Cy Young to Cy O'Nara

[Edgy MD]

Pitchers traded after winning the Cy Young Award. FanGraphs provides the WAR. Start with the Clemens deal.

Cy Young Trading Team: Toronto.	Cy Young Receiving Team: Yankees.
Sent: Roger Clemens.	Sent: Homer Bush, Graeme Lloyd and David Wells.
WAR of Received Players During Course of the Contracts: 6.8 (Bush: 2.1 [Three+ seasons]; Lloyd: 0.3 [one season]; Wells: 4.4 [one season]).	WAR of Received Players During Course of the Contracts: 6.7.
Total Salaries of Received Players During Course of the Contracts: $13,443,667 (Bush: $7,602,000; Lloyd: $1,025,000; Wells: $4,816,667).	Total Salaries of Received Players During Course of the Contracts: $14,600,000.

Gun to my head, I have to call this a narrow win for the Blue Jays. But there's the added value of Roger Clemens steroid-fueled post-season performance. What's that worth? Or do you call that value a check left uncashed by the Blue Jays? I mean is there any reason to believe Lloyd, Bush, and especially Wells would have relatively bit the big one if the Jays were in the post-season? Maybe they'd have done well!

Further complicating things is the reality that both Wells and Clementine re-signed with the teams they were traded to. Value derived from those subsequent contracts is not factored in here, but when a team receives a player, they don't just receive his current contract, but a hard-to qualify bonus opportunity to extend or resign said player.

You can call it the other way, certainly.

Still to come: Pedro Martinez and David Cone.