Saturday, July 14, 2007

Doug Melvin Trade Analysis Part 1

This is part 1of an analysis of the trades Doug Melvin made while he was Rangers GM. Each trade will be scored a win, loss, or tie. The score is based on how each player contributed to the Rangers at the major league level.

1. 12/9/1994 The Boston Red Sox traded Otis Nixon and Luis Ortiz to the Texas Rangers for Jose Canseco.

Loss – Canseco gave the Red Sox two good years (.306AVG/24HR and .289AVG/28 HR), while Nixon gave the Rangers 1 solid year, and Ortiz hit .231 for us 1 year and 7 at-bats the next.

Record: 0-1-0

2. 12/22/1994 The San Francisco Giants traded John Burkett to the Texas Rangers for Rich Aurilia and Desi Wilson.

Loss – Rich Aurilia was an All-Star for the Giants and played there for 9 years. Desi Wilson gave the Giants one good bench year, batting .271 in 41 games. Burkett didn’t play for the Rangers until they traded for him again in 1996.

Record: 0-2-0

3. 4/14/1995 Milwaukee Brewers traded Scott Taylor to the Texas Rangers for David Hulse.

Tie - It was a trade that didn’t really matter, because Scott Taylor pitched 15.3 innings for the Rangers and David Hulse played two bad bench seasons for the Brewers (averages of .251 and .222).

Record: 0-2-1

4. 5/16/1995 The Baltimore Orioles traded Jack Voigt to the Texas Rangers for John Dettmer.

Tie – This was also a trade that didn’t really matter, because Voigt had 71 AB for the Rangers and Dettmer never played for the Orioles.

Record: 0-2-2

5. 5/18/1995 The Houston Astros traded Domingo Jean to the Texas Rangers for Roger Luce (minors).

Tie – Neither of these players played for either team.

Record: 0-2-3

6. 6/22/1995 The Cleveland Indians traded Dennis Cook to the Texas Rangers for Guillermo Mercedes (minors).

Win – The Rangers got two solid years out of Cook (ERA’s of 4.00 and 4.09) while Mercedes never made it to the majors.

Record: 1-2-3

7. 7/30/1995 The Montreal Expos traded Lou Frazier to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later. The Texas Rangers sent Hector Fajardo (August 5, 1995) to the Montreal Expos to complete the trade.

Win – The Rangers got one decent (.260) and one awful (.212) bench year from Frazier while Hector never made it to the majors with Montreal.

Record: 2-2-3

8. 8/8/1995 The Florida Marlins traded Bobby Witt to the Texas Rangers for players to be named later. The Texas Rangers sent Wilson Heredia (August 11, 1995) and Scott Podsednik (October 8, 1995) to the Florida Marlins to complete the trade.

Win – The Rangers traded away someone who never played outside of the Rangers organization and Scott Podsednik, who has had two good years, for Bobby Witt, who gave the Rangers two seasons where he had winning records and one .500 year. Witt went 16-12 and pitched almost 200 innings in the Rangers 1996 playoff season.

Record: 3-2-3

9. 8/16/1995 The Cincinnati Reds traded Craig Worthington to the Texas Rangers for Stephen Larkin and cash.

Tie – This trade means absolutely nothing because these players combined for 90 at-bats after being traded.

Record: 3-2-4

10. 8/31/1995 The Toronto Blue Jays sent Candy Maldonado to the Texas Rangers as part of a conditional deal.

Tie – This trade doesn’t mean much either as Candy only had 30 at-bats in a Ranger uniform.

Record: 3-2-5

11. 8/31/1995 The Boston Red Sox traded Chris Howard to the Texas Rangers for Jack Voigt.

Tie – Chris Howard pitched four innings for the Rangers and Jack Voigt never pitched for the Red Sox.

Record: 3-2-6

12. 12/1/1995 The San Francisco Giants sent Rikkert Faneyte to the Texas Rangers as part of a conditional deal.

Tie – Faneyte only had 8 career games.

Record: 3-2-7

Results of last week’s poll:
Question: Who do you think should have been the AL All-Star Final Vote winner?
Jeremy Bonderman – 27%
Roy Halladay – 27%
Hideki Okajima – 27%
Kelvim Escobar – 13%
Pat Neshek – 7%

Come back next week for part 2 of this series unless the Rangers make a trade.

8 comments:

Ken Pittman said...

Interesting read - mostly trades that didn't matter or mattered very little. It will be interesting to compare your final results for Melvin to those for Hart.

miles said...

Ken, Hart sucks....

Grant Schiller said...

Hi Ken,

Doug will probably beat John in a landslide, but you never know, there could be a major upset.

Grant

Ken Pittman said...

Miles and Grant-
I'm not disagreeing - in fact, I am fairly certain myself that Melvin will come out better. What I'm interested in is how much better and how much of the difference in winning percentage by the team seems to be affected by the quality of the GM's trades. That's the comparison I'm more interested in rather than who did better in general (which seems rather obvious).

By the way - is the Tom Grieve trade analysis coming some time Grant?
Ken

Reid Report said...

Very interseting.

Grant Schiller said...

Hi Ken - I don't really know yet about analyzing Tom Grieve's trades. I might. Would you like to see it?

Grant

Ken Pittman said...

Grant - I'd be interested if you felt like doing it - mainly because most people in your poll that didn't vote for Melvin voted for Grieve instead and you've covered Daniels and Hart already.

miles said...

Grieve sucked to, he traded future superstar Sammy Sosa in exchange for White Sox slugger Harold Baines and infielder Fred Manriq...