30 years ago yesterday the Cubs acquired Ryne Sandberg

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Chris Jaffe over at The Hardball Times posted an article yesterday on the 30th anniversary of the Ryne Sandberg trade.

And one more thing: DeJesus was several years younger than Bowa. To be precise, he was seven years and one month younger. Thus even though Bowa had the reputation and the name value and the Gold Gloves, in order to pull off the shortstop swap the Phillies had to throw in a second player.

And that’s where the deal became a disaster for Philadelphia.

On the face of it, the Phils sent the player they could most afford to lose. They sent Chicago a young prospect who played third base. Folks, it’s January 1982 and the Phillies are pretty well settled at third base, thank you very much. They had a guy named Mike Schmidt and he’d just won his second consecutive NL MVP Award.

I can’t help but think that this type of trade is less likely to happen today. Sandberg, by today’s standards, doesn’t profile as a 3rd baseman so he’d be moved to 2nd base. Jaffe points out that many lopsided trades are going to be logical trades at the time they were made and this one was from the Phillies perspective.

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  1. mb21

    I think it’s like Jaffe said. They had Schmidt and Sandberg wasn’t going to beat him out of a job and since they needed to add another player he was one they could part with.

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  2. Mish

    To even out the trade the Phillies should’ve sent a fungible player to the Cubs alongside Bowa. But it turns out that the guy they sent over was light years above fungible.

    This should replace wins above replacement.

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  3. Rice Cube

    From that point of view, this trade actually made a lot of sense. I guess Ryno really epitomized the draft “crapshoot” phenomenon as he was a 20th round pick.

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  4. ACT

    This trade (and similarly successful trades for the Cubs like the Fergie Jenkins one) is why it pisses me off when people point to the Lou Brock trade to show how cursed the Cubs are. They’ve made some terrible trades, but they’ve made about as many (if not more) great ones.

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  5. Berselius

    [img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/431615_363796706983122_205344452828349_1354181_1150998649_n.jpg[/img]

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  6. Berselius

    josh wrote:

    Berselius wrote:

    Dude, did you just steal this from George Takei?

    Every image that is ever posted on this site was created by the poster, didn’t you know? Sounds like you need to reread the 23-part series of posts about posting.

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  7. josh

    Berselius wrote:

    josh wrote:

    Berselius wrote:

    Dude, did you just steal this from George Takei?

    Every image that is ever posted on this site was created by the poster, didn’t you know? Sounds like you need to reread the 23-part series of posts about posting.

    Wait, so those ones I saw on failbook originated here too?

    This will cause me to rethink what I know about the World Wide Web.

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  8. SkipVB

    Quoting Rice Cube

    I think you’d say “Lee-off”…

    We already the highest Lee-off of all time:

    F*ck those f*ckin’ fans who come out here and say they’re Cub fans that are supposed to be behind you, rippin’ every f*ckin’ thing you do. I’ll tell you one f*ckin’ thing, I hope we get f*ckin’ hotter than sh*t, just to stuff it up them 3,000 f*ckin’ people that show up every f*ckin’ day, because if they’re the real Chicago f*ckin’ fans, they can kiss my f*ckin’ ass right downtown and PRINT IT.

    I think it would LIE-off, as in “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.”

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  9. Brett

    mb21 wrote:

    WP just doesn’t have any decent comment rating plugins. They all contain way too much code for something that should be relatively simple.

    Yeah, if you ever find a good one, be a chum and let me know – I’ve been searching/trying/failing for a year.

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  10. mb21

    @ Brett:
    Over the last 2 days I’ve tried about 6 of them and they just suck. It’s really surprising. The ones we had on Jcomments were simple and easy. It seems the WP developers are trying to top one another with more and more features.

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  11. 26.2cubfan

    nice new diggs!

    So the Bears have a new GM? Where is the Epstein-esque press conference and associated media circus? Did he go to a Starbucks?

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  12. Mercurial Outfielder

    26.2cubfan wrote:

    nice new diggs!

    So the Bears have a new GM? Where is the Epstein-esque press conference and associated media circus? Did he go to a Starbucks?

    I think everybody knows by now this whole thing was a sham and this guy is only here to act as pro personnel director, with no power to hire and fire anyone, so no one really cares.

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  13. Mercurial Outfielder

    If Selig gives the Red Sox compensation that is considered to be exorbitant, I think the most immediate consequence we will see is that no exec with ambitions will ever sign more than a 1-year deal.

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  14. Rice Cube

    Latest from Nick Cafardo, best Chicago beat reporter:

    An AL GM who is not associated with the Red Sox or Cubs believes that Commissioner Bud Selig will give Boston a significant player in the compensation agreement: “I don’t think MLB wants executives leaving their teams before their contracts are up and therefore he will try to deter teams from doing that again.”

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  15. Mercurial Outfielder

    I think giving BOS a significant player will have the opposite effect. FO guys that want to move along will stop signing multi-year deals, and there will be more FO turnover than before. Selig is such a short-sighted commish.

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