Biggest Critic Disproving Trades

by throttle mathius on Jan 14, 2026 12:16 PM EST

The reaction to the Montero-Pineda deal had me thinking. What if the M's are right in making this trade and somehow Pineda implodes in the bright lights of New York and Montero takes the reigns from Pujols and becomes the MLB's next mega-star? In five years or ten years I doubt we would hear much about how everyone was wrong on their initial reactions to the trade.

Now I'm not saying I think this trade is equal or that the M's got true value, but it just made me wonder what trades in history have had equally as negative of a response from media and fans yet somehow the team everyone saw as the clear loser came out on top? I'm sorry I don't have any in mind but I thought it would be an interesting topic.

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The trade wasn't nearly as exciting, but I think Millwood for Estrada fits

Seen by everyone as a pure salary dump at the time (and it was to a large extent), Millwood went on to post a worse than league average ERA for the Phils over his two years there, while Estrada managed a .314/.378/.450 season good enough for the Silver Slugger for catchers. While he did fall off the next season (keeping it from being a huge win for the Braves), its unclear whether that was a natural regression or a side effect of Darin Erstad’s ridiculous cheap shot where he missed home plate because he was too busy going out into fair territory to run Estrada over. Up to that point Estrada had a solid .282/.328/.406 season working, but post concussion he hit just .241/.279/.332.

Anyway, from the Braves perspective they saved Millwood’s salary, then watched his performance fall off for the next two years. They got an elite season out of Estrada and were eventually able to flip him for 2 good seasons from Russ Ortiz. It actually ended up playing a pretty big role in the braves continued run of division titles. Certainly not at all what people expected at the time the trade went down.

by nixa37 on Jan 14, 2026 12:41 PM EST reply actions

Might depend on your criteria

But the Pirates shipped Brian Giles to the Padres after the trade deadline and received Jason Bay and Oliver Perez, along with a reliever who didn’t pan out. Obviously, Bay/Perez aren’t much to talk of now, but Perez had one absolutely dominant season for the Pirates, and Bay was a legit middle of the lineup slugger for 4-5 seasons.

Giles was ok, but never reached the level of performance in San Diego that he did in PIttsburgh.

by Woo! on Jan 14, 2026 12:48 PM EST reply actions

that trade looked really bad for a while as a padre fan, luckily bay and perez didnt pan out

by Noah McKinnie Braun on Jan 14, 2026 7:08 PM EST up reply actions

By what standard did Jason Bay not pan out?

He’s not making the hall of fame, but he was a very good player for a while

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by OldProspects on Jan 15, 2026 10:51 AM EST up reply actions

Kent for baerga

But the Indians didn’t keep Kent.

by wobatus on Jan 14, 2026 2:25 PM EST reply actions

I hate using hindsight to justify or vilify a trade.

The people making the deal don’t have that gift, and thus have to work with what they know at the time. I think that if you’re going to judge a trade, you do as they do, judge it at the time, based on the information available, and on the merits of the trade by itself. Anything other than that is armchair quarterbacking.

While I realize you’re more interested in mocking the fans for overreacting / being stupid, it still applies. Fans are pretty irrational and stupid to begin with.

Fans are typically idiots.

by The Typical Idiot Fan on Jan 14, 2026 5:14 PM EST reply actions 2 recs

Not necessarily vilifying

Just sometimes an initial overreaction is wrong. Sometimes the results can’t be foreseen, but if you review things you might find things you overlooked.

And the whole fans are stupid, people are stupid? Well, we can just look at where even informed opinion turns out wrong. Sometimes the process was right. But sometimes wrong, even when at the time it seemed right.

by wobatus on Jan 14, 2026 5:39 PM EST up reply actions

I said this in another thread to a similar point raised when I said a similar thing:

Using results to analyze your processes is fine. That’s not really what they’re doing here.

Fans are typically idiots.

by The Typical Idiot Fan on Jan 14, 2026 9:57 PM EST up reply actions

Maybe not

Ok so it’s just pointless fun for those indulging in a fairly standard variation of a question asked in business or sports. Was it a good deal/how did it turn out? Not necessarily mockery or vilification of irrational idiots. You hate it and I get your point, but I think you injected some motivation to Throttle Matthius that isn’t evident in his post. Maybe I am being insensitive because I responded myself.

by wobatus on Jan 15, 2026 9:06 AM EST up reply actions

Sensitive

Thats the word I meant. And strike that answer. Overreaction.

Carry on.

by wobatus on Jan 15, 2026 9:40 AM EST up reply actions

I agree to a certain extent with your first paragraph but keep in mind that (1) most fans don’t understand all of the facets behind RL trades and (2) fans don’t have all of the information that teams do. Of course there are fans that will disagree with this and think they could run their favorite MLB team better than those doing it now but I think those two things hold true.

So I agree you should judge a deal on the information available at the time of the deal but do remember that there could very well be things we don’t know.

by jfish26101 on Jan 15, 2026 12:27 AM EST up reply actions

The point isn't to armchair quarterback.

It is just a simple look into what actually unfolded. I understand value at the time of the trade is all that matters. I just wanted to take a look into the times when the payout exceeded expectations in favor of the team that “lost” the value in the trades.

by throttle mathius on Jan 15, 2026 1:30 AM EST up reply actions

Two things

1. I don’t think the media and fans are on one side of this trade. Most people I’ve read things it’s relatively equal.

2. Pineda imploding under the pressure in NY wouldn’t make this a better trade from Seattle’s point-of-view. That outcome would say nothing of his value had he stayed in Seattle.

by son.of.sourman on Jan 14, 2026 5:15 PM EST reply actions

I don't agree with this whole idea of New York pressure ruining players.

If Pineda is a disappointment, it’s because he doesn’t develop his pitches or gets hurt. It kinda annoys me when someone busts for New York and they say it’s because he couldn’t handle the spotlight. Sure, there might be a few players that have social anxiety disorders or whatnot (Randy Johnson). But AJ Burnett and Hughes didn’t disappoint because they couldn’t handle the spotlight, but because they simply weren’t as good as we thought.

Chone Figgins seemed like a pretty good player a few years ago, then became one of the worst players in baseball despite staying relatively healthy. No one is blaming that “tough Seattle media” for his failure. He just wasn’t as good as we thought.

by mkries on Jan 14, 2026 6:12 PM EST up reply actions

or maybe Figgins struggled when Seattle made him change his hitting approach

by pedrophile on Jan 14, 2026 9:33 PM EST up reply actions

as a Dbacks fan

the Scherzer for Ian Kennedy and Edwin Jackson trade was widely derided as the Dbacks losing by a mile

to be fair though, part of that trade succeeding is the fact that Jackson was flipped for Daniel Hudson

by blue bulldog on Jan 14, 2026 7:18 PM EST reply actions

This is what I was thinking. Scherzer looked like a future ace and the D'Backs ended up doing quite well for themselves.

follow @casetines

by Kenneth Arthur on Jan 14, 2026 7:26 PM EST up reply actions

Yes I have to be that a-hole

Disapproving.

by CoolCat23 on Jan 14, 2026 8:28 PM EST reply actions

No...I think 'disproving' is correct.

As in, it disproved the critics’ original take(s) on the deal.

"BA doesn't stand for Batting Average. It’s Brandon Allen, as in the percentage of a hitter’s worth compared to Brandon Allen. Ted Williams, at his best, was only 4/10th of the hitter Brandon Allen is today." - YonYonson

by hero66 on Jan 14, 2026 8:45 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

This never happened.

And I am not an idiot.

Damn Syphilis.

by CoolCat23 on Jan 14, 2026 11:16 PM EST up reply actions

Wallace for Gose last year

A lot of expects thought the Jays made a mistake. Can’t make a final judgement of course, but few would put Wallace ahead of Gose now.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/07/gosewallace-trade-reactions.html

by JayTeam on Jan 15, 2026 3:28 AM EST reply actions

Good point

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by OldProspects on Jan 15, 2026 3:27 PM EST up reply actions

yeah I remember a lot of Jays fans, including me, were outraged with that trade at first but after a while to think, we all seemed to like it because of Gose upside and the fact Jays didn’t have a future CF (Marisnick was way too far and not as good as he is now). AA sold quite high on him as he had a lot of value as a prospect but it diminished quickly as he reached the bigs. I would have to think AA was banking on him to stay at 3rd base and when he couldn’t, he exploited the market. Solid projection by AA and his staff on Wallace and Gose who they were projecting to develop power which he showed this season.

I wonder how the initial swap of wallace for taylor was handled.

on a side note, what happened to Taylor? He was beastin’ through the minors until he AAA and he has kinda stalled. He is hitting in PCL too

by Sniderlover on Jan 15, 2026 7:52 PM EST up reply actions