Quote:
Originally Posted by JustRalph
Worst trade in the history of baseball.
The Reds ownership thought he was too old at 30
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That's not the whole picture though. The Reds had built up a first class farm system, but didn't expect it to start showing real promise until the early 70s
(Bench came up in '67, Concepcion around '70, and Griffey in '72 or '73). Making the 1970 WS
(Prominent starters Gary Nolan and Don Gullett, going by memory, may have both been teenagers when the season started. I'd bet money Gullett was. Wayne Simpson, the stud of them all, was maybe old enough to legally drink. He was an AllStar that year with 10 wins at the break and was something like 15-5 before going down with a season ending injury in late August.) was well ahead of their mid 60s projections. They figured they would be contending for real in 1972 or 1973, which would have made Robinson 36, 37, even 38, in which case he would have been getting up there, and maybe holding back one of their promising young outfielders, or even taking at bats from Lee May at 1st base, which was not going to happen. They had Pinson and Harper well established in the outfield, and ultimately Rose would end up out there after the acquisition of Morgan
(Now that was THE TRADE that ultimately made them who they would become, and sent May away. Perez took over at 1st. They weren't going to take any ABs from him either).
They traded Robinson at the zenith of his value. Their overvaluing of Milt Pappas is the comedy of the whole thing, even though Pappas did have a pretty solid 1967 before being traded to the Braves for, among others, Clay Carroll, who proved to be very valuable in "Capt Hook"'s pitching staff machinations.
