On March 20, 1993, Octavio Dotel signed as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic at 19-years-old. Nearly a decade later, Mark Teahan was selected with the 39th pick of the MLB draft by the Oakland Athletics in 2002. On July 2nd, 2005, Abraham Almonte had recently turned 16 and signed with the New York Yankees out of the Dominican Republic. A few years later, Yonder Alonso was drafted 7th overall by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2008 MLB Draft. In the 2010 MLB Draft, Jabari Blash was drafted in the 8th round by the Seattle Mariners. And in June of 2015, Max Schrock was drafted in the 13th round of the MLB Draft by the Washington Nationals.
What do all these events have to do with each other?
I can connect them all with trades. More specifically, I can connect them to the famous Colby Rasmus trade that ultimately resulted in the Cardinals winning the World Series. It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with trades.
It started with me noticing that Marc Rzepczynski changed teams a lot. And I thought it was somewhat strange, because I thought he was a decent reliever. Do you guys remember Rzepczynski pitching like a genuinely good reliever for Cleveland when the Cardinals traded him for nothing, because I sure don’t. I guess there weren’t reasons to constantly point out the success of former players back in 2013. Anyway, he usually had good advanced stats, but his ERA tended to fluctuate a lot.
I thought it would be a fun idea to keep following players in trades until you reached a dead end. The idea of team control is valuable for the success they can give you on the field, but it’s also about getting value from players via trades. Edwin Jackson was traded six times before he was eligible for free agency. He had no agency on where he could go. He wasn’t traded once after he reached free agency. Rzepczynski was traded five times before he reached free agency. He wasn’t traded once after that.
Believe it or not, Dotel’s connection to this trade is not because he was in the 2011 trade. I don’t count that for these purposes. Dotel had reached free agency many times by 2011 and was signed in January of 2011 by the Blue Jays. A good current example of this is Dustin May. His trade tree restarted when he reached free agency. If we trade May at the deadline, we cannot connect the players we return to James Tibb. Now if May is traded somewhere, and somehow the mutual option is agreed to on both sides, and then he’s traded in July of next season, then those players can be connected to the players the Cardinals got at this year’s deadline. Understand?
Edwin Jackson’s trade tree starts with two free agents signed by the Devil Rays. Lance Carter signed with the Devil Rays in January of 2002 and Danys Baez signed with the Rays in January of 2004. This trade would never ever ever ever be made today. Jackson was a highly touted prospect who lost some of his sheen because of underwhelming results in limited time in his first three seasons. And yet he was 22 at the time of the trade. Carter was a bad reliever and Baez was nothing special, but was coming off a 2.86 ERA. The Dodgers gave up on Jackson for two nothing to write home about relievers.
Shrewd move by the Rays, but they jumped ship almost as soon as Jackson showed any type of competency, which happened to be for Matt Joyce, drafted in the 12th round by the Tigers a few years prior. He had turned 25 the previous September. Almost a calendar year later, the Tigers traded Jackson when he took a big leap forward in a rather complicated three-team trade. None of the principal players had a previous trade history besides Jackson.
Ian Kennedy went from the Yankees to the Diamondbacks. He was later traded to the Padres for Matt Stites and Joe Thatcher. Stites was a Mizzou grad drafted by the Padres, whose career ended when he was released by the DBacks a few years later. Thatcher had previously been in a trade for Scott Linebrink, who himself was traded for 35-year-old Doug Henry seven years prior, but thankfully the tree ends here. Max Scherzer, Daniel Schlereth and Phil Coke all reached free agency as Tigers. Curtis Granderson reached free agency as a Yankee.
Austin Jackson however was involved in another three-team trade five years later. David Price went to the Tigers, and Price was traded a year later for Matthew Boyd, Jairo Labourt, and Daniel Norris. Boyd and Labourt were not subsequently traded, but Norris was for current Tiger Reese Olson. Nick Franklin went to the Rays, ended up being selected off waivers and then traded for cash before being granted free agency. The Rays also got Willy Adames, seven years before they traded him for JP Feyereisen and Drew Rasmussen. Rasmussen is still a Ray, Feyereisen was traded for a guy who hasn’t made the majors.
The Rays also received Drew Smyly, who was later traded for Mallex Smith and Ryan Yarbrough. Mallex Smith is the relevant one because we just found ourselves another heavily traded player. Three years prior, Smith was traded by the Padres with Jace Peterson and Max Fried to the Braves for…. Justin Upton. He was traded for five players the year before, so this might be a longer diversion than I hoped.
We’re just going to ignore Brandon Drury, who five years later was involved in a 3-team, seven player trade but all the players are inconsequential and we’re too deep into this to waste time on that. Nick Ahmed stayed on the Diamondbacks forever, ending in his release a decade later. The relevant player is Martin Prado. He was traded at the 2014 deadline for someone we don’t care about to the Yankees, and then the Yankees traded him that December for three players, including Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi was of course a return for Hanley Ramirez, who never technically reached free agency yet in 2012 and that means we’re dealing with the Josh Beckett, Anibal Sanchez, Mike Lowell and yeah I’m not digging any deeper, because I don’t think this thread is going to end with my sanity intact.
Where was I? Oh yeah Mallex Smith. The other relevant trade is that he’s traded with Jake Fraley, and Fraley is later traded to the Reds for Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez. In addition to Fraley, the Reds got Brandon Williamson. Winker was later traded for Chad Patrick, so Mallex Smith is indirectly responsible for two starting pitchers of NL Central teams.
We still somehow have three trades of Edwin Jackson to go. In trade #4, he was traded for David Holmberg and Daniel Hudson. Hudson is not the guy who is involved in any trades, but Holmberg sure is. Holmberg is in a three-team trade which includes Heath Bell and Ryan Hanigan. Inexplicably 35-year-old Heath Bell was involved in a three-team trade the year before on the same contract, because of course he was.
In that three-team trade, it’s three “Hey remember that guy?!” One team gets outfielder Chris Young, who was involved in a trade seven years prior for Javier Vasquez, who as it turns out is another Edwin Jackson! YEAH THIS GUY GOT TRADED A BUNCH TOO. I CAN’T FIND THE END. Unfortunately, lot of fun names here, so I can’t ignore Javier Vazquez trades.
In the first trade (December 2003), we have Randy Choate, Nick Johnson, and Juan Rivera. They all have closed loops, but fun fact, Rivera was later in the Mike Napoli-Vernon Wells trade. He had already hit free agency so it doesn’t count for this, but that’s interesting. A little over a year later, Vazquez was in a trade for Randy Johnson. Vazquez was a very good pitcher, but if I’m him, “traded for Randy Johnson” is going on every shirt on I own. He was in a trade with Dioner Navarro, who a year later was traded for Shawn Green. Green was traded for Raul Mondesi about six years prior. Both Mondesi and somehow Randy Johnson got traded before hitting free agency again after these aforementioned trades, but I could not care less about the names involved in those trades. Fun names only at this point.
We’ve already covered Vazquez’s third trade. The most interesting thing about his fourth trade is how incredibly high Tyler Flowers looks on his Baseball-Reference photo. Otherwise, SKIP. His fifth trade involves Melky Cabrera, who I thought for sure was traded a bunch, and Arodyz Vizcaino, who I thought wasn’t. Of course, Cabrera wasn’t and Vizcaino was. None of those trades are that interesting, thankfully. I didn’t know he was ever a Cub or that he was traded for Tommy La Stella so there’s a fun fact.
Oh my god I haven’t even gotten to the Ryan Hanigan part of David Holmberg trade tree. You’d think David Holmberg and his -2.5 career fWAR played for the Cardinals with how much I hate his guts right now. Okay, so…. Ryan Hanigan was involved in a three-team, ten player trade. It actually involves Steven Souza Jr., who was later in that huge trade involving Brandon Drury that I chose to ignore, so we’ve achieved… something. It also involves Trea Turner, Wil Myers and HOW THE HELL DID DAVID HOLMBERG LEAD ME TO TREA TURNER? Anyway, he was in a trade with Max Scherzer, also featured in this, and woo buddy this was not a good trade for the Nats.
I don’t think I have it in me to go through the other eight players. Let’s just say that Jake Odorizzi was previously in the Lorenzo Cain/Zack Greinke trade, and Greinke was involved in a different trade for Jean Segura, who was in five trades before he hit free agency, and I’m sure I’ll want to off myself if I attempt to dig into that thread.
Right before the Cardinals traded for Edwin Jackson, the Blue Jays made a trade understanding they would trade Jackson to the Cardinals. In that trade, he was traded with Mark Teahan for Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart. Frasor signed with the Jays as a free agent. Stewart was inexplicably in the Scott Rolen trade two years prior, because sure. Rolen kept signing extensions so now we’re connected to Troy Glaus, who connects us to another member of the 2011 team and another “HEY THAT GUY!” in Orlando Hudson and Miguel Batista. Did you know Troy Glaus was traded for Batista and Hudson because I didn’t. It also connects us to Placido Polanco, Mike Timlin and Bud Smith, and Timlin strangely has his own rabbit hole of trades I am happy to ignore.
Meanwhile, the guy Jackson was traded with, Teahan, himself has his own trade history. Somehow, he was also in a three-team trade. How is every player in this at some point involved in a three-team trade? Anyway, it was the Carlos Beltran trade when he went from the Royals to the Astros. The Royals got John Buck and Mike Wood for Beltran. Not great Royals. Buck had the decency to wait until he reached free agency before getting traded in weirdly big trades (a 12-player trade and a 7-player trade)
Oh yeah and Octavio Dotel went from the Astros to the Athletics in the Beltran trade. That’s the Dotel connection. Five years prior, Dotel was in a trade with Roger Cedeno for Mike Hampton and Derek Bell. Bell himself was traded five years prior to that in a 12-player trade, so you just know I could go far with this trade. It involves Steve Finley (previously in a trade for Curt Schilling), Doug Bracail (later in a different trade for Roger Cedeno), and Pedro Martinez. No, not that Pedro Martinez. Hilariously, Bracail was in a later trade for Nelson Cruz, but not that Nelson Cruz.
And we come back to the 2011 trade. The whole reason I wrote this was for Marc Rzepczynski’s trade history and he’s barely in this thing. The Cardinals traded him for Juan Herrera, who made it all the way to AA, where he had an 8 wRC+ in 160 PAs. Two deadlines later, he was traded for Abraham Almonte. Almonte was previously traded for Chris Denorfia and Shawn Kelley in two different trades.
Scrabble’s fourth trade does bring some further connections. He was paired with Yonder Alonso. Alonso four years prior was traded with Brad Boxberger, Yasmani Grandal, and Edinson Volquez for Matt Latos. Volquez was swapped with none other than Josh Hamilton in 2007, and there’s another connection to 2011. Latos was how the Reds got Anthony Desclafani. And for the third time, we again hit a trade I chose to ignore, because Desclafani was involved in a massive trade involving John Buck. Of course it was really the Jose Reyes trade (later traded for Troy Tulowitzki). Yunel Escobar was in this trade too and that dude sure got traded a lot, hitting six trades in his team control years, which aside from this trade, the most relevant name in one of his trades was Ben Zobrist from the Rays to the A’s.
Grandal was later in the Matt Kemp trade, and that dude has a ridiculous number of trades too. One of the players Kemp was traded for was Alex Wood, who… was in a previous trade involving Matt Latos. Kemp was also traded for Adrian Gonzalez, who I guess never reached free agency either before he got his big deal. So you can throw Ugueth Urbina, Adam Eaton (the pitcher), Chris Young (the pitcher), Anthony Rizzo (and thus Andrew Cashner, who has his own rabbit hole), and Josh Beckett, and now we’re back to a previous trade I’ve referenced, a Hanley Ramirez trade.
And I got to stop. Drew Pomeranz, Jose Torres and Jabari Blash were all in the Alonso-Rzepczynski trade. Pomeranz had previously been traded for Ubaldo Jimenez and Brett Anderson. Anderson himself was in a Dan Haren trade, which included Carlos Gonzalez, who was later traded for Matt Holliday. And that leads me to Brett Wallace, which leads me to Anthony Gose, and then that leads me to the Roy Oswalt trade and more misery. Scrabble’s last trade was for Max Schrock, which set the stage for the trade for Stephen Piscotty. Piscotty was not traded again and Shrock was DFA’d by the Cardinals.
I thought I could do it. I thought I could close a trade loop. I didn’t realize I was attempting to climb Mount Everest. I had the hubris to think I could tackle two highly traded players and think I would find an end in sight. I didn’t come close. It never ended. There were just more trades. I am Sisyphus. I am Charlie smoking a cigarette with a wall full of names and my mind in another reality. I hope this was enjoyable because I feel like I just listed a bunch of random players and gave myself a headache.