At the trade deadline this year, my dad and I kept facitiously holding our breaths for someone to announce that the Astros had traded something of value for a seemingly-washed up Tampa Bay 3B (yes, I know Wiggy was good this year and so was Huff, but at the time I think everyone of us scratched their heads). Fortunately, it didn't happen. Either way, last night had me thinking about those trades as Dan Wheeler imploded yet again in the post season. I thought to myself, "Well, at least we never really gave up anything too valuable in those trades." Graciously, the Hardball Times gave me a swift punch to the gut this morning and reminded me of Mitch Talbot.
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Huff would come to Houston after Tim Purpura, in his infinite wisdom, traded Ben Zobrist and Mitch Talbot to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Aubry Huff played decently for half a season in Houston, hit .250 and OPSed .819, but in the end his average performance will not be able to outweigh the fact we could have a gifted major league ready starter come up in 2009. It will always perplex me how the organization went from almost trading Oswalt away to the Mets to finding a washed-up 3B/utility OFer as their answer to our inept offense. Somehow we went from rebuilding mode to throwing prospects and money at veterans make a run at the NL Central -- this deal might actually mark the beginning of our organizational idiocy (not that I think we should have traded Oswalt away though). For those of you who want to argue, "we almost made the post-season." I'll remind you that we one 82 games and got incredibly fortunate that the Cardinals managed to lose 7 straight games in the middle of September for us to have a shot at that...82 wins...
I'll keep my eye on Mitch Talbot next year, because he's a candidate for a mid-season call-up in a stacked rotation, and I'll try to resist the urge to find Tim Pupura and wring his neck. Either way, I just want to know if we can get a do over on this trade.
What trade would you want a do over on? I'll limit it to the last 20 years, because we'd all want Joe Morgan back.