Philly Front Office

Some trades made me sad like Cole Hamels going to the Cubs, some are frustrating because of their reasoning like Cliff Lee going to Seattle, but some just make me incredibly mad. To this day I am not over the December 6th, 2006 trade that sent Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd to the Chicago White Sox for pitcher Freddy Garcia. Here’s why…

The trade itself was fair. Freddy Garcia regularly pitched 200+ innings with the Mariners and then the White Sox with an ERA in the 3s and low 4s (which was solid at the time). He also had playoff chops including going 7 scoreless in Game 4 of the 2005 World Series. At 30 years old, the plan was for him to be the #3 starter behind Opening Day Starter Brett Myers and young phenom Cole Hamels. The rest of the rotation would be Garcia, Jamie Moyer, and Adam Eaton (LOL) until the injured Jon Lieber returned.

THE Calendar

Going to Chicago for this established veteran would be two young guys, former top prospect Gavin Floyd and future top prospect Gio Gonzalez. With the Phillies, Floyd was a former first round pick who carved up the minors and debuted at 21 in 2004. Over 3 seasons with the big club, he was pretty bad. It was a classic Phillies prospect turned bust who definitely needed a change of scenery. Him being traded was expected. Gonzalez though had been the steal of the Jim Thome to the White Sox trade the year before, coming over as the Player to be Named Later next to Aaron Rowand. Gio had a fastball you could dream on and was destined to take the rotation place behind Cole Hamels that Gavin Floyd would not. Then this trade happened.

I know what you are thinking, it seems decently fair, it just didn’t work out. Yeah, it would have been, except for one major problem. Damn near every trade you have EVER heard of in EVERY sport is dependent upon one thing once agreed, passing a physical. For some reason, the Phillies DID NOT MAKE Garcia take a physical before completing the trade. This missed formality proved to be a killer because Garcia would have failed it.

Garcia’s shoulder was a red flag. When he arrived in Clearwater that Spring, he was topping out at 88 mph and got rocked. He made his debut for the Phillies on April 17th, getting knocked around in an 8-1 loss to the Mets. This continued for the next 10 starts. His Phillies career concluded with two 6-run affairs in May before he was mercifully put on the DL. The Phillies let him go at the end of the year. All told, his career in Philly consisted of 11 starts, a 5.90 ERA, 1 win (his 2nd start), and -.3 bWAR. I’m re-mad typing this.

The 2007 Phillies making the playoffs was a small miracle. Garcia, shockingly, wasn’t even the worst or most injured of their pitchers. The worst was Adam Eaton. The other offseason acquisition was signed to a 3/$24m contract that was a disaster from the beginning. Despite a 6.29 ERA and a -1.6 bWAR, Eaton inexplicably made 30 starts that season. Rivaling Garcia for most injured was Jon Lieber. He ended up making 12 starts and was shutdown in mid-June. Then there was Opening Day starter Brett Myers¹ who was moved to the bullpen after only 3 starts. At least he ended up a pretty effective closer. How did we manage? Well, Kyle Kendrick saved the team’s ass. The unheralded rookie ended up making 20 starts with a 3.87 ERA. Literally every time he took the hill, I expected him to get lit up and it just never happened.²

As for the other two, Floyd put it together in Chicago to the tune of an ERA regularly in the low 4s and close to 200 innings each season. Ironically, this was basically what the Phillies had hoped to get out of Garcia. I understand this was never going to happen in Philadelphia though. Gio Gonzalez was traded again the next year to Oakland for Nick Swisher. He broke out for the A’s in 2010 with a 3.23 ERA in 200 innings and stayed in that range through the rest of his 20s. The A’s do what they do and traded him to the Nationals before the 2012 season where Gio would finish 3rd in Cy Young voting with a 2.89 ERA and 21 wins. It killed me a little bit every time he started. He should have spent his above average to ace level career on the Phillies.

It all worked out in the end despite the trade. They won the division in 2007 and the World Series in 2008. How would the future have gone with Gio Gonzalez as Hamels’s #2? Well, we still would have been able to trade for Cliff Lee in 2009 and Halladay in 2010. Do we win another World Series in that window either with him in the rotation or as a trade piece for someone actually productive? Maybe. Of course, it’s also possible that with Gio we don’t make any of those trades. We still get the one in 2008 though, that’s for sure, which makes throwing him away on a missing physical so difficult to understand even 20 years later.

1. It’s ridiculous that Myers was not only still on the team, but they gave him a new contract before the 2007 season. The season before he was witnessed beating up his wife on the street in Boston. The Phillies did nothing about this. He eventually took a short leave of absence and his wife did not press charges. ↩︎
2. There was a midseason trade with the Reds for Kyle Lohse as well, but he wasn’t very good and I never liked him ↩︎