Historical Baseball Blunders
Not sure how many of you may have already seen some of this and are following it at ESPN.com. But Rob Neyer has a new book out titled Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders, a title that alone is worth consideration for the Alliteration Hall of Fame 
They are printing excerpts currently at ESPN.com, and the latest excerpt has to do with the Reds dealing Frank Robinson away to the Orioles during the 1965-66 offseason LINK. Cincinnati received right-handers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and minor league outfielder Dick Simpson from Baltimore in the deal.
This turned out to be one of those deals that went sour in hindsight only, in my opinion. Neyer does a good job explaining some of that in the excerpt, noting that Pappas was considered by many to be solid 26-yr-old pitcher, Baldschun hand been an above average reliever, and Simpson "was a pretty hot prospect in 1965" who was only 22 and was "a speedy center fielder, had batted .301, hit twenty-four home runs, and led the Pacific Coast League with twelve triples" that season.
Neyer even points out that, at first, Baltimore was not all that keen on giving up those three players and only getting Robinson in return.
The trade certainly worked out to be a blunder, but assigning a blunder tag in hindsight really doesn't make it a blunder from the start. This is a little like the deal Houston made before the 1969 season when they traded Rusty Staub to Montreal for Donn Clendenon and Jesus Alou. Certainly the Astros would NOT have made this deal had they known that: A) Clendenon was going to refuse to report to Houston, and; B) then-commish Bowie Kuhn was going to uphold the trade anyway and force the Astros to take Jack Billingham and Skip Guinn instead.
What baseball trades or moves do y'all think were truly blunders from the get-go? Just from the Houston side, I rank letting Bobby Abreu go in the 1997 expansion draft and protecting Derek Bell instead. What's the worst move your team has made that you knew was a horrible move at the time it went down?
They are printing excerpts currently at ESPN.com, and the latest excerpt has to do with the Reds dealing Frank Robinson away to the Orioles during the 1965-66 offseason LINK. Cincinnati received right-handers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and minor league outfielder Dick Simpson from Baltimore in the deal.
This turned out to be one of those deals that went sour in hindsight only, in my opinion. Neyer does a good job explaining some of that in the excerpt, noting that Pappas was considered by many to be solid 26-yr-old pitcher, Baldschun hand been an above average reliever, and Simpson "was a pretty hot prospect in 1965" who was only 22 and was "a speedy center fielder, had batted .301, hit twenty-four home runs, and led the Pacific Coast League with twelve triples" that season.
Neyer even points out that, at first, Baltimore was not all that keen on giving up those three players and only getting Robinson in return.
The trade certainly worked out to be a blunder, but assigning a blunder tag in hindsight really doesn't make it a blunder from the start. This is a little like the deal Houston made before the 1969 season when they traded Rusty Staub to Montreal for Donn Clendenon and Jesus Alou. Certainly the Astros would NOT have made this deal had they known that: A) Clendenon was going to refuse to report to Houston, and; B) then-commish Bowie Kuhn was going to uphold the trade anyway and force the Astros to take Jack Billingham and Skip Guinn instead.
What baseball trades or moves do y'all think were truly blunders from the get-go? Just from the Houston side, I rank letting Bobby Abreu go in the 1997 expansion draft and protecting Derek Bell instead. What's the worst move your team has made that you knew was a horrible move at the time it went down?
