Bad Deals

Carlos Guillen coming to town and making Derek Jeter the third best shortstop in yesterday’s game reminds me that The Left recently had a post about bad trades. Evidently, Bill Bavasi has provided us with many classics of the genre, but while you might think that Rafael Soriano-for-Horacio Ramirez would be tough to top, Carlos Guillen-for-Ramon “The Worst Regular on the Worst Team of the last 40 Years” Santiago-so you can sign the moldering corpse of Rich Aurillia seems very likely to stand as the worst trade of the decade. As an Astros fan, however, I’m surprised that Norbiz hasn’t been made aware of Spec Richardson’s world-historical Nixon administration run, which involved giving away Joe Morgan, Mike Cuellar, and John Mayberry.

Meanwhile, there was the time I was furious at Dan Duquette for trading Delino DeShields for Pedro Martinez. In retrospect, this may not have been entirely fair.