jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) (02/14/85)
This talk lately about the Expos trading Mike Torrez and Ken Singleton to
Baltimore for Rich Coggins and Dave McNally brings up the obvious question:
why would the Expos make such a stupid trade?
Before the Blue Jays came along, the Expos were Canada's only team,
so they always a lot of media coverage here in Toronto.
I was still a novice baseball fan at the time, so I don't remember the
details, but I seem to remember that when they made the trade, the Expos'
management admitted that they were getting a little for a lot, but that they
knew that and they did it on purpose because it was part of phase 1 of a
3-phase, 5-year rebuilding program. I couldn't understand how giving up
something for nothing could possibly help them five years down the road,
but in retrospect it seems to make a bit of sense. They were a .500 club
at best, and it didn't look like they had a chance to get much better in the
near future, so they decided to get rid of their established players to
allow their younger players to get the major league experience that they
would need to become stars five years later. It almost worked too,
because five years later they were a contender, and the players that got
them there were almost all developed in the five-year period since Torrez
and Singleton were traded. It's hard to say what would have happened if
they hadn't made the trade. They never won the world series or even the
NL pennant. The best they did was the division title, but many people
have argued that Ken Singleton would probably have put them over the top.
There's no doubt that he could have helped them, but would they
have been able to carry out their five-year plan if they had kept him?
Anyway, either way I still think they could have done better with the trade.
Surely they could have gotten a couple of good young prospects that would
have fit in with their 5-year plan. (I don't remember Coggins, so maybe
that's what he was supposed to be, but it seems to me that McNally was pretty
old by the time of the trade.)
Can anybody who remembers this better than I do verify it?
--
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073
{linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!jeff
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--
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073
{linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!jeff
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeff