The 2009 trade deadline has come and gone and once again Omar Minaya has stood pat and held onto all of his players.
It’s been three years since the last time the Mets made a big trade at the deadline. Turning back the clock, Omar Minaya woke up in a GM’s worst nightmare scenario.
During the early morning hours of the trade deadline Minaya learned that his coveted setup man, Duaner Sanchez, had been seriously injured in a taxicab accident in Miami, and most likely would not pitch the rest of the season.
Fearing that his bullpen did not have enough depth Minaya felt that he had to add an arm to the team to better the team’s playoff chances.
Throughout the day Minaya desperately worked the phones and tried to make a deal. That afternoon, Minaya partnered up with the Pittsburgh Pirates to reacquire a familiar face who had been with the team for the 2005 season.
That face was forty-one year old reliever, Roberto Hernandez. Hernandez had been pretty successful in his first stint with the club, going 8-6 with a 2.58 ERA.
Unfortunately, the deal came at a price and the Mets were required to ship outfielder and fan favorite, Xavier Nady, to the Pirates.
Nady, 27, ha
d only been with the club for a few months and was in the midst of having a nice season with the Mets. He was arguably one of the most popular players with the fans. Despite hitting only .264 at the deadline, he had 14 long balls and 40 RBIs, which had just about eclipsed his career highs.
Seems like a pretty steep price to pay for a mid-season rental? The Mets felt the same way so they requested that the Pirates send another player in the deal, which they did. That ‘throw in’ player was none other than Oliver Perez. At the time, the 24 year old southpaw was in the midst of a dreadful season.
On average, Perez was allowing over six runs per nine innings, and had already lost ten games by the deadline.
The deal was completed and announced around an hour before the deadline.
There was talk that Omar was going to immediately going to package the new Met Perez and reliever Heath Bell and send them to the San Diego Padres for Scott Linebrink, however that never came to fruition.
Interestingly enough, the Padres went onto acquire Bell from the Mets for practically nothing in the off-season.
For entertainment purposes let’s look back on how the three player involved in the deal helped their respective ball clubs.
On the Pittsburgh side of the deal, Xavier Nady spent the remainder of 2006, as well as all of 2007 and part of 2008 with the club. In those two plus years Nady was very dominant and helped form a formidable offense with the likes of Nate McLouth, Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez.
Throughout his Pirates tenure Nady compiled a .301 batting average along with 36 home runs and 152 RBIs, which are clearly respectable numbers.
On the flip side of the deal, Roberto Hernandez only spent the remainder of 2006 with the Mets before departing for free agency. Throughout the final two months of the season he was solid sporting a 3.48 ERA in 20.2 innings while fanning 15. He also pitched 2.1 scoreless innings of relief throughout the NLCS against the Cardinals.
Oliver Perez’s results have been somewhat of a mixed bag. Perez continued to pitch poorly with the Mets throughout the 2006 regular season. However, due to injuries in the pitching staff,
Perez found himself starting two crucial games in the NLCS. This included a solid outing in Game 7 where he held the Cardinals to just one run over six innings.
In 2007, Perez had his best year with the Mets. He won 15 games and had a staff-best 3.56 ERA. Unfortunately, despite glimpses of that success in 2008, Ollie was very inconsistent to the point where he was not reliable. This season, obviously has been no better as Perez has struggled with his command as well as injuries all year.
Now onto the question which side got the better deal in the deadline trade? The Mets did well in the trade in the short term, as they got the solid arm in the bullpen that they needed to replace Sanchez with, as well as two important post-season starts out of Oliver Perez. However, long term wise the Pirates did better on this one.
Not only did Nady play well for the Pirates, but he was also a key piece in the deal that netted them highly touted prospect Jose Tabata.
All in all, the Mets also could have benefited from Nady’s presence, especially last year when they had a void in the outfield following the season-ending injury to Moises Alou.
I don’t think there is anyway you can say that the Pirates got the better end of the Mets in this trade. When Sanchez got hurt the Mets “had” to make a move, and unfortunately it cost them Nady. However, you can’t seriously say that Minaya got fleeced in this trade. Roberto Hernandez pitched very well after he was acquired,and then later turned into a second round pick…Brent Rustich I believe. He certainly has been injured since being drafted, but he has some potential. Surprisingly enough, Oliver Perez tilted this trade…in the Mets favor. The hard throwing lefty who had been toiling in the minors for the Pirates, continued to struggle with control shortly after being acquired. But, as all of us remember if it weren’t for Ollie we don’t come close in game 7 against the cardinals. He also went on to win 15 games in 2007 and then 10 in 2008. He has certainly struggled this year, and Minaya should not have re-signed him for 12 million a year. That was a mistake. But you can’t call it a mistake when the throw-in in a trade goes 28-23 for you and is in your rotation for 3 years.
I think the Mets got what they wanted in the trade which was a reliable reliever for the rest of the 2006 season, however I think in the long run the team would have rather had Nady over Perez. I’m not necessarily saying the trade was bad for the Mets at all. All I’m saying is that the Mets, in my opinion, would’ve been better off in the long run had they had Nady.
Let’s get this straight: Perez was NOT a throw-in. If you actually had read newspaper accounts at the time (i.e., the New York Times), the Mets had earlier in the season had discussed a Perez-for-Nady trade. Omar was intrigued by the deal, but decided it made no sense to trade an every day outfielder for a pitcher who had been sent down to the minors.
When Sanchez went down, Omar revisited the trade and asked Pittsburgh to add Hernandez to the deal the Pirates were willing to make earlier.
Minaya wanted Perez. The myth of the “throw-in” came from bloggers who didn’t know the facts.
I was not aware of that, however if Perez was Minaya’s target then I’m going to have to agree with OMF that was a pretty bad trade. Why on earth would you trade one of your solid hitters for a reclamation project? Still I have yet to find any evidence that suggests that the target of this trade was Perez and not Hernandez.
This NY Times article seems to suggest that the target of the trade was Hernandez…
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E6DC1331F935A2575AC0A9609C8B63
That deal was for roberto hernandez and Perez WAS a throw in. I read three diferent articles and not one of them mentioned anything about Perez being a key componenet much less the target. You need a reality check.
If Omar’s intent was to get Oliver Perez all along, than he did in fact get fleeced. If the deal was a modified Nady for Ollie, that’s just terrible. Especially when you consider he was in the minors and a 8.50 ERA. Nady at the time was one of the Mets core hitters, but of course he was also not latino.
I never heard this theory before and I find it hard to believe that it’s true. I wonder if there is a link to support this as if it is true, Omar gave us a glimpse of his incompetency as far back as 2006.
The bottom line is simple, all the best teams make trades mid season to get the slight edge needed to get to the play offs. That means a good GM will make pull the trigger and not sit on his hands like a scared little school girl afraid of getting an F on her report card. If Omar can’t take the heat of being a N.Y. GM he needs to go elsewhere. If he can’t beging to grow a set and get the best guys available he needs to go. If his pride prevents him from trading “his guys” because he really believes he get sthe best scouting the he need to show us the results or get a deal done. Too bad we are not doing what the best franchises in MLB do every year. We don’t get the best guys out there DURING the season. We don’t get more than one big deal in the off season. The Jays wanted prospects for a Cy Young caliber pitcher, give up some of them. We could have made a run at Halladay. Can you imagine Halladay and Johan in the line up. That’s ACE 1 and ACE 1.0000000001. Then you have Pelfrey who is still getting better all the time in the 3rd pitcher slot. There are may clubs that would love to have a solid staff for 3 days and then only have to worry about the last 2 guys. But wait, we would have Maine coming back for the forthe day. Then our number 5 would be …. It wouldn’t matter. We could hang 3 “W’s” every 5 days for the whole season and be WAY better than .500 it would put us closer to like .600. So then the last 2 guys just need to pick up a game here or there and then here come the Mets to the post season. Well, enough dreaming, we are still Mets fans who are blessed with a scared GM and a manager who is doing as well as can be expected with what he has. With all of that said all I can say is, “LET GO METS! LETS GO METS! LETS GO METS!” That after all is my job as a fan, I cheer for my team. As long as I do my job the rest will hopefuly come around. If you don’t believe me ask any 60 year old Red Sox fan or any 110 year old Cubs fan. Ok, forget the Cubs fan but still, we do our jobs and cheer and hope for the best from the rest.
[...] Remember Omar’s last deadline deal? Not terrible, actually. It’s the subsequent re-signing of Ollie that causes me to punch my computer. [...]