Headley, Upton, Get Real I'm Begging You Now

So awhile back I mentioned that there had been only three trades between the Padres and Dodgers in the history of baseball.

One was the three-way mercy trade of Greg Maddux. Three way because the Padres wanted to drop salary seeing as how they were already done and Maddux was really old and mostly done himself. Maddux because he got to play in maybe his last playoff race. Dodgers because they needed anyone who could pitch at all and it didn't cost 'em anything. (btw Maddux pitched pretty well.)

Another was a pitcher who pissed Lasorda off. And the only other one was someone named Al McBean who ended up pitching one inning for the Dodgers in 1970. O'Malley is on record now as saying he ordered his staff not to trade with the Padres.


My arguments with stat boys usually revolve around outlandish statements formed by only one thing - An advanced metric. When they get older, if they're smart, they'll realize that life is far more complicated than that.

So when I say the Padres won't trade Headley to the Dodgers period, yes, its about historical analysis. But it's also context. Baseball tradition says, right or wrong, you don't make significant trades with rivals because the potential blowback is, in their view, unbearable PR-wise, perhaps business-wise and certainly demoralizing-wise. So they just don't risk it. Chase Headley will never see a Dodger uniform unless he wears another team's uniform first.

So now you want to trade for Justin Upton. Never happen. Because the Diamondbacks flat out won't trade him to a rival like the Dodgers.

But the Dodgers and Diamond have traded before you say. Five times in fact. But one big fat note about that.

Paul DePodesta made three of those trades in his short 18-month reign of sabre-ness. If there's anybody in the history of baseball GM's who was not going to follow baseball management doctrine it was going to be DePodesta. He traded Shawn Green for a typical Moneyball player Dioner Navarro. He traded two higher level prospects for Steve Finley and Brent Mayne. He also acquired Elmer Dessens from the Diamondback for a minor leaguer.

The snakes later did drop Jon Garland on the Dodgers but that was a short-term dump.

So you see, trades between NL West rivals just don't happen. With the exception of Shawn Green/Paul D. no big name player that could still play ever got moved between the Dodgers and the Padres or Diamondbacks. There's been more activity between the Dodgers and Colorado but I attribute that to the altitude.

So all you computer GMs get back to checking out the rosters of teams out the playoff race that aren't in the NL West.

And don't kill the messenger. I don't necessarily agree about this trading philosophy but it's an utter waste of time to keep beating a very, very, unlikely horse.