Rob Neyer on the Victor Zambrano/Scott Kazmir trade, as we approach the sixth anniversary of the deal:
This was a bad deal from day one, and everybody knew it except the Mets.
Well, not everyone. I really didn’t think Victor Zambrano would blow up that quickly, and he actually pitched well in the three games he manged to start for the Mets in 2004. I tend to be more sympathetic to win now trades than others (I still like the Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz deal from the Tigers end). Too many teams have gone a long time without winning won’t make these types of trades.
Thanks for being in the very small group of folks who think Smoltz/Alexander was a good deal. From most coverage of the Tigers, bill LaJoie is remembered as the guy who gave away John Smoltz,ignoring that the Tigers caught the Blue Jays on the last weekend only because Alexander went 9-0. Also ignoring that Smoltz great career would have been wasted by pitching for the horrible Tigers of the 90’s and early 2000’s.
I agree that teams should be willing to trade the future to win now when the time is right. However, when teams do so they have to get a good return in the trade. The Mets absolutely did not. They traded away probably one of the ten best prospects in the game at the time, and received a mediocre starter in return.
Sure, Zambrano could have been reasonably expected to be a useful player. But surely there were dozens of better players that teams would have been overjoyed to send to the Mets for Kazmir.
Plus, the timing was absurd: after a win the day before the deal, the Mets were in fourth place in the NL East, six games back, and below .500! Granted, they were not out of the race. But this was hardly the ideal time to mortgage the future, especially when you have a payroll that should allow you to contend every year.