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In his chat yesterday for ESPN.com, former Blue Jays assistant GM Keith Law discusses how Steve Phillips nearly sent David Wright to the Blue Jays for OF Jose Cruz Jr. at the trade deadline in 2002:
“The offer was made, though; I was there
when the call came in. It was the first time I’d heard of Wright, since I wasn’t with Toronto in 2001 nor had I followed the draft when Wright was in it. JP’s reaction was, ‘I’m not trading a major league player for some guy in the Sally League.’ And that was pretty much that.”
In 2002, Wright was 19 years old, and hitting just .266 with 114 strike outs in 135 games for the Low-A Capital City Bombers.
Meanwhile, in 2002, Cruz had been hitting around .230 with a .300 OBP around the time of the Trade Deadline.
…look, phillips did a terrific job building up the Mets in the late 90s… but, wow, with his back to the wall and his job on the line, he absolutely murdered the roster… thankfully, the Jays and J.P. Ricciardi allowed the Mets to develop wright… man, could you imagine how things might be different today, for better or worse, but certainly different, without wright in the mix…
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OH BOY!!! thank god that trade didnt happen, please NEVER trade wright or reyes, NEVER!!They will be all-time mets when their careers are done.
Don’t forget Mr DB8;
our team is the team that traded Nolan Ryan AND Tom Seaver!
It’s in our blood!
Things happen. I mean, the Yankees almost traded Jeter too. It’s not like Wright was who he was now, he was a low-level prospect.
Not trying to defend Omar here but Omar has not destroyed this team (talent wise) like Steve did towards the end of his tenture. now steve is a bitter Met Hater, and adulterer at that. LOL
Phillips did not destroy this team talent-wise. It’s not like he traded Kazmir for Zambrano like Duquette. Phillips didn’t give up value. His problem was that he relied too much on the pocket book and overspent on bad talent like Mo Vaughm, Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno, etc. He hurt the Mets by killing their payroll flexibility with this albatross contracts, but didn’t kill them talent wise to be honest.
Yes I stand corrected. I will say the poor contracts resulted in loss draft picks which hurt the system.
Phillips has previously admitted to seeing minor league players as essentially assets to be spent to better the ML club.
he also views production assistants as assets as well.
This story has been around for years. Many of us self-professed draftniks remember that possible trade well because even then we thought it was a bad trade.
Look, no one knew Wright would be a franchise player, but even back then the reports coming out of his first full-season were very encouraging. He was being praised for his demeanor, Gold Glove capablities and line-drive stroke that could net .300. The question was power with some back then thinking he was a 15-20 homer guy and some thinking he’d be a 30 homer guy once he learned to pull the ball.
The thing is that Jose Cruz, Jr. had one good year and that was it. He was highly touted as a minor-league and always had the tools. He just wasn’t baseball smart. He looked terrible that year and trading your former 1st round draft pick for what was really a 4th outfielder was terrible even back then.
I remember loving the start of that draft for the Mets as they landed Aaron Heilman, who at the time I thought could be a solid #3 starter, in the the first round. Then they got Wright in the supplemental 1st round.
The thing with the Phillips era is that you have to give him some credit. Under his watch, the Mets drafted or signed Wright and Reyes. He also traded for John Olerud, Al Leiter, Mike Piazza and Mike Hampton. All those trades were great if you think about the value that was not given up.
The problem with Phillips and most Mets GMs is that they rely too much on the pocket books and then get burnt. Signing Kevin Appier was a mistake. Signing Jeromy Burnitz was a mistake. Trading for Mo Vaughn was a mistake. Given Roger Cedeno a multi-year deal was a mistake.
This is something Omar needs to learn. Rely on trades and player development and not so much the pocket book.+
Thing about those trades is that most were only great in hindsight. Yes, John Olerud for Robert Person (which I think was made by Joe Mac) was an all-out fleecing, but the trades for Piazza, Leiter, and Cook dangerously sent the 7-8 of the team’s top prospects to a divsion rival – fortunately only Wilson and Burnett amounted to anything. Further, as bad as Gen K turned out, he waited too long and traded the lot of them for Mike Kinkade, Billy Taylor, Bubba Trammell, and Rick White.
I think Phillips’s best deal was getting Benitez and Cedeno (when he was younger and productive) for Todd Hundley when we had no use for him. but by the end of his tenure he was just flipping players like baseball cards. Perhaps the Cruz deal was meant to offset him dealing Jay Payton, who was the only guy hitting at the time, for Steve Reed for no apparent reason.
Phillips gets WAY too much credit for the teams of the late 90s. He was strictly an “executive” GM, a deal-closer and the negotiating “face” of the team.
The real builders of those teams were Bobby V. and Asst GM Minaya. Listening to Bobby discuss new acquisitions throughout his tenure as mgr, it was clear that he had an unusually high degree of input while Minaya was with the team, and zero input after Minaya left.
Listening to Phillips discuss baseball, then or now, it’s clear he doesn’t have the acumen to have built those teams.
The funniest (or scariest) part of this story is “2002″ – Phillips was willing to trade away a young first-round pick for a marginal minor leaguer in a season in which his team was going nowhere. Unreal.
If I were that stupid, I’d hook up with Todd Hundley too. Wait, it’s BROOKE Hundley? I can’t tell the difference!
*marginal “major” leaguer*
there’s also only a marginal** difference in brooke hundley and todd…(shivers) that girl scares me just looking at her lol
That is an insult to Todd.
It always interesting, who knows, maybe there is chain reaction where we end up getting someone else, or someone else develops…
Fun to think about that scenarios. What if we had gotten Bonds instead of Bonilla in ‘93?
So he ALWAYS was a strikeout machine…jk lol
i thought that myself when reading this haha
Steve is no judge of talent in and out of baseball.
another important point: ricciardi is a moron and i want him nowhere near this organization
haha well said.