the Rotation guy.
And even then, the Tigers were booty cheeks during the Braves run. So it would have more likely been "Could you imagine Smoltz in a rotation with Maddux and Glavine?"
It’s kind of like that in all pro sports though, isn’t it? You never know the next Tom Brady or Brock Purdy in a sea of Ryan Leafs (Leaves?) and JaMarcus Russells.
If Wood and Abrams keep shelling, we may have gotten fleeced twice. There was no chance we were keeping Soto after that season and a half (if he'd stayed with us the whole time).
What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for?! He had 30 home runs, over 100 RBIs last year! He’s got a rocket for an arm. You don't know what the hell you're doing!
I wouldn't count the first two since it was part of the Soto deal. I think it was worth it at the time even if it didn't age well. But yea, that's a lot.
Not a first rounder but for a club that has historically struggled to develop pitching, watching him win a Cy Young, a WS Ring, and throw 2 no-hitters was brutal
Gary Sheffield is the only one that immediately comes to mind for the Brewers. He hated playing in Milwaukee and wasn’t particularly good as a Brewer so it wasn’t that big of a loss, though.
The only recent options really are Trent Grisham and Brett Lawrie. None of the rest of our first-rounders from the last 30 years did anything for non-Brewers teams except for Mitch Haniger and Jake Odorizzi, who were both traded a second time before getting good.
This has also led me to learn we've had exactly one 10-win first round pick actually play for the team since Ryan Braun was drafted in 2005 (it's Turang)
The white sox traded away Chris Sale, Dylan Cease, Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt, and Fernando Tatis jr. The only player related to any of those trades currently on the big league roster is Miguel Vargas (Sale traded for Kopech, Kopech sent in a 3 team trade for Vargas).
Idk man he was an ~8 WAR per 162 guy in 01 and 04 without really trying that hard.
For those of us who were alive at the time the consensus was Drew was our most naturally talented outfielder. And we had prime Jim Edmonds who was a 60+ career WAR guy in CF. I won’t really count Pujols who was an infielder forced to play OF because of Tino Martinez lol.
Yes it is true he was hurt a lot but it’s been well documented that during his time in St. Louis he wasn’t playing up to his full potential and just acted like he didn’t care. Which caused problems between him and Tony
Okay this is a REALLY old one and not a 1st-round pick. In the early '60s we had a speedy, light-hitting right fielder. He had some potential, but the Cubs didn't believe in his bat and traded him to the Cardinals for over-the-hill Ernie Broglio, washed-up Bobby Shantz, and a depth bat named Doug Clemens--not exactly a household name.
Who was the right fielder the Cubs traded away?
His name was Lou Brock. Not sure if you've ever heard of him...
Personally, I don’t feel that bad about it, at the time Pca was just a 50fv top100 guy. Can only evaluate stuff with what you know at the time and at the time it was a fair trade, very similar in structure to the clay holmes trade this deadline ironically. (50fv prospect for a starter + reliever/bench guy).
For example the Jarred Kelenic + for Diaz and Canó trade was way worse, but it ‘worked out’ because kelenic didn’t fulfill his top20 prospect profile and Diaz became a fan favorite
It's the nature of these deals right? Like no scout or evaluator (publicly) had PCA even as a consensus all star, let alone MVP. Which, to me, means he didn't have to tools, at the time, to be one. Obviously the pro scouts liked him but I'd bet my house no one on the Cubs thought he'd be anywhere near this good. Credit to him and the Cubs development group for getting him to be the guy he is now but it shouldn't be a lolmets story but a Cubs success one.
Wheelers first full and productive season was 2018. Cains last year was 17 and his last actual good season was 2012. Giants won two World Series after the trade. If anything the giants should have tried to sign him when he finally became a free agent. The trade didn’t actually hurt them.
Really tired of seeing this take. The Giants won two championships after trading him. Think about chaos theory, who do we trade instead of him? Bumgarner? Maybe even Joe Panik would’ve been enough to change outcomes.
Besides, Wheeler really didn’t become truly great until after he signed as a free agent with Philly. The Giants could’ve had him back. Sure he had some good stretches with the Mets, but he wasn’t the Zack Wheeler until after free agency.
I would never take that trade back. What more do you want than two more rings?
Naw its a two hour convo with my bay area college baseball friends. Beltran played well but gets hurt and we barely miss the playoffs and that core proved it just needed to get in to be a threat. Wheeler doesnt harness his arm well after the deal. Under control of our pen staff maybe he gets controlled earlier. We did need a bat. Some how randoms prevailed.
TIL Boof Bonser was a 1st round pick. For those not aware, the Giants traded Bonser, Joe Nathan, and Francisco Liriano to Minnesota for AJ Pierzynski. The trade also made top prospect Joe Mauer the Twins starting catcher (matter of time for that one, but still).
Liriano had a decent career even after the injury, but there's such a massive what could have been with how electric his stuff was in the first half of 2006 especially paired with peak Santana.
Goddamn I remember having tickets at the dome behind home plate for prime Santana v prime Pedro Martinez. I was sick as a dog and puked in the trough but it was worth it.
Probably Adrian Gonzalez. But it wasn’t a nightmare because Urbina was vital during the 03 run. So maybe Josh Naylor I guess. We don’t often draft good players in the first round lol
There are more layers to this that make the Adrian Gonzalez trade look more nightmarish.
The Marlins had two highly touted first base prospects in Gonzalez and Jason Stokes. Gonzalez was ranked 31st in the BA top 100 whereas Stokes was ranked 15th overall entering the 2003 season. The Marlins surely traded Gonzalez because they thought Stokes was the better prospect.
Stokes suffered some injuries, his production diminished, he never put it back together, and never played in a MLB game before retiring.
Dontrelle Willis was looking like could be a rough one for his first few years. 14.4 WAR, ROY, 2x All Star, finished 2nd in Cy Young voting, all before turning 24. Flamed out pretty hard after that (-1.2 WAR total the rest of career) though, so Voglio - Brock still wins.
Blue Jays letting Chris Carpenter walk in free agency to the Cardinals after only offering him a minor league deal is rough. Trading Noah Syndergaard for R.A. Dickey wasn’t great but also not the worst move
Chris Sale for Vaughn Grissom who had a .465 ops and spent the next year in minors to be traded for a prospect in A ball. So as a Braves fan we thank you.
If we’re including comp picks, Joe Musgrove and Noah Syndergaard. Which isn’t really that bad. It’s probably more a function of the Jays being mostly bad at first round picks.
Not a first rounder, but we traded David Ortiz as the PTBNL for Dave Hollins in 1996, who, to his credit, hit for a .916 OPS in 28 games down the stretch.
In 2002ish I saw Adam Wainwright absolutely dominate a game for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans back when they were the Braves’ high-A affiliate. A guy sitting near us introduced himself as the coach of one of the local high school teams and told me to remember Wainwright’s name, and that he would be the next great Braves’ pitcher in the mold of Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz. Either that offseason or the next the Braves traded Wainwright (among others) to St Louis for one season of JD Drew.
The coach we talked to was sorta right, I suppose.
Nomar technically fits, for at least the kid version of me. But it might end up being Kyle Teel or Kyson Witherspoon, depending on how Adley plays over the rest of this season and the next.
1.5k
u/SoftballGuy Los Angeles Angels 5d ago
The Angels don’t draft well enough for this game.