How Justice led to Swisher
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Sep 09, 2009 
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One of Brian Cashman’s best trades came June 29, 2000 when he dealt three prospects to Cleveland for David Justice. The outfielder was with the Yankees for only parts of two seasons, but drove in 17 runs in postseason games.
And Justice helped the Yankees get Nick Swisher, believe it or not. Follow the trail of trades:
Dec. 7, 2001: Justice traded to the Mets for Robin Ventura.
July 31, 2003: Ventura traded to the Dodgers for Scott Proctor and Bubba Crosby.
July 31, 2007: Proctor traded back to the Dodgers for Wilson Betemit.
Nov. 13, 2008: Betemit traded to the White Sox for Swisher as part of a five-player deal.
26 home runs and 77 RBI later, Cashman is a genius again. Plus this can only mean Swisher will start dating Halle Berry when the Yankees win the World Series.
(Full disclosure: I’m not nearly smart enough to come up with this on my own. A friend mentioned it to me last night after the game. Seemed interesting enough to post.)
UPDATE, 12:49 p.m.: But wait, it gets even better. Thanks to Thomas, a reader who posted, here is how Ruben Rivera led to Nick Swisher:
April 22, 1997: Rivera was traded with Rafael Medina and $3 million to the Padres for Gordon Amerson, Homer Bush, Hideki Irabu and Vernon Maxwel.
December 22, 1999: Irabu was traded to Montreal for Jake Westbrook, one of the prospects used to obtain Justice.
So a trade that happened 12 years ago leads back to Nick Swisher winning the game last night. Pretty good.
UPDATE, 12:56 p.m.: Tyler Kepner, who actually is a smart guy, figured this all out back in April. But it’s still fun to look at all the steps.
That is great. LOVE IT!
Who knew a trade made 8 years ago would still have positive ramifications for the Yankees.
swisher is actually dating already for 6 months a very sweet girl. much more polite & nicer then halle. I wish them well.
Swishalicious and Storm from the X-Men? That’s a tabloid-ready couple!
To all the Cashman haters – he started building this team years ago and his Boss-free efforts are now bearing fruit.
Hey Pete this trade goes even further back actually.
Yankees trade Ruben Rivera for Hideki Irabu.
Yankees trad Hideki Irabu to the Expos for Ted Lilly and Jake Westbrook
Westbrook and Ledee was later used to get Justice.
six degrees of separation for all!!
now figure out if he’s been in a movie with kevin bacon.
ok, kidding. Swish has been great. he was a power guy in oakland with a good obp. i have no idea what went to wrong in chicago, other than ozzie of course, but he’s here to stay.
SWISHer was a genius pickup
Peter,
Stop with the foolishness already… Jhonny Nunez & Jeff Marquez (3rd pitcher MIN wanted for Santana) were the keys to the Swisher deal not Betimet who was a throw in.
what is swishers contract like?
Plus it was a salary dump by Kenny Williams similar to Abreu.
henner,
2009 5.3M, 2010 6.7M, 2011 9M
JK, Jeff Marquez is 2-8 with a 9.85 era for Chicago Whitesox’s AAA team.
It seems like everyone has wanted to bash the Yankees for the Nady/Marte deal, but they all ignore what a great deal the Swisher trade was.
jk…you are exactly right…pete makes it seem like it was a straight swap- nick for betemit…good job jk
Everyone keeps noting we may break the record for players with 20+ bombs with 8, but what is the record for # of guys with 25+? We could potentially have 6 if Posada has a power surge
Justice was my favorite non-yankee growing up. Was awesome to see him in pinstripes at the end of his career
jk. lighten up.
And three weeks ago the media and quite a few on this board were knocking Swisher as an uncoordinated clown in the outfield and a strikeout, low average zero with the bat. Now, he’s a God in pie-face. Whar will he be next week? I’m not fond of Swisher, but, he was better than any other option the yankees had.
At a certain point, if you go back far enough, I bet it’s possible that an Ed Whitson transaction was at least ethereally involved in the evolution of this Swisherography.
Many moons ago, I’d read that right after making the deal, George Steinbrenner told Billy Martin (or whoever the manager of the du jour was at the time) something to the effect that he’d just won the world series by acquiring Ed Whitson.
He didn’t say which year it’d be.
No I’m not doing acid today …
People have to appreciate Swisher for what he does, not what he can’t do.
He extends at bats and hits for power. He has an .884 OPS., has hit 26 home runs and is pace for more than 100 walks.
Take a gander sometime at some of the more heralded outfielders who don’t have those numbers.
You’d be surprised.
It makes no sense at this point, especially this late in the season, to talk about his lack of defensive prowess or low batting average. Xavier Nady is hurt and you can’t have an outfield with Gardner and Cabrera starting.
In the perfect playoff lineup, Swisher is the eighth place hitter. A guy with 26 home runs, an .884 OPS, hitting eighth.
That’s amazing.
Pete,
You don’t have the time to think of something like this. Good post.
all of these trades except the one for betemit worked well for the yanks.. Ventura was decent/good at 3rd base during his time with the yanks.. he had few clutch hits in 2002.. Proctor took his time to settle but was good in relief and became more reliable in the later part of his career until Joe abused him.. Bubba Crosby was useful from the bench and I still remember his walkoff homer against baltimore.. Betemit is the one guy you can’t remember anything good when he played with the yanks.. May be his 3 error game when he was booting balls all over the field playing 3rd base is the only game that comes to my mind..
someone with Visio should put this post together in flowchart form. i’d do it, but it just realized they didn’t give it to me with my latest work computer
saucY – they dropped visio from our standard image this year too! I got an exception, but it’s so random!
“all of these trades except the one for betemit worked well for the yanks..”
did proctor give more to the dodgers than betemet gave to the yankees? i think it’s kind of a wash… (aside from giving Torre a nice warm and fuzzy feeling)
rconn,
Great point about Swisher being the #8 hitter.
The TBS crew was crowing about how Drew is the Sox’s #8 hitter. JD Freaking Drew!!
I don’t know how their #s compare and Swish isn’t as smooth a fielder as Drew, but he is infinitely more fun and a lot cheaper.
Even if Jhonny Nunez and Jeff Marquez were the real “keys” to the Swisher trade, how is it somehow any less of a steal for Cashman? Nunez has had a nice year and looks like he will be a useful major league reliever. However, the Yankees have a number of young pitchers besides Nunez with potential to be useful major league relievers in the future. Plus they had only acquired Nunez last summer for the Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, so it’s not like Nunez was a cornerstone of the franchise or something.
Betemit got DFA’ed, and Marquez has pitched terribly. And these are the guys that Cashman gave up to get a legit every-day corner OFer, which is not a commodity that grows on trees.
now i’m upset i don’t have it. i guess they’re picky with licenses and snuck one by me not installing it this past time
if i could make that flowchart, it would actually look like i’m doing work.
.267/20HR/.382
.254/26HR/.378
And one’s a switch hitter who’s a 1B, too.
JK:
What’s it like being a bitter crank? I’m trying to have a little fun with a post. It’s folks like you who will drive me out of this eventually.
“People have to appreciate Swisher for what he does, not what he can’t do.”
Agreed.
Question however – do people really do that with other players on the team?
Do they appreciate Cano or Melky or even ARod for what they do rather than what they can’t? Do they appreciate AJ Burnett in this fashion or Joba?
Not particularly.
It is interesting that people do expect Swisher to be appreciated in ways which aren’t particularly generalizable to the way other players are perceived.
Yankees have Nick through 2011,with 2012 club option,tied to his being in the top 5 of MVP votes in any of the yrs between 2007-2011,the option increases to 12mm.He has a limited 6 club no trade clause.
Guys,Nick is m o t i v a t e d,his option increases to 12MM
in 2012,bingo,Show me the money,is a Great motivator.
Info garnered from http://www.mlbcontracts.blogspot.com
Kepner did a post like this back in April.
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/.....f-a-trade/
Hey Pete don’t let the jerks get to you. You do a heck of a job here and are appreciated by us.
I didn’t see Nunez or Marquez headlining this trade.
And someone posted this last night after the game. So it’s either a repost or someone else said the same thing.
So not really a good job by jk.
Does anyone remember why the Yankees went out and traded for Robin Ventura?
Yeah Pete just block those fools. Everyone else enjoyed the post and found it hilarious. Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.
“do people really do that with other players on the team?”
No. Right or wrong it’s all about expectations. If you have none of a player, everything you get is a positive.
What ballplayer’s not motivated in their contract year? Except manny, but he was motivated to get out of Boston.
Texas on the verge of picking up yet another 1/2 game in the WC race before Boston even takes the field today.
Boston is lucky that they own the Orioles.
Pete– try to ignore jerks like him–we love your humor…
Andrew how funny is this
#
14. April 12, 2009 3:01 pm Link
LOL, have fun with that idiot. He couldn’t start on my White Sox.
— Chris Cassata
#
15. April 12, 2009 7:34 pm Link
He looked like the savior last year also in Chi. – then came May & wow, what a slide. Good luck to Nick, he’s a good man. I’ll wait for Nunez to blossom before handing the NYY cudos for the trade.
— Baines
******
I wonder what they say now.
Hey Pete,you leave I leave,nobody will run your blog like you!!
Thank You for all you do man.
Not for nothin is there a better Blog Master.
The idea that Jhonny Nunez and/ or Jeff Marquez were the key motivators for Kenny Williams to trade Swisher is absurd.
All of the players – Nunez, Marquez, and Betemit were throw ins.
Williams traded Swisher because he thought Swisher was a poor fit and wanted to move his contract.
It was a great trade by Cash but Williams wasn’t this dote who got taken to the cleaners either. He wanted to move Swisher’s salary because he had no role on the White Sox.
You can say he sold low on Swisher but at the same time the opportunity and financial costs of keeping him for the Sox were high as well.
Cashman’s real stroke of genius in making that trade was out competing the other 26 GM’s in the game. Cashman rightly identified Swisher as a poor fit for the Sox and made the trade before other GMs could (though a number of teams were probably scared off by Swisher’s contract given his poor year last year).
That said a lot of teams could have used swisher – the Mets, Braves, Giants, Angels but Cashman beat them to the punch and executed the deal.
That’s why it was such a good move – he identified a resource that was going to be sold cheaply and acquired it before other did.
I posted this about Swisher before the break:
http://www.puristbleedspinstri.....n-you.html
Seems worth repeating now.
yes, swisher was a problem on the sox and they wanted him out…but the trade wasnt betemit for swish as noted…anyhow, swish has been a good pickup
“Does anyone remember why the Yankees went out and traded for Robin Ventura?”
Because Scott Brosius retired.
Then they traded him away and traded for Aaron Boone because Ventura was done.
And then the Yankees were able to go out and sign…..
There has been a running joke for quite a while on here about Wilson. Gee wiz lighten up people!!!
-m
Guess who they have after the Orioles? ans:Rays
Guess who the Yankees have after thurs? ans:Orioles
Ain’t life great?
CB,
For a quote “brilliant” GM, don’t you find that Kenny Williams if often a day early, and a lot of $$ too much?
His timing is weird.
Like Peavy. You were working on the deal before the trade deadline. Peavy rejected it, but they kept working it and got it done by the end of July.
Williams was in such a rush to get Peavy who will see 1 or 2 games with the White Sox this season.
Why not wait until the winter? An injured pitcher wasn’t going to enhance your playoff chances very much anyway.
If someone beats you out in the winter, you give a hearty congratulations to both sides, especially the Padres for finding another sucker to take on Peavy’s contract.
Question however – do people really do that with other players on the team?
Do they appreciate Cano or Melky or even ARod for what they do rather than what they can’t? Do they appreciate AJ Burnett in this fashion or Joba?
Not particularly.
It is interesting that people do expect Swisher to be appreciated in ways which aren’t particularly generalizable to the way other players are perceived.
====
Since you answered your own question, I’ll just pile on. No, they don’t. But while I share the observation, it wouldn’t generally be palatable.
Yes, the trade was for Betemit. Just because Pete doesn’t mention the other 2 doesn’t diminish the point. Prospects are prospects until they show up.
I find it amusing that people think Jhonny Nunez and Jeff Marquez were some big loss for the Yankees. Chicago miscast Swisher as a leadoff hitter and CF and the Yankees correctly saw him as a RF and anything but a leadoff hitter. It was a a very smart move by Cashman. But of course the Cashman Haters Club can’t let that stand. They lost Marquez!
haiku man,
thought you might like this t shirt… i just browsed the site this morning and noticed it:
http://tinyurl.com/mjddpb
francesa mocking the jeter hit record again.
Go to Nickswisher.net there is a new video up.
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com.....p?c_id=nyy
I don’t know enough about the old timers to fill this out, but you guys might enjoy this.
Please post your all time lineups, so I can learn a litte bit more.
I was not a big Swisher fan to start the year.
I saw too many wasted AB’s trying to hit every ball out the ballpark, bonehead baserunning, and defensive play that wasn’t even close to being advertised.
He has won me over. Mainly for 3 reasons:
1. The guy kept working and made changes during the season both offensively and defensively. No attitude problems about looking to get better.
Kevin Long shorten his stride to the ball, had him more of the field, and he’s making more consistent contact from both sides of the plate.
Defensively, he has worked hard on his positioning and throwing and he’s been a much better defensive player the second half of the year.
His attitude is infectious and great for the team. However, great attitude or not, you still have to play the game at a high level.
He has busted his hump to improve over the course of the season and I have a lot of respect for guys to who do that.
Great player? No. Important player to this team? Absolutely.
So mike isn’t going to talk about Swishers big walk off hit last night?
SJ44 don’t forget him going to the pitching coach to work on his throwing. He has been much improved even if he does a circus act after he throws the ball.
m,
I really don’t understand kenny williams (not many do…) and I do think he makes a number of mistakes.
That said I can’t remember him being described as a genius very often at all. In fact he’s often the subject of derision and ridicule because his moves often don’t seem to make much sense immediately.
I’ve seen many yankee fans and sabermetric analysts kill Williams as a buffoon for trading Swisher, for example.
There’s a way to say that Cash did a great job trading for Swisher without also concluding that Williams is an idiot for making the move. Both teams were in different places and valued Swisher as an asset in very different way due to context.
I think Williams is just very different because unlike most GM’s he is willing to take a lot of risk and perhaps even more so, he is very definitive in his decision making and seems to value opportunity cost a great deal.
I don’t know if you can say that’s “good” or “bad” it just is. Would I want him running the Yankees? Not really. But I also don’t think he’s incompetent or a “bad” GM either.
Swisher and Ozzie hated each other.
Chicago was a bad fit for Nick and it wasn’t going to work out there for him.
As CB stated, Cash not only correctly identified that and got Swisher before other teams did, he also did another very important thing with him.
He told him to be himself. He told him not to worry about his batting average and he didn’t have to change his personality to fit in with the Yankees.
I believe that made Nick relax when he got here, trust Girardi when he said he would find AB’s for him (unlike the lack of trust he had with Ozzie in Chicago) and it allowed him to play as important a role as he does with the team.
Sometimes, you make deals and you never know how they are going to shake out.
In this case, it couldn’t have worked out any better for the Yankees.
I’m just re-reading Moneyball and Nick Swisher was the prize Billy Beane wanted above all else in the 2002 draft. It was the Tigers taking Prince Fielder that meant Swish was still around for Oakland’s pick. Great book, BTW.
>So mike isn’t going to talk about Swishers big walk off hit last night?
Do you really want to hear him talk about the right field wall and the jet stream?
CB,
If anything, Kenny Williams makes me appreciate Cashman even more.
As randy l is fond of reminding me, no one spends money better than Cashman (isn’t that an ironic name?). But he seems to be very good at identifying what the team needs at different points of the season and making some good, underrated moves.
The players imo seemed to have always responded in the second half when Cashman got reinforcements.
I wonder if the Yankees slumped this year when the deadline passed and nothing came? Like spoiled little children. lol.
But Cashman said, “We’ve got everything we need right here.” And he was right. The Yankees responded and then some!
Jason (Nevada)
Can you think of a harder throwing trio to fill the 7th, 8th and 9th than Wagner, Bard and Papelbon?
Steve Phillips (1:18 PM)
Those are three very special arms for sure, and one of the reasons I think the Red Sox could be a very tough team in the playoffs. Power stuff tends to prevail in October.
Steve Phillips (1:20 PM)
They will allow Terry Francona to shorten the game behind Beckett and Lester. The Red Sox are a very scary team to match up with. They just had better hope the Rangers don’t get hot and pass them over the next few weeks.
I think some fans and members of the media love Kenny Williams because he always makes deals.
Folks of that elk LOVE trades. On this blog alone, despite the Yankees being 40 games over .500, we see the same thing. Folks love trades!
Kenny does that and some folks eat it up. Problem is, many of them are bad deals.
He basically traded his team out of the race this year with the Peavy deal. Peavy didn’t give them an inning this year and Clayton Richard, who was the White Sox #5 starter, has pitched well for the Padres.
Instead, they had to keep rolling Jose Contreras out there and that was a disaster for the White Sox.
The Rios waiver acquisition was worsse. Now, he’s stuck with two big contracts, limiting future moves, and 2 guys who are big question marks heading into 2010.
Sometimes, its not always smart to be in deal mode 24/7. While it may win some fan love, it doesn’t always win you games.
joey (tx)
I want to know a baseball analysts superbowl picks? I know you can do better than the football guys picks Ive been reading!
Steve Phillips (1:22 PM)
I believe we will be looking at a Steelers-Giants matchup. I like the Giants’ running game, and I think they’ll be solid defensively, while the Steelers are tenacious defensively and will draw upon their postseason experience.
“Kevin Long shorten his stride to the ball, had him more of the field, and he’s making more consistent contact from both sides of the plate.”
Agreed. To me this has been the biggest difference in Swisher’s game.
He is now much shorter to the ball and isn’t trying to dead pull pitch after pitch nearly as much. He also seems to have leveled his swing plane some.
In turn this has made him more consistent. The first half of the year he was remarkably streaky and had these gaps where he just didn’t produce much at all. Even with his ability to draw walks he’d go through stretches where his OBP was around .300 because he was only hitting .150-.200.
He’s now seems to be more willing to go to left field and up the middle more, particularly with men on base.
He’s been much better at the plate as the season’s gone on. And that’s not just due to small samples or random chance – he’s taking a better approach at the plate.
Let’s hope he keeps it up.
Cindy G- Funny you mention that as I reread the book Moneyball as well last week. I was intruiged by the fact they were so interested in drafting Swisher back in the day.
I also love the book as it really lets you look at Billy Beane’s past. Also didnt realize how smart of a GM J.P Riccardi was. Not sure why it didnt translate for the Jays though, especially this season. The guy does have the brains of baseball, just has messed up big time with a few stupid signings.
Rishi,
Gag.
Who needs those 3 when we’ve got 2 that can cover the same ground?!
Min 10 years as a Yankee (my personal rule)
Jeter
Joe D
Ruth
Gehrig
Mickey
Yogi
Nettles
Lazzeri
Bernie/Mattingly DH
m
September 9th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Rishi,
Gag.
Who needs those 3 when we’ve got 2 that can cover the same ground?!
————————–
No kidding – yuck
pel- You are correct. What was I thinking.
If there is any doubt that Swish has improved defensively, watch Hinske play RF, or watch Abreu (who was one of my favs) back away from the wall.
When swish is good we love him, when he is bad we still love him b/c of his personality and the “intangibles” he has added to the team. He has the lowest ERA of any Yankee pitcher
Not as far back as Dave Justice or Ruben Rivera, but RANDY CHOATE let to the Swisher acquisition.
He was traded along w/ Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera for Javier Vasquez who was traded along w/ Brad Halsey and Dioner Navarro for Randy Johnson who was traded back to the DBacks for Ross Ohlendoorf, Steven Jackson, and Alberto Gonzalez. Alberto Gonzalez was traded to the Nationals for Jhonny Nunez who was traded to the Sox for Swisher!
Pete-
Long time blog reader and die hard Yankees fan. I was actually informed of your blog by Carp or Sam W…cant recall.
Anyway – HUGE fan of the blog – keep up the good work. Great post on the origin of Swish.
“It’s folks like you who will drive me out of this eventually.”
I, for one, wouldn’t blame you one iota. Hopefully, though, that day is long after something even better than the internet comes along.
Invariably, anything one posts is instant fodder for the internet asshats whose sole mission is to play devil’s advocate or internet rabble-rouser.
>pel- You are correct. What was I thinking.
For us to hear some semblance of positivity coming from Francesa we’re going to have to wait until he talks to Joe @ 4PM (which I will post immediately following it’s conclusion).
Does anyone know Swisher’s numbers for the second half so far?
Yeah, I wrote about this and had a few others:
http://www.noyoureatowel.net/2.....isher.html
Csano,
Swisher in the second half:
.283/.408/.579 with 12 HR
Not bad, not bad
Does anyone know Swisher’s numbers for the second half so far?
His telephone number is the same as it was in the first half.