Philly Front Office

Last year I wrote about the worst trade in Reds history when they sent Frank Robinson to the Orioles and he proceeded to win the Triple Crown, MVP, and later beat the Reds in the World Series. Well, for this edition of the Phillies Series Preview, let’s look at the other side, the best trade they ever made when they acquired Joe Morgan from the Astros.

Monday, May 18 at 6:40p – Andrew Painter vs Nick Lodolo (L)
Tuesday, May 19 at 6:40p – Jesus Luzardo vs Chase Burns (R)
Wednesday, May 20 at 1:05p – Aaron Nola vs Andrew Abbott (L)

Citizen’s Bank Park – Philadelphia, PA

Joe Morgan spent his first 7 seasons (plus two cups of coffee) in Houston with the Astros (though they were known as the Colt .45s for his first few seasons). He was good. Not great, certainly not Hall of Fame level, but good, garnering two All-Star appearances and very down ballot MVP votes in his 1965 runner up ROY season. He walked more than he struck out and that was about it. Nothing too special.

Well, nothing too special at 28 years old made him expendable. On November 29, 1971, Houston traded Morgan, Ed Armbrister, Jack Billingham, César Gerónimo and Denis Menke to the Cincinnati Reds for Tommy Helms, Lee May and Jimmy Stewart. Even at the time, it was a blockbuster and it completely changed baseball in the 1970s.

Phillies Series Preview: The Worst Trade in Reds History

Let’s look at everyone else first:

• Going to Houston
  • Lee May – May was the big get for the Astros as he had hit 111 HRs over the previous 3 seasons with the Reds. His last season in Cincy was his best, picking up 5.5 WAR and finishing 12th in MVP voting. He would spend 3 good years (6.2 WAR) in Houston before moving on to Baltimore.
  • Tommy Helms – ROY in 1966 but wasn’t very good before the trade and wasn’t very good after either. Spent 4 middling years in Houston accumulating 4.2 WAR
  • Jimmy Stewart – They probably would have been better off getting the actor as Stewart’s -.7 WAR in Houston wasn’t as good as the It’s a Wonderful Life star’s 0.
• Going to Cincinnati
  • Ed Armbrister – Spent all 5 of his major league years with the Reds where he was worth -.1 WAR and mostly pinch hit, making 302 plate appearances in 224 career games.
  • Jack Billingham – JB was a starting pitcher who was never more than league average both before and after the trade
  • César Gerónimo – He was nothing more than a throw in to the trade, but his fantastic defense eventually won him 4 straight gold gloves in CF and a 15-year playing career.
  • Denis Menke – Menke was already 30 when the trade happened with his best years playing for the Braves behind him. After two years with the Reds, he went back to Houston to retire.

So, this is basically a competition between Lee May’s 81 HRs over 3 years vs Joe Morgan with the Reds, let’s see how he did…

Joe Morgan

In his 8 years with the Reds, Morgan would make the All-Star team every year, win two World Series titles (and would go to another), lead the league in WAR 5 times, walks twice, OPS twice, win 5 Gold Gloves, two MVPs, and eventually get inducted into the Hall of Fame. Not only did he start hitting for more power with the Reds (152 to 72 HRs in about the same number of games) but he started stealing more bases too (406 to 219). I’d say the Reds won the trade.

Phillies vs Reds: Scott Rolen In the End

Morgan would accumulate over 100 WAR for his career which ranks 2nd all-time among 2nd basemen. His first 5 years with the Reds saw 47.7 WAR, the 6th most in a 5-year stretch in MLB history (tied with Mickey Mantle 1954-1958). Let’s take a look at those seasons:

• 1972 – 9.3 WAR with 115 walks to 44 Ks, .292 AVG, .417 OBP, 58 SBs
• 1973 – 9.3 WAR with 111 walks to 61 Ks, .290 AVG, 35 2Bs, 26 HRs, 67 SBs
• 1974 – 8.6 WAR with 120 walks to 69 Ks, .293 AVG, .427 OBP, 58 SBs
• 1975 – 11 WAR with 132 walks to just 52 Ks, .327 AVG, .466 OBP, .974 OPS, 67 SBs, MVP, World Series
• 1976 – 9.6 WAR with 114 walks to 41 Ks, .320 AVG, .444 OBP, .576 SLG, 1.020 OPS, 30 2Bs, 27 HRs, 60 SBs, MVP, World Series

While these might not seem like eye popping numbers at first, remember that this was the 1970s when offense was at a premium. His OPS + for the period which measures your offense compared to league average was 163. That’s right around Mike Trout’s average OPS+

Morgan goes down in history as one of the best players ever and a star of stars on the Big Red Machine in the 1970s with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. They’d win two World Series titles together.

Epilouge

Why do we care about Joe Morgan? Because he spent 1 year in Philadelphia as part of the Wheeze Kids 1983 World Series team along with Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, and Steve Carlton. He was a pretty bad announcer on ESPN in his later years, but a lot of us still remember him as one of the voices of baseball in our youth on Sunday nights.

Stats: Baseball Reference