Fourteen Years Ago Today
The Blue Jays and the Astros made a ten-player trade:
- We got J.A. Happ, Brandon Lyon, and David Carpenter.
- The Astros got Francisco Cordero, Ben Francisco, Joe Musgrove, Carlos Perez, David Rollins, Asher Wojciechowski and Kevin Comer.
Happ played for us for 2.5 seasons. He was hurt quite a bit, including one injury when a line drive hit him in the head, and he ended up on the DL with a leg injury. In 2.5 seasons, he had a 19-20 record and a 4.35 ERA in 58 games, 50 starts. We traded him to the Mariners for Michael Saunders. He wasn’t good for Seattle, then went to the Pirates, where he became an excellent pitcher. He went 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA in 21 games.
After the season, we signed him as a free agent, and he was great for 2.5 seasons before being traded to the Yankees. He won 20 games in 2016. As a Yankee, he was 21-10 with a 4.13 ERA in 51 games. In 2021, he split time between the Twins and the Cardinals, and that ended his career. In total, he was 133-100, with 59 of those wins with the Jays, and a 4.13 ERA in 354 games, 328 starts.
Lyon finished 2012 with the Jays and had a 2.88 ERA in 30 relief appearances. He signed with the Mets after the season. 2013 was his last season in the majors. We took him mainly to even out the money.
Carpenter threw 2.2 innings for the Jays. He then had a couple of good seasons with the Braves. After that, he threw a handful of innings for the Yankees, Nationals, and Rangers in 2019 after three seasons out of the MLB. He pitched in 222 games with a 3.69 ERA over 6 seasons.
On the other side:
Cordero was a 37-year-old reliever at the time of the trade. He wasn’t good for us that season and was much worse for the Astros in 6 games. So that was the end for him.
Francisco played 27 games for us, hitting .240/.296/.380 in 54 P.A. He hit about the same for the Astros after the trade. Then he had a few at-bats with the Rays and Yankees over the next two seasons.
Musgrove pitched two seasons with the Astros, in 2016 and 2017, and was 11-12 with a 4.52 ERA in 49 games (25 starts). Then he was part of the trade that brought Gerrit Cole to Houston. He had three seasons with the Pirates. For the last three years, he’s been a Padre. In his career, he is 59-56 with a 3.74 ERA in 185 games, 159 starts. He’s become an excellent starter.
Carlos Perez never played with the Astros. He was traded to the Angels for Hank Conger after the 2014 season. He’s since played for the Braves, Rangers and A’s, hitting .232/.393/.384 for them this year.
The Mariners took David Rollins in the Rule 5 draft before the 2015 season. He pitched in 2015 and 2016, posting a 7.60 ERA over 34.1 innings.
Wojciechowski pitched 16 innings for the Astros in 2015, 62 innings for the Reds in 2017, 119.1 innings for the Orioles over the next two seasons, and 4 innings for the Yankees in 2021.
Overall, if you consider that Happ likely wouldn’t have signed with the Blue Jays before the 2016 season if he hadn’t been with the Jays before, we can call the trade a win.
Beyond that, we could have used the pitchers we traded off as depth when we had injury problems over those years, but we got the best player in the trade (though Musgrove would be nice to have now).
I remember not being thrilled with getting Happ; Alex Anthopoulos liked him, and he was right in the long run. It took a while, but Happ became an excellent starter, which is why the trade works as a win. Alex saw something in him.
