Available December 2009!
In December 1965, the GM of the Cincinnati Reds made perhaps the most controversial trade in baseball history: dealing star outfielder Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles for Mill Pappas, Dick Simpson, and Jack Baldschun. To this day, fans still scream about this trade, but how many wins did it actually cost the Reds?
In Traded, baseball consultant Doug Decatur utilizes Win Shares, a statistics developed by baseball guru Bill James to determine how many wins a player contributes to his team, to evaluate the 306 most lopsided trades made in the twentieth century. Check out the numbers to see how some of the biggest trades have played out, including:
- Rick Wise (Philadelphia) for Steve Carlton (St. Louis)
- Glenn Davis (Houston) for Steve Finley, Curt Schilling, and Pete Harnisch (Baltimore)
- Nolan Ryan (NY Mets) for Jim Fregosi (California)
Traded analyzes lopsided trades of the past and identifies thirten red flags that might indicate a lopsided trade when it occurs today. Decatur even provides a review of possibly lopsided trades of the twenty-first century, including deals through the 2009 midseason trading
deadline.
