5 Baseball Cards that Made Bad Trades Feel Better
These players weren't exaclty (Baltimore) chopped liver
With the real Opening Day just ahead of us, we’re about to see some players in real games wearing new uniforms — some the result of free agent signings, some the result of trades.
Juan Soto as a Yankee and Corbin Burnes as an Oriole won’t just impact the American League East race, though. Those sights are sure to bring back memories of other big trades through the years.
And, of course, some swaps go down in history as lopsided affairs, with one team making hay and the other just making outs. But even in some of those “bad” trades, the player on the short end of the perception stick still paid some decent dividends for their new teams.
Here, then are five players who found themselves on the wrong side of the traded ledger, but who still performed afterwards, along with one of their baseball cards — chosen to suit my whims.
1972 Topps Rick Wise Boyhood Photos (#345)
As Spring Training got underway in 1972, St. Louis Cardinals lefthander Steve Carlton was a four-time All-Star headed for even bigger things. And he wanted to be paid accordingly.
When the Cards wouldn’t meet his contract demands, Carlton held out and threatened to make his absence a lengthy one.
A similar situation was playing out in the Phillies Phoundation, where All-Star righty Rick Wise was looking for more money. When neither side in either situation would budge, the two teams decided to help each other out and swapped their hurlers.
Both men signed with their new teams, and Carlton immediately started down the path toward four Cy Young Awards and an easy Hall of Fame election.
Wise couldn’t keep up with Lefty, but he did go 32-28 with a 3.24 ERA in two seasons with the Cardinals before they traded him with Bernie Carbo to the Red Sox for Reggie Smith and Ken Tatum.
And in 1972, his “boyhood” Topps card gave Phillies phans plenty of easy jokes.
1972 Topps Lee May (#480)
The Big Red Machine wasn’t really ready to rev up until late November of 1971, when the Reds traded Lee May, Tommy Helms, and Jimmy Stewart to the Astros for Ed Armbrister, Jack Billingham, Cesar Geronimo, Denis Menke, and Joe Morgan.
That deal gave Cincinnati a frontline starter in Billingham, their future centerfielder in Geronimo, and soon-to-be legend in Morgan.
But Lee May was already a star in his own right, having recorded three straight 30+ homer seasons and making the cut for two Midsummer Classics. After the trade, he hit 81 home runs and drove in 288 runs in three seasons for the Astros at a time when power was at a premium in Houston.
Of course, today we remember this trade mostly for Morgan and what he meant to the Reds, and Topps seemed to feel that way all along. While Little Joe landed two cards in the 1972 Topps set — one as an Astro and one as a Red — May got only this one airbrushed job.
1977 Topps Garry Templeton (#161)
In December of 1981, Garry Templeton was a two-time All-Star shortstop with a Silver Slugger under his belt and a batting line that included a .305 lifetime average, 138 stolen bases, 443 runs, and 911 hits in six seasons with the Cardinals.
He also had a growing reputation as a slacker among St. Louis fans and an increasingly vitriolic relationship with Whitey Herzog and the rest of the Cards brass. And so it was that general manager, uh, Whitey Herzog pulled the trigger on a trade that sent Templeton, Sixto Lezcano, and Luis DeLeon to the Padres for Steve Mura and Ozzie Smith.
Smith, of course, became The Wizard in St. Louis (or at least expanded that persona) and, eventually, a Hall of Famer.
But the Pads didn’t exactly get a fistful of magic beans in Templeton, who spent a decade as San Diego’s starting shortstop and helped the franchise reach their first World Series in 1984.
The Cardinals won the challenge trade, no doubt, but Templeton held up his end of the bargain for the Padres, too. And his rookie card (above) is head and shoulders above Ozzie’s when it comes to baseball drama and flair.
1989 Topps Traded Mark Langston (#66T)
For my money, Langston was one of the more underrated aces of the 1980s, and one who would probably be heavily sought after today. Part of his problem back then was that his ERA and won-loss records weren’t absolutely elite, but both of those were hindered somewhat by the teams for whom he toiled.
He was a big strikeout guy, though, and all his talents were on full display after the Mariners traded him to the Expos in May of 1989 — he went 12-9 with a 2.39 ERA and 175 strikeouts in 176.2 innings for Montreal.
Pretty nice returns, even though he walked in free agency the following winter.
Of course, the real perception problem for Langston was that one of the guys who went to Seattle in the trade was none other than Randy Johnson.
The Big Unit became pure magic with the Mariners, and afterwards, which makes Langston’s 1989 Topps Traded Expos card look like a big giant cold sore to many old-time Montreal fans.
1990 Topps Doyle Alexander (#748)
Yeah, yeah, I know. Alexander cost the Tigers a future Hall of Famer. Why, just think what they could have been if they’d held onto John Smoltz!
Maybe.
But the 1987 Tigers had opportunity in their sights, and GM Bill Lajoie went in for the kill.
Detroit entered their game at Chicago on August 12 in second place in the old American League East, down 1.5 games to the Blue Jays. They exited the day facing the same deficit.
But, the Tigers also faced August 13 and the stretch run with a brand new “old man” arm in the rotation.
And all Alexander did down the stretch was go 9-0 with a tiny 1.53 ERA while averaging more than eight innings in each of his 11 Detroit starts. All the more amazing when you consider that 1987 was a homer-happy summer and that Alexander was usually prone to give up the long ball, but yielded just three after the trade.
And guess what! Detroit won all 11 of Alexander’s starts.
And guess what else! Detroit won the division by two games after a dramatic final-weekend showdown that included another Alexander gem.
Now, the wheels came off for both the Tigers and their dog-days ace in the ALCS as Alexander gave up 10 runs in nine innings over two starts to the Twins. Detroit barely even growled in the four-games-to-one Minnesota romp.
But the Tigers might not have been within sniffing distance of the playoffs if they’d held onto Smoltz.
Alexander bottled a bit of his magic for posterity, too, and dosed out a little to go 14-11 and help the Tigers to a second-place finish in 1988. He slid all the way to 6-18 in 1989, though, as the team crashed to 59-103.
That was the end of the road for Alexander in the majors, who gave up 58 homers over his last two seasons combined. Of course, he also ate more than 450 innings those two summers, giving Sparky some cruise control days.
There must have been some thought that Alexander would return in 1990, because Topps went ahead and graced us with the warmup shot above. And thus, we get a full-on career-capper for the man who delivered exactly what the Tigers needed, and more.
—
Truth be told, I wanted to include some other trades here.
Like Brock for Broglio.
Or Berenyi for Tibbs.
But some swaps are just so lopsided, all the 1988 Donruss Stan Musial puzzle pieces in the world can’t right the ship.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your picks for guys who did OK on the “low” side of fan-panned trades.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
In Cleveland, getting Harvey Kuenn (1959 batting title) for Rocky Colavito (1959 HR title) was (still is for some) viewed more or less as the end of the world. Kuenn was booed (as if it was he that made the trade), but he had a typical good Kuenn year, batting .308 with 54 RBIs before the Indians unloaded him to the Giants in 1961.