The Glory of One-for-One Trades

On Tuesday, we got the latest version of a baseball classic — the one-for-one baseball trade. These are rare birds. The Baltimore Orioles sent 26-year-old Grayson Rodriguez (at one point considered by many scouts to be the best pitching prospect in the game) to the California Angels for 32-year-old outfielder Taylor Ward, who banged 36 home runs last year despite me calling him “Turner Ward” at least 500 times.

The most interesting part of this specific trade to me, at least to me, is what this says about the Orioles’ current mindset. Over the last few years, they so deeply believed in their highly touted prospects that they seemed utterly paralyzed to make any bold moves to get better. They held on to every single one of those prospects and just thought that would be enough. Then, the inevitable happened: A bunch of those prospects didn’t pan out, a couple went backward, injuries occurred, and the O’s dropped into last place.

Rodriguez is still young, he’s supposedly healthy after missing 2025 with an injury, and he has displayed a fastball-change-up combination that, potentially, looks ace-like. But he hasn’t been an ace, and the Orioles clearly don’t believe he will become one, and they traded him for a proven power hitter. The deal might work out. It also might bomb. But it’s the sign that the team is ditching the sweet allure of potential and trying to do tangible things to win baseball games right now.

We'll see how that all pans out. But, again, my main takeaway from this is: Hey, a one-for-one baseball trade! Love it!

Obviously, because I’m me and you’re you, I have to give you the 10 most fascinating one-for-one trades in baseball history (and they are rated from 10-to-1 based on how fascinating I find them):

Date: March 28, 1986

I love this deal so much, not because of its impact — Baylor was 36 at the time of the deal, the Hit Man was 35 — but because it was such a beautiful concept. Two designated hitters. New York and Boston. The Yankees had Baylor. The Red Sox had Easler. Fenway Park seemed perfect for a right-handed masher like Baylor. New York was a haven for left-handed hitting machines like Easler.

“Going to the Red Sox is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go,” Baylor said.

“Yankee Stadium is perfect for me,” Easler confirmed.

There is a very famous story about how the Red Sox and Yankees almost swapped Ted Williams for Joe DiMaggio. It’s one of the great what-ifs to think of Williams with that short porch in right, and DiMaggio with the Green Monster. I say “almost” — I’ve read different accounts of how close that deal actually came to being.

Anyway, Easler for Baylor was built around the same concept.

I guess you could say the Boston “won” the deal in that Baylor mashed 31 home runs for the pennant-winning Red Sox and even got some downballot MVP support. But Easler did what he always did — he hit .300 with some power.

It was truly a one-year deal. New York traded Easler to Philadelphia at the end of the 1986 season and then, weirdly, traded to get him back briefly. Those Steinbrenner years were just weird. Boston, meanwhile, dealt Baylor to Minnesota the following year for a player to be named later.

Date: December 30, 2023

When you look back at this one between the Braves and Red Sox, well, it was a weird choice for Boston. I’m not just saying that in retrospect. Sale had only one year left on his contract, and Boston ended up paying most of it anyway. So it wasn’t really a money dump. My only guess is that Boston’s Craig Breslow REALLY thought Sale was toast, and he REALLY thought that Grissom could become the Red Sox's everyday second baseman.

He was very, very wrong on both parts. Sale won the Cy Young Award. Grissom played 31 sub-replacement-level games.

November 20, 2013

Here’s what I love most about this deal — it happened exactly the way you imagine baseball trades should happen. Dave Dombrowski, one of the great dealers in baseball history, was running the Tigers then, and he just called up Texas’ Jon Daniels and said, “Hey, what would you think about trading Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder?”

The very next day, after the money part was worked out, they made the deal.

What makes a truly wonderful baseball trade? I would argue that it is about philosophy. Fielder and Kinsler offered entirely different talents. Fielder was a masher who played every day, drew a lot of walks, and hit baseballs very, very hard. Kinsler was a terrific defensive second baseman who did a whole bunch of things well. The Tigers and Rangers weren’t just trading players. They were trading identities.

Unfortunately, the deal flopped for the Rangers because Fielder was worn out as a ballplayer — something he began to show in his last year with the Tigers. He got hurt in 2014 and retired two years later at 32.

Daniels conceded the possibility even on the day he made the deal:

"If anybody feels like that's a sign of things to come that he's slipping, you may not like the deal," Daniels said. "We don't feel that way. We're excited by what we see of him in the future."

Hey, that’s what happens in baseball trades. You roll the dice and take your chances.

August 31, 1990

Alas, the Red Sox are probably overrepresented on this list … but that’s just because the Red Sox have made some very unfortunate one-for-one deals. This is the worst of them (though there is another Red Sox deal to come on the list).

Boston’s general manager was apparently OBSESSED with getting Larry Andersen from the Astros. He worked on this deal for three weeks. The Red Sox were looking good atop the American League East, the Oakland A’s were running away in the West, and Gorman became utterly convinced that Boston was overmatched unless they got Houston’s super-reliever Andersen.

This is not unusual, by the way. Teams in pennant races will quite often become infatuated with the ONE PLAYER they think can make them champions. The Royals in 1993 felt sure that all their hopes rested on Stan Belinda.

Anyway, Gorman tried and tried and tried to pry Andersen away, but, as the Boston Globe reported, “The Houston Astros were evidently holding out for Babe Ruth.”

Then, on the final day before the trade deadline, Gorman got his man.

The Globe joked that, instead of Boston dealing Ruth, they dealt Lou Gehrig,

“Well, not quite,” they clarified.

Actually — yeah, quite. The Red Sox didn’t just trade away future Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell. They traded away the most New England slugger who ever lived. I mean, a franchise can exist for a thousand years without developing a local superhero on the level of Jeff Bagwell.

“If we win the pennant with Andersen, the deal is worth it,” Gorman said.

Actually, no, even if the Red Sox had won the pennant, the deal would not have been worth it. But they didn’t win the pennant, didn’t win a single game in the ALCS. Andersen had a 6.00 ERA in the postseason and then immediately fled to San Diego.

December 26, 1919

I’m sorry to do this to you, Red Sox fans — and this isn’t even a player-for-player trade — but how can you leave it out?

The day after the sale became public, the Boston Globe ran a series of reactions from fans. My favorite is this one from Orville B. Dennison:

“I admire Harry Frazee’s willingness to incur the enmity of the fans, at least temporarily, in his efforts to build a happy, winning team.”

The temporary enmity lasted for about 86 years.

November 19, 1993

Some one-for-one trades — such as the Jeff Bagwell deal — require some future-telling. Bagwell was a good prospect for sure, but nobody knew that he would turn out to be JEFF BAGWELL, right?

The Dodgers, though, had a pretty good idea when they made the Pedro for Delino deal just how good Pedro Martinez was. At 21 years old, he had gone 10-5 with a 2.61 ERA and 119 strikeouts in 107 innings. Yes, he was a bit wild. Yes, he was small, and there were scouts who didn’t think he’d hold up. Yes, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was convinced that Pedro would never be anything more than a reliever.

But, I mean, they had seen the guy pitch. They HAD to know.

They traded him for Delino DeShields anyway.

“We had to have this guy,” Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda told the press. “We needed speed in the lineup. … As an everyday player, we feel he will be more valuable to us than a relief pitcher.”

Kudos to one Dodgers player, Brett Butler, for seeing what was really happening.

“In a nutshell, I’m blown away,” he said sadly.

August 12, 1987

This should probably be lower on the list because it wasn’t really a fascinating deal at the time it was made. It was barely news at all. Alexander was a 37-year-old veteran pitcher who seemed entirely shot. And Smoltz was a 19-year-old pitcher referred to in most of the trade stories as merely “a minor-league pitcher.” No name. Just “The Braves traded Doyle Alexander to Detroit for a minor-league pitcher.”

But the trade ended up being one of the most fascinating deals in baseball history.

Alexander somehow went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA down the stretch and carried the Tigers into the ALCS. And Smoltz, of course, became Fox’s color commentator.

December 20, 1926

This would absolutely be No. 1 except it wasn’t EXACTLY a one-for-one deal. The Giants threw in pitcher Jimmy Ring for some reason. But everybody understood it to be Hornsby for Frisch.

This thing was bananas. Hornsby wasn’t just the greatest hitter in the game; he was also the Cardinals’ manager. And Hornsby’s Cardinals had just won the 1926 World Series.

The trade was made because Hornsby wanted a new contract … and because Cardinals president Sam Breadon couldn’t stand the guy. To be fair, nobody liked Hornsby.

Well, that’s not exactly true — Cardinals fans LOVED him. The St. Louis Chamber of Commerce was so outraged with the deal that they petitioned Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to overturn the deal. Hornsby himself seemed to believe they WOULD overturn the deal as he said, “Maybe this thing isn’t settled yet.”

It was settled, though. Hornsby was off to New York, Frisch to St. Louis.

“I believe that to be a good trade,” Breadon said. “We get a star second baseman to replace Hornsby.”

He was right. While Frisch became a Cardinals institution, Hornsby played one year with the Giants, putting up his usual crazy numbers — .361/.448/.586, finished third in the MVP voting — and then Giants manager John McGraw traded him to Boston, because, you know, he also hated Hornsby’s guts.

“I can’t believe it,” Hornsby said.

February 25, 1972

Such a funny deal. Carlton and Wise both refused to sign contracts with their teams, so St. Louis’ Bing Devine and Philadelphia’s John Quinn decided to swap headaches.

“I think we got a good pitcher and gave up a good pitcher,” Devine said. “The only difference, to me, is that one is right-handed and one is left-handed.”

Well, turns out, that wasn’t the ONLY difference between Rick Wise and Steve Carlton. Wise would pitch two seasons for the Cardinals before getting traded to Boston for Reggie Smith. Carlton would go on in 1972 to have maybe the greatest individual season a pitcher has ever had — certainly the greatest for a terrible team — and he’d win four Cy Youngs and 300 games and all the rest.

October 22, 1974

This deal was everything. It was a swap of two 28-year-old outfielder stars named Bobby. It was the first-ever swap of players on $100,000 contracts. It was the next Willie Mays for the next Mickey Mantle.

I have to share with you Dick Young’s thoughts about the deal because, boy, Dick Young was a piece of work.

Yikes. Were they just no rules in 1974?

Who got the better of this massive deal? Probably nobody. Bonds put up an excellent 30-30 season for the Yankees in 1975 and made the All-Star team. But the Yankees traded him right after the season, leading to this Bill Gallo cartoon:

Meanwhile, Murcer hit .298/.396/.432 for the Giants in 1975 and made the All-Star Team also, but his body was breaking down — his outfield defense became all-but untenable — and when he asked for a big contract going into the 1977 season, the Giants traded him off to the Cubs.

“Do I understand the logic of the trade?” Murcer asked. “Hey, it doesn’t matter what I think about logic, because I don’t make trades. … But just because I’m changing teams doesn’t mean I’m changing negotiating demands.”

Murcer was with the Cubs for two and a half seasons and then went back to the Yankees.