Other entries in the Trade Series:

Mike: I’ll Take Manhattan: Baseball’s Most Lopsided Trades: Parts I, I (revised), II

A Quick One (Happy Mike)

Lee Even Stevens: Parts I, II—The Sexy Version

Cain and A-Rod—A Bling-Bling Rivalry: Parts I, II

Kansas City Blues: Part I

Baseball's Most Lopsided Trades—The Revenge of Glenn Davis

Awe-Phil?: Part I

Studes: The Best and Worst Teams of the Trade

Smoltz for Alexander

Next we'll look at the worst transactions:

#1:

Date: Prior to the 1901 Season.
Transaction: Nap Lajoie jumped to the Philadelphia Athletics.
Pre Career WS Diff: -93
Post Career WS Diff: -403
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -42
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -48
WSAB Post Career Diff: -252
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -32

Goodbye, Larry. Maybe if the Phils had called themselves the Naps, he would have stayed put.

#2:

Date: April 21, 1966
Transaction: Traded Ferguson Jenkins, John Herrnstein, and Adolfo Phillips to the Chicago Cubs for Larry Jackson and Bob Buhl.
Pre Career WS Diff: 313
Post Career WS Diff: -339
Pre Year WS Diff: 1
Post Year WS Diff: -6
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -185
WSAB Post Career Diff: -215
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 1
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 1

Well, there's the Phils giveth…Gene Mauch reportedly hated youngsters. Jenkins never started in his piddling eight games pitched in Philly. Imagine the 1972 Phils with 27-game winner Steve Carlton and twenty-game winner Jenkins.

#3:

Date: January 27, 1982
Transaction: Traded Ryne Sandberg and Larry Bowa to the Cubs for Ivan DeJesus.
Pre Career WS Diff: -80
Post Career WS Diff: -339
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -8
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -14
WSAB Post Career Diff: -196
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -3

The Phils decided that Bowa at 36 was too old to start at short and that DeJesus was the man to replace him. If that means that their former director of player development, Dallas Green, who was then the Cubs GM, asks for some punk shortstop be thrown in to complete the deal, so be it. Again the Cubs rooked the Phils. They took a young player and find his true niche (Sandberg started at third his first season and then second base). In a few years the Cubs would become the Phils West and would took the Phils' division crown, the last for another decade, in 1984.

#4:

Date: December 11, 1917
Transaction: Traded Pete Alexander and Bill Killefer to the Cubs for Mike Prendergast, Pickles Dillhoefer, and $55 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: -253
Post Career WS Diff: -245
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 3
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -185
WSAB Post Career Diff: -164
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 9

Well, this is getting ridiculous. The Cubs again?!? This one was all about the money as was later admitted by Phils owner William Baker of Bowl fame. Alexander had just won 30 games—actually, he was on his third straight 30-win season—and was just 30.

#5:

Date: November 28, 1967
Transaction: Toby Harrah was drafted by the Washington in the 1967 minor league draft.
Pre Career WS Diff: 0
Post Career WS Diff: -287
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 0
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 0
WSAB Post Career Diff: -138
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 0

At least it wasn't the Cubs.

Again Gene Mauch didn’t like youngsters. The Phils' starting shortstop in 1968 was 31-year-old Roberto "Baby" Pena, who had just 57 games in the majors, none of which came in the previous season, and whose OPS was 16% worse than the park-adjusted league average. By the time Harrah was the starting shortstop in Washington (1971), Larry Bowa was the starter. Talk about killing two birds with one stone…

#6 (tie):

Date: June 13, 1938
Transaction: Traded Bucky Walters to Cincinnati for Spud Davis, Al Hollingsworth, and $50 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: 93
Post Career WS Diff: -130
Pre Year WS Diff: -2
Post Year WS Diff: 0
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 35
WSAB Post Career Diff: -126
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: -1
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -3

Does every good transaction have to be offset by a bad one? In the Phils' defense, Walters was 29 and had yet to show much at the major-league level.

#6 (tie):

Date: Prior to 1903 Season
Transaction: Doc White jumped to the White Sox.
Pre Career WS Diff: -43
Post Career WS Diff: -192
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -23
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -31
WSAB Post Career Diff: -126
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -17

White lost 20 games on the seventh-place Phils and jumped to the AL before they resolved their war with the NL. White registered ERAs under 2.00 four times for the Hitless Wonder-era Sox.

#8:

Date: Prior to 1902 Season
Transaction: Elmer Flick jumped to the A's.
Pre Career WS Diff: -111
Post Career WS Diff: -180
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -17
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -71
WSAB Post Career Diff: -109
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -7

Flick followed Lajoie and was also part of the Phils' injunction. He too was sold to Cleveland though, unlike Lajoie, the new team did not rename themselves after him—The Elmers?

Flick was just 25 when he left and had nine Hall-of-Fame years awaiting him in Cleveland. How much did the players hate playing for the turn-of-the-century Phils anyway? The lost about a dozen players to the fledgling AL in three years before the two leagues made peace. The Phils were a fairly successful team prior to this (83-57 in 1901) but were 52-100 in 1904, their worst record in their then-twenty-one-year history. I can’t help but think that it set the tone for this soon-to-be floundering franchise.

#9:

Date: November 22, 1920
Transaction: Traded Eppa Rixey to Cincinnati for Jimmy Ring and Greasy Neale.
Pre Career WS Diff: -7
Post Career WS Diff: -127
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -8
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -35
WSAB Post Career Diff: -91
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -11

I guess the Phils were thinking of starting a football team. Rixey led the NL in losses in 1920 with 22 and was probably washed up given he was an ancient 29 at the time. Rixey would pitch 13 years in Cincy, would win 20 games three more times, and would eventually go in the Hall. Neale, a Hall of Fame football player, would play just 22 games in Philly before getting waived and returning to the Reds. Ring had four successful years in the Phils' rotation.

#10:

Date: April 11, 1966
Transaction: Sold Mike Marshall to Detroit.
Pre Career WS Diff: 0
Post Career WS Diff: -146
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: 0
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 0
WSAB Post Career Diff: -90
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: 0

Marshall had been a shortstop in the Phils' organization but poor defense and back injuries forced him tie the mound, sort of Rich Ankiel in reverse. By 1967 he was in the Tigers pen with a 1.98 ERA in 59 innings. It took him a few years to establish himself but he became an innings machine in the Expos, Dodgers, and Twins bullpens.

#11:

Date: March 6, 1938
Transaction: Traded Dolph Camilli to Brooklyn for Eddie Morgan and $45 K.
Pre Career WS Diff: -71
Post Career WS Diff: -152
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -25
WSAB Pre Career Diff: -31
WSAB Post Career Diff: -88
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -15

Camilli had just completed two seasons in which he had the second best OPS in the NL. He would have eight straight seasons with at least twenty home runs from 1935 to 1942. Morgan's 39-game cup of coffee in the majors was done. The then-22-year-old never played for the Phils.

#12:

Date: January 21, 1919
Transaction: Traded Milt Stock, Dixie Davis, and Pickles Dillhoefer to the Cardinals for Doug Baird, Stuffy Stewart, and Gene Packard.
Pre Career WS Diff: 49
Post Career WS Diff: -181
Pre Year WS Diff: 0
Post Year WS Diff: -10
WSAB Pre Career Diff: 33
WSAB Post Career Diff: -86
WSAB Pre Yr Diff: 0
WSAB Post Yr Diff: -10

Stock and Davis became productive players for many years in St. Louis, Stock for the Cards and Davis for the Browns. The Phils' trio played a total of 72 games in Philly.