August 02, 2006
Stocking Up
Ed Barkowitz remembers Kevin Stocker:
It appeared to be just another innocuous baseball trade.
On Nov. 18, 1997, the Phillies, coming off a 68-94 season, dealt shortstop Kevin Stocker to Tampa Bay for Bobby Abreu, the Houston Astros outfielder the Devil Rays had just selected in the third round of the expansion draft.
Stocker, who five seasons earlier solidified the Phillies' only hole during their magical run to the 1993 pennant, remembers the day clearly. He was at home with his wife, Brooke, and the two were cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the draft (which is about as romantic as most major leaguers get).
"I didn't know who Bobby Abreu was at the time, I don't think anybody did," Stocker said. "Obviously now it turned out to be a pretty good trade for Philly."
You don't hear that one discussed in all-time bad trades, but it should be up there. Stocker never had a good full-season with the Phillies. He was okay for Tampa in 1999. Tampa at the time seemed much more interested in veterans than untested youth, and it cost them dearly. Houston, of course, let him go in the first place.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:56 AM
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It is interesting to think how the fates of those two teams would have changed had they hung onto Abreu (we may be lumping the Phillies in there too someday). As I recall though, Tampa never was interested in him at all, it was sort of a pre-arranged thing, sort of like a lot of Rule 5 draft-and-trades are.
Although they never intended on keeping him, I think the Abreu trade should go down as much worse than the Bagwell trade for two reasons:
1) The Sox got a player in return that got them into the playoffs.
2) Bagwell was largely blocked in the Sox organization: Boggs (HOF) and Cooper (2x All star) in front of him at 3B and Vaughn (MVP) in front of him at 1B.
Abreu should have a75-80% of the WARP3 total at the end of this year that Bagwell had at the end of his age 32 season. So Bagwell is a better player, but not by a huge margin. If Abreu's power rebounds and he stays in NY, I think he has a good shot at the HOF.
