What the hell were the Mets thinking?

[roger_that]

Historically, you got to go back to Bob Miller (swapped out for Larry Burright), and hysterically, you've got to go for Mike Scuff.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Yeah, there are a lot of guys who thrived after leaving the Mets. The big name here is, of course, Nolan Ryan. But after Mike Scott, the next name I think of is Amos Otis.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Rusty was a hell of a Met and it's hard to imagine the franchise without him .. but do you think the Mets given all the same players, competitive situation, and contractual circumstances etc they had then, but with today's analysis, would make the Staub-Singleton Trade again?



Reminder that was spring training of 1972, and the deal was Singleton-Foli and Jorgensen for Staub. Coming off a 3rd-place season where they were slightly below-average in offense, but first in pitching.

[batmagadanleadoff]

That's a lot to speculate about on behalf of others. Would you make that trade if those same circumstances existed today ... and you had the benefit of hindsight ... that is, knowing the futures of Staub, Singleton, et. al.?



Me, with hindsight, I think the Mets would have been better off standing pat and not trading.

[roger_that]

As Richard Nixon used to say, I can't stand pat.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=95551 time=1654898717 user_id=68]
That's a lot to speculate about on behalf of others. Would you make that trade if those same circumstances existed today ... and you had the benefit of hindsight ... that is, knowing the futures of Staub, Singleton, et. al.?



Me, with hindsight, I think the Mets would have been better off standing pat and not trading.

[Frayed Knot]

One could follow a whole 'nother line by wondering what the Mets were thinking when they traded away Rusty - to the Tigers for Mickey Lolich and Billy (though not Alec) Baldwin.



One line of thinking at the time (not sure whether it was backed by facts or just speculation) was that it occurred not long after the players assoc had gained '10 & 5' rights over trades

and M. Donald Grant, notoriously allergic to ceding any sense of control to the hired help, dealt Staub away before he could ever gain the legal right to question or veto where and when

his owned ass could get sent. Rusty already had 13 ML seasons under his belt by the winter of '75/'76, but one more season in Queens would have been his 5th thereby granting him a

new-found measure of control over his future.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

The 5 and 10 is true, I'm pretty sure I have the clips to prove it somewhere

[MFS62]

When the Mets acquired Victor Zambrano many of us hoped at the time that the Mets were getting Carlos Zambrano and we knew that answer to "What the Hell were the Mets thinking?.

They must have thought they were getting a different pitcher.

Later

[smg58]

Basically everything Omar Minaya did in the 2006-2007 offseason, which was especially bizarre given how he'd done everything right up to that point.