The next Bucs Dugout contest?

by scoreboard on Apr 27, 2008 1:32 PM EDT

In honor of Matt Morris being released, is it time for a Worst Dave Littlefield Transaction poll? Or would that be laying the schadenfreude on a bit thick right on the heels of the Worst GM poll? We can at least toss out some nominees. The Leo Nunez for Benito Santiago trade sticks out most in my mind, because it literally almost caused Charlie's head to explode. Others include the Aramis Ramirez trade, the drafting of low-upside pitchers in the first round, the failure to protect Chris Shelton in the Rule 5 draft. Some moves were egregious at the time they were made, but did not backfire (or haven't yet) as badly as they could have; some looked okay at the time, but turned out badly. Which is worse?

This could get out of hand quickly. Maybe a Best Dave Littlefield Transaction poll would be more managable. It would certainly be shorter.

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The best transaction would be way too easy: the Giles trade. I’d probably put “convincing someone to take the rotting corpse of Jason Kendall off our hands” at #2, even if Kendall remained a substantial part of the payroll for a few years. #3 is the Todd Ritchie trade, and that about wraps it up.

I’d lean heavily towards “drafting one of the top hitting prospects in the country and making him a pitcher” as the worst. Even if JVB hadn’t worked out as a hitter, either, nobody but Littlebrain thought that was a good idea. Bullington over Upton is up there, too.

Ultimately, #1 isn’t really a single transaction but a series of them all clearly designed with one goal in mind: ruining the career of Craig Wilson.

by matskralc on Apr 27, 2008 2:01 PM EDT 0 recs

matskralc,
JVB was drafted by Cam Bonifay.

by navajo on Apr 27, 2008 5:15 PM EDT up 0 recs

Yeah, that's right

And Bonifay was fired, what, a month later. But still, can’t you envision Littlebrain doing that, anyway????? :-D

by matskralc on Apr 27, 2008 5:29 PM EDT up 0 recs

Sure I can

Actually, he could have stopped the plan at any point. JVB probably hadn’t thrown his first pitch yet when Litttlefield came on board.

by navajo on Apr 27, 2008 6:38 PM EDT up 0 recs

Hmm...

I can’t pin the dates down exactly, but it appears that the last thing Bonifay did before being fired was to draft JVB. I think the draft was June 8th and he was fired around June 10th. Imagine that.

http://whereisvanslyke.blogspot.com
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/mlb

by whygavs on Apr 28, 2008 10:46 AM EDT up 0 recs

Actually...

...if I’m remembering the timeline correctly, Mickey White was running things as interim GM, since Bonifay had been fired, but DL hadn’t been chosen yet.

by Vlad on Apr 29, 2008 8:08 AM EDT up 0 recs

Or I could be wrong.

Looks like Pat’s timeline is solid.

by Vlad on Apr 29, 2008 9:57 AM EDT up 0 recs

Kendall trade was a push, at best.

The A’s got one good year, one OK year, and one bad year out of Kendall, for basically veteran-catcher market value, at a time when there were basically no other quality options available. We took on significant financial burden in the salaries of Redman and Lawton (in addition to the portion of Kendall’s contract that we agreed to pay), and then Redman totally collapsed on us, Morris-style.

by Vlad on Apr 29, 2008 8:07 AM EDT up 0 recs

Trading Chris Young for a reliever who was released in Spring Training may be the worst.

by Charlie on Apr 27, 2008 2:15 PM EDT 0 recs

Not only because

it turned out to be a terrible deal, but also because the bullpen collapsed after Herges was released, primarily due to Williams’ ineffectiveness (even for him), and Herges might have stemmed the tide as a closer. Instead, people got bumped up into jobs they couldn’t handle and the carnage … it was brutal. That, and I think Giles got hurt for about a month early in the season, and by the time he was healthy again the season was over in May, as usual. I would like in fairness to point out that every free agent DL signed on the cheap that year - Lofton, Sanders, Stairs, Suppan and D’Amico - put up Josh Fogg (D’Amico) to fair (Lofton) to great (everyone else) numbers. How often is that going to happen? Then DL undid all that luck with the Herges trade. Then he compounded it by getting zilch for those guys at the trade deadline.

by bucdaddy on Apr 30, 2008 12:02 AM EDT up 0 recs

By the way, I did an article with almost this exact theme at Irate Fans in 2006:

http://iratefans.com/Thoughts/charlie_wilmoth/DAVIDL_1/davidl_1.HTM

That was pre-Morris, of course. That one would rank right up there.

by Charlie on Apr 27, 2008 2:17 PM EDT 0 recs

Speaking of Irate Fans

What happened to the Irate Fans website? It’s still there, but there hasn’t been an update on it since last year. Anyone know what the story is?

Formerly known as Econolodge

by Willton on Apr 27, 2008 5:22 PM EDT up 0 recs

The Worst

I’d have to second the nominations of Ramirez and Chris Young. I read somewhere recently that Greg Maddux thought Young had some of the best stuff he’s seen. And he plays with Jake Peavey? Guess Chris was just to tall to fit into the dugout.

Also, although he can be a gigantic pain in the ass, wouldn’t Jose Guillen have been a pretty useful player?

by meandterry on Apr 28, 2008 9:34 AM EDT 0 recs