May 14, 1998 started as a very special day in my household. It was my oldest son’s 18th birthday. We had some special plans to celebrate his birthday, once he finished with his school day. The big news of the day was that Frank Sinatra had died. Sad news certainly, but not anything that affected our family in any significant way. That afternoon, by the time I went to my son’s high-school for baseball practice, word was coming out that the Dodgers had done the unthinkable – they traded Mike Piazza to the Florida Marlins. Stunning! Of all the players you thought might be traded, Mike Piazza was the last. In fact, there was absolutely no reason to trade him. At the time, Mike Piazza was far and away the Dodgers’ best player. But Piazza, along with Todd Zeile were traded to the Marlins in exchange for Manuel Barrios, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, Charles Johnson and Gary Sheffield.
The Dodgers had selected Mike Piazza out of Miami-Dade Community College in the 62nd round of the 1988 MLB amateur draft as the 1,390th player picked overall, after his father asked Tommy Lasorda to select him as a favor. Tommy Lasorda was a friend of Piazza’s father growing up and was the Godfather of Mike’s older brother Vincent. Think about where Piazza was drafted as we contemplate a 5 round draft two weeks from now. He was a first baseman when drafted, but the Dodgers had him attend a special training camp for catchers in the Dominican Republic. His MLB debut came with the Dodgers in September 1992. He only appeared in 21 games that season, hitting .232.
In 1993 he was the Dodgers’ starting catcher. He hit .318, with 35 home runs, 112 RBI, .370 OBP, .561 Slugging Percentage, .932 OPS and 153 OPS+. Put simply, he was very good, appearing in the All-star game and winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award. He would go on to appear in 10 consecutive All-Star games.
His sophomore season he had a little dip, in that Piazza “only “hit .319, 24 home runs, 92 RBI, .370 OBP, .541 Slugging Percentage, .910 OPS and 140 OPS+. Still good enough for him to be an all-star and finish 6th in the MVP vote.
In 1995, Piazza hit .346, with 32 home runs, 93 RBI, .400 OBP, .606 Slugging Percentage, 1.006 OPS and 172 OPS+. Once again he was an all-star and finished 4th in the vote for MVP.
In 1996, Piazza hit .336, with 36 home runs, 105 RBI, .422 OBP, .563 Slugging Percentage, .985 OPS and 166 OPS+. He finished second in NL MVP voting, behind Ken Caminiti.
1997 was Piazza’s best season with the Dodgers. He hit .362, with 40 home runs, 124 RBI, an .431 OBA, .638, slugging percentage, 1.070 OPS and 185 OPS+. He finished second in NL MVP voting for the second straight year, behind Larry Walker.
When he was traded, he was off to a slow start, though that did not have anything to do with why he was traded. He went on to have a comparable year with the Marlins and the Mets.
I do not need to remind you, that Mike Piazza continued to be good and he was voted into the Hall of Fame. It hurts just typing that. Looking back at the trade, I continue to ask myself why was he traded?
Rumor had it that Piazza was unhappy with the way contract negotiations were going, and ownership wanted to get whatever they could before he hit free agency. As a negotiating ploy, the Dodgers had leaked to the media that Piazza had turned down a 6 year, $80 million dollar contract offer from the Dodgers. More rumors had Piazza demanding over $100 million for his next contract. When the Dodgers released information on the negotiations, Piazza, becoming increasingly more unhappy, did likewise. He complained about the situation to LA Times beat writer, Jason Reid. Soon thereafter, things started to turn very ugly. Before 1997, Piazza and his agent asked the Dodgers for a six-year, $60 million contract extension, but were turned down. They instead accepted arbitration and agreed to a two-year, $15 million deal that left Piazza bitter. Now with the further trouble in the negotiations, Piazza started to hear some boos from the fans. Not only were there issues with the negotiations, the Dodgers were also undergoing a much different change. Long time owners, the O’Malley family were getting out of baseball and corporate giant, Fox was looking to get into the west coast sports market to keep ESPN from obtaining a TV presence in California through the Angels. Adding to the difficulty, in Spring 1998, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times interviewed a recently-retired Brett Butler, who was quoted as calling Piazza
“a moody, self-centered ’90s player” and also said, “Mike Piazza is the greatest hitter I’ve ever been around, but you can’t build around Piazza because he’s not a leader.”
Butler claimed he’d been misquoted by the often-controversial Plaschke, and many members of the team came to Piazza’s defense, but more salt had been thrown on the wounds.
There were also rumors (conspiracy theories perhaps)floated that Piazza was a PED user, that he was gay, or just plain unhappy being a Dodger. Whatever the rumors, the trade still didn’t make any sense. This was Mike Piazza. He was not only the best player, he was the most popular player. A while back posters were talking about which player’s jerseys they have. I had one, Piazza. When Piazza arrived on the scene, Fernandomania had ended just a couple of years before. Pedro Martinez had been trade in the 1993 off-season(another painful trade!) And the fans were hungry for a hero. They got it in Mike Piazza.
Perhaps the Dodgers brass thought they were obtaining a better players in Gary Sheffield and Charles Johnson(at the time of the trade he was a highly rated catcher). Other than Sheffield though, the other players never amounted to anything for the Dodgers and did not stay with the organization for more than 1 year. When you compare Sheffield to Piazza, in the three seasons he was with the Dodgers following the trade, his statistics were virtually identical to that of Piazza. Sheffield Gary Sheffield, in 436 games, had 113HR, 488 hits, 310 RBI, .312 Avg., .420 OBP, .581 Slugging Average and a 1.001OPS. Meanwhile Piazza in 418 games hit 114HR, 469 hits, 331 RBI, .309 Avg., .380 OBP, .587 Slugging Average and a .967OPS. Of course, Sheffield played an “easier” position than Piazza. Despite their statistical similarities, Sheffield, who always seemed surly, never quite captured the hearts of the fans, and I don’t think you’ll ever see many Sheffield jerseys at Dodger stadium. In January 2002, Sheffield was traded to the Braves for Odalis Perez, Brian Jordan and Andrew Brown. Perez had a couple of good years pitching for the Dodgers and Brown indirectly helped the Dodgers get Andre Ethier, so that worked out okay.
May 14, 1998 was a special day for me as my oldest turned 18. He, like me, was and is a Dodger fan through and through. We loved Mike Piazza. It’s so unfortunate that the Dodgers decided to trade Piazza, and it’s especially troubling that they chose my son’s special birthday to make the trade. I hated the trade back then, and no matter how I look at it today, I still hate it.
● My song for the day, is “Willie McBride” by Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem. No parody today. It’s a song for Memorial Day, as I think it is the finest, most moving song about those that died because of war.
Horrible trade. Fox totally screwed that one up. I always look back on the 90’s and wonder. What if after 1992 WE had signed Bonds, when he wanted to come to LA? What if in 93 or 94, we didn’t trade Pedro? AND kept Piazza?? There went possibly a few rings.
Oh well. Let’s get our 2020 ring
Sad day when they traded Mike Piazza and also Pedro Martinez whom I liked so much I named my parrot (nicknamed Pete) after him. I always thought they would retire as great Dodgers, but did not happen. Nice write-up, 2D2.
The most bewildering and ironic thing about that trade was that it was, if I remember right, during Lasorda’s brief stint as GM.
Actually, Fred Claire was still GM. However, story has it that he was not aware of the trade until after it was announced.
Two knuckleheads from NewsCorp made the trade.
Chase Carey of Fox made the trade with the Marlins without including Fred Claire in the negotiations. Fox was concerned that Piazza would be a free agent at the end of ’98 and would demand a huge contract. No doubt he would’ve and the Dodgers may well have lost him anyway, but that didn’t need to happen until the end of the season, or at least the July 31 trade deadline.
Another reason Fox wanted to make the trade with the Marlins was because it was trying to obtain a regional sports network in Florida with the Marlins the centerpiece. The contracts of Sheffield and Bonilla were a hindrance to the Marlins. Trading them to the Dodgers and a week later trading Piazza to the New York Mets freed up the Marlins’ finances and allowed the TV deal to go through. What a conflict of interest!
What’s the worst Dodger blunder ever?
1. Trying to hide Roberto Clemente in Montreal.
2. Trading Pedro Martinez.
3. Trading Mike Piazza.
4. Letting Adrian Beltre walk?
I vote for #4.
I vote for 1-3.
The Dodgers didn’t let Beltre walk. He chose the better deal. And if you check his stats for the 5 years after that deal was made you will see he went right back to the sub .800 OPS guy he was before that outlier contract year. Beltre got better once he got to Texas. You do realize he wasn’t even an All Star until he was 31. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen him stay, maybe he would have eventually been as good as he was in Texas, but I’d much rather have had all those other guys.
Beltre is the 4th Best 3B of All-Time if you go by the JAWS Method:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_3B.shtml
1. Schmidt
2. Mathews
3. Boggs
4. Beltre
5. Brett
6. Jones
7. Santo
8. Robinson
9. Molitor
All are in the HOF and Beltre will join them in his 1st season of eligibility.
He was 2nd to only Brooks Robinson in dWAR.
Beltre was a solid player no doubt. But he was a free agent and went where the money took him. He never again approached those numbers. In retrospect maybe the Dodgers should have went higher salary wise, and like Badger pointed out was not an all star until he was in his 30’s. Piazza and Clemente were far superior offensively and Clemente had few peers in defensive play in the outfield.
Idiot Paul De Podesta thought he could replace Beltre with a washed up former short stop Jose Valentin to be reinvented as a third baseman. It did not work
If Beltre was not an All-Star in 2004 then the term “all star “means nothing.
All four will be in the hall. All four were originally Dodgers. For the reason of his longevity of production and leadership as a player and a person, I think trying to hide Clemente was moronic and the worst blunder ever. I saw Roberto play many times. And he was electric. Speed and the best RF arm in the majors, his for average, and would had he not played a majority of his games in Forbes Field, have amassed more HR’s in his career. Since he started his career in 1955, just think how he would have meshed with those great Brooklyn players in their last 3 years in Brooklyn. Roberto Clemente in Dodger blue would have been a great thing to see. And sorry Mark, Beltre’s loss as well as Piazza’s was because of the system they were playing in. Free agency skewed everything. Clemente playing under the old rules would have been a Dodger for life unless he was traded, not likely with his level of production, and except for his final year as a Dodger, Beltre never came close to those numbers again. As for Martinez, well, he was thought at the time to be too frail to be a starter. He went 10-2 as a rookie, but most of those decisions were in relief. It was also said that Lasorda was not too enamored with him.
Clearly, the worst blunder the Dodgers ever made was trading Don Demeter to the Phillies. 🙂
Of the four, No’s. 1-3 were equally as painful. Beltre slightly less.
I just knew you were going to throw that mistake in there.
Add letting Sax and John leave. Sax set off a bad chain of things.
Cheapskate Al Campanis offered a two year contract for Tommy John while the Yankees offered a three year deal. Campanis screwed up. Losing Sax hurt.
Claire was the GM and was not included in the negotiations. Fox execs, non baseball people made the deal. Word was that Claire was pretty upset when the deal was announced. KLD, the first trade Lasorda made as Gm was for closer Jeff Shaw for Paul Konerko and Dennys Reyes. Turned out to be a good deal for the White Sox who got Konerko the following year for Mike Cameron. Lasorda made some other minor deals like McMichaels to the Mets. His next big deal was trading Bergeron, Wilton Guerrero and Ted Lilly to the Expos for Hiram Boccachica, Mark Grudzielanek, and Carlos Perez. Manuel Barrios, part of the Piazza trade actually went back to the Marlins on a waiver claim in August of that year. Shaw pitched decently for the Dodgers for 4 years amassing 129 saves as their closer. His best season was his last when he saved 43 games. Lasorda stepped down as GM after the season. Piazza and the Dodgers have never made up, and he went into the hall as a Met.
I believe Piazza played more seasons as a Met than as a Dodger, but it is still a crying shame he was dealt and just as sad that he has a Mets’ hat on his melon in the HOF, but what can you expect when a guy plays his heart out (and does PEDs) for a club and they basically “spit” on him and give him a nasty destination to play at. I wonder if the Dodgers were aware that the Marlins would trade Piazza to the Mets just a week later, I have a funny feeling that they thought they were screwing him over , thinking he would be playing for dreadful organization that was going nowhere fast.
If the season actually gets played, do the rioters show up at the parks to disrupt the MLB, nothing would surprise me at this point. A very serious response to these rioters better arrive pretty damn quickly.
It was never proven that Piazza was using PED’s. He was not named in any of the investigations at the time. So saying he used and not having inside knowledge of that as a fact is totally irresponsible. If you have proof, present it, otherwise it is slander.
What about trading Maury Wills to the Pirates for Bob Bailey?
What about trading Jackie Robinson to the Giants?! (I know, he was retiring anyway, but still.)
What about trading Pedro Guerrero to the Cards for John Tudor and then having Tudor get injured immediately?
What about trading Ron Perranoski to the Twins for Zoilo Versailles?
It sometimes seems that there are more bad trades than good ones.
Maury was traded because he pissed the Dodger FO off by not going on a trip to play in Japan. He told the team his legs were too banged up. But then O’Malley found out Maury was in Vegas playing his banjo at a club, he was furious and told Bavasi to get rid of him. Wills was actually drafted off of the Dodgers system by the Reds in 1956, and returned to the Dodgers in 1958 in a conditional deal. Then in Oct he was sent to the Tigers in a conditional trade, and then in April of 1959 he was returned to the Dodgers in a conditional deal. That turned out to be fortunate for the Dodgers because he was called up to replace the starting SS, Don Zimmer, Wills played 83 games and hit .260. He hit .250 in the World Series, and then went on to bigger and better things. Won the MVP in 62. Bailey was not all they got for him, they also received SS Gene Michaels. Wills was gone for 3 seasons and then traded back to the Dodgers after the 69 campaign and finished his career with 4 more years as a Dodger. Traded with him was Manny Mota. Fairly and Popovich went to the Expos, so that deal worked out well. Perranoski was part of another multiplayer trade which included Roseboro and Bob Miller, and they got Versailles and Mudcat Grant. Granted not a good trade but none of those guys were anywhere near the players that Piazza and Clemente became. Guerrero was having a mediocre year, for him at least, and the Dodgers needed a starter. He was 32 years old at the time, so he was considered expendable. Guerrero never again hit 20 homers in his career. His high after that season was 17. He had 2 decent years in StL, then faded badly.
And then Tudor signed right back with the cards the following year
The Dodgers knew Guerrero was going to be trouble. Beltre was a bust in Seattle it took hitter friendly Texas to get him going, So I don’t fault the Dodgers for not giving him a big contract at the time for one big year
I loved Mike Piazza but I didn’t appreciate the way he disrespected Vinny, By saying Vinny was trying to turn the fans against him
That happened long after he was disrespected by Fox. He probably regrets saying that. But the point is, the Dodgers did him totally wrong. Vinny is a great person. Piazza is a decent guy too.
Here’s the latest. Again, I’ll believe it when I see it:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29252811/mlb-intends-propose-shorter-season-full-prorated-salaries
I told you the owners would cave on the salaries.
The players want 110+ games – now the owners are offering 50.
I think they will end up around 80. Compromise.
Summer Training is coming and in July, it will be “Time for Dodger Baseball.”
Time is getting short for this thing to get done and set into motion. I think the possibility of no season at all is very real because the two sides are pretty far apart.
Question : Do the owners actually come out less damaged if they forgo the season and don’t have to pay any salaries at all or is it a better picture for them to play a shortened season, no fans in the stands, prorated salaries to pay but no TV money to come their way? That really is the crux of the matter, imho. Most of these owners have been around making multi-million dollar decisions in their other businesses and used to having to cut their losses, if necessary, in order to survive till another day. If the players get too cute with their demands and give the owners no reason to try and put on the season on, that is ballgame and there is no 2020 season, no Mookie Betts in a Dodger uniform, no peanuts, no popcorn, etc. etc.
Does anyone know the facts and figures of which I post?
Huh? Wasn’t the owners initial offer a pro rated 82 game schedule? MLBPA wanted 112. How is 80 games a compromise?
Im still trying to “follow the money”. Owners have it. A lot of it. They can do whatever they want to do with it.
I’ll believe it’s time time for Dodger baseball when I see it. The way things are coming apart I’m still skeptical.
I may have just witnessed something epic in Indy tonight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VeJdDP2WWw&feature=emb_logo
This is simply is amazing:
https://www.wishtv.com/news/local-news/live-updates-curfew-underway-for-2nd-night-in-marion-county/
Heartwarming!
I hope more police choose to “dominate” that way.
I am totally blown away!
don’t be blown away. Real protestors just want the cops to understand. The idiot faction has ruined everything about what these protests (and Kapernick’s knee) really are about
There was some hugging and knee taking out west too. We’ll see if that lasts. Also a report White Nationalists posing as Antifa. What’s next? Can you trust anything in this country now? I’m staying close to home for the time being
Breaking news on the Athletic this morning: nothing is happening but increased arguing should insure movement to more disagreement. Rumor has it the owners will likely hang on to their money. I can verify that rumor as I started it.
It would be nice if MLB would let the players show unity and empathy by letting the players kneel during the national anthem. It would make me proud of my favorite professional team sport. It would also put them on the right side of history, even if it’s too little too late.
Kneeling during the National Anthem is a disgrace to every member of the US military past and present. Especially to the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice when they were much younger than many of these ballplayers. None of us are here without them. And these players wouldn’t be making millions if not for the hundreds of thousands who died. Kaepernick was so discriminated against…. Well it didn’t help him. But if he was good enough somebody would sign him. He wasn’t.
Lets just skip all the BS, Either settle this thing and play ball or cancel the frippen season, take the loss and move on. All this drama between the sides has us the fans who are the main support of the game, caught in the frippen middle and I am tired of it. The country needs the entertainment baseball brings. It does not need all the pettiness and infighting the two sides engage in. Oh yeah, Boredass, keep your stupid opinions to your self…for those who cannot dissect, that is Steve Boras the super agent who keeps prodding the players to not give in.
Well, he has a good reason: He loses money! He is loyal to the Benjamins…. if nothing else.
Say what you will about Boras (and I’m certainly not a huge fan), he knows his business. Has announced he’ll be paying all of his released minor leaguers their full salaries this year out of his own pocket.
In the grand scheme of things it won’t cost him much, but I’ll bet it gets him some clients down the road. Maybe one of them will eventually sign a $300MM contract.
Boras knows you have to spend money to make money.
Just as I didn’t like Madbum when he played for the Giants, I did admire his talent. Same holds true for how I feel about Boras.
“You have to spend money to make money”.
I hear that a lot, and I know that it’s probably true. But I think in our world the real key to getting rich and staying that way is to spend other people’s money to make money. Borass is a negotiator. It’s not like he’s actually creating anything new, he takes that stack of money from over there and puts it over here after putting a large chunk of it in his pocket. Great gig if you can get it. I recognize he’s good at that maneuver, but I don’t really respect it. Maybe I’m just jealous because I was never any good at picking pockets.
Piazza had some tough playoff series when a Dodger. The O’ Malleys were in the process of getting out of baseball and were in it for profit not pennants. Just good old american capitalism at work. Same as today but way worse now.
He is great at what he does, but shooting his mouth off now serves no useful purpose.
Dodgers did not want to pay market value for Piazza. So new baseball exec who came from entertainment industry made the trade without involving Dodger GM Fred Claire who was furious. Piazza and his agent asked for six years $60 mil but Dodgers declined. After trading away Piazza they instead signed 34 yr old pitcher Kevin Brown to a seven-year $105 million contract, MLB’s first $100 million dollar player, the deal included a no-trade clause, $5 mil signing bonus, and 12 chartered flights for himself and this wife during the contract’s first year.
When Piazza retuned to Dodger Stadium as a visiting player L.A. fans boo’d him.
These were the Dodgers darkest days.
Meanwhile New York embraced Piazza and logically he entered Cooperstown wearing a Mets cap.
Piazza said he’d already made up his mind to leave LA the year before when he almost had to go through salary arbitration. Like you stated he asked for $60M for 6 years and was turned down. He took it way too personal. They went back and forth before agreeing on a 2 year deal for $15M. He said he was happy but then said he was a bargain at that price. So he really wasn’t. Then in the off season he put a deadline on negotiations of Feb. 15th. Then that passed and he let it be known he wasn’t happy. But what really got the fans upset was when he turned down $79M for 6 years which would have made him the highest paid player in baseball. That’s when the fans started to boo. Vin Scully explained why he felt the fans were booing by saying that ‘… it was hard for the average fan to understand how a player can turn down that kind of a deal. How much money do you need?’ What could Piazza expect he’d made up his mind that nothing was going to be enough to stay in LA? Then he demanded $105M for 7 yrs. a ridiculous amount he knew no one in baseball would pay. The contract he signed with the Mets ($91M 7 yrs.) was slightly less per year than what the Dodgers offered. I’m sure the Dodgers wish they would’ve signed him at $60M for 6 yrs. when they had the chance before he got butthurt. Piazza is one of the best hitters I’ve ever seen. No one hit the ball harder than he did consistently. But he’s emotionally immature and is overly sensitive. That and the fact that the Dodgers should have handled things better than what they did got them into a corner where they had no choice but to trade him or get nothing. We don’t like the trade because we lost the best hitting LA Dodgers catcher ever. Maybe in all of MLB ever. But numberswise it wasn’t a bad trade because Sheffield put up about the same stats just as an OF and not at catcher.