Philly Front Office

When the Nationals came to Washington, they weren’t an expansion team. They were the Montreal Expos and came with their own mostly bad history including some of the worst trades of all time (Randy Johnson, Bartolo Colon, Gary Carter). They did however, make one of the best moves of all time though by getting pre-breakout Pedro Martinez. Unfortunately, they screwed that up too. Let’s take a look at how they turned fortune into folly.

Monday, June 22 at 6:45p – TBA v Foster Griffin (L)
Tuesday, June 23 at 6:45p – Jesus Luzardo v Zack Littell (R)
Wednesday, June 24 at 6:45p – Aaron Nola v Cade Cavalli (R)
Thursday, June 25 at 6:45p – Cristopher Sanchez v Miles Mikolas (R)

Nationals Park – Washington, D.C.

Ramon Martinez was 6’4, 170 pounds. His little brother Pedro was 5’11 and 135 pounds when they came up as teammates with the LA Dodgers. Manager Tommy Lasorda was so worried that the kid with the electric arm was going to fall apart that he used him as a reliever mostly during his two seasons in LA. Despite a 2.58 ERA in 67 appearances, the Dodgers just never trusted Pedro due to size and control issues. On November 19, 1993 they sent him to Montreal straight up for Delino DeShields.

Phillies vs Nationals: Trea Turner’s Wild Ride

At the time of the trade, DeShields was no joke of a player. He was only 24 and just had a 4 WAR season in only 123 games for the Expos. After 4 consecutive seasons of 40+ stolen bases, DeShields was now walking more than he struck out, carried a near .300 average, and was a solid 2nd baseman. He was the kind of player a team could build around. At the price of an inconsistent reliever, this was a no-brainer. Turns out the Dodgers were just using that reliever all wrong.

At 22 years old, Pedro Martinez joined the Expos rotation. They changed his fastball from a wild 4 seamer to a pinpoint controlled 2 seamer and it was like Dorothy waking up in the full color of Oz. Pedro was a hit immediately, taking a perfect game into the 8th in just his 2nd start in Montreal. By the time the player’s strike had ended the 1994 season, he had 142 Ks to only 45 walks in 23 starts, good for a 1.106 WHIP and a 3.42 ERA. The 1995¹ and 96 seasons were more of the same with high strikeouts, low walks, a mid 3s ERA, and flashes of brilliance. Then Pedro broke out.

In 1997, Pedro was simply dominant. Not only was no one scoring off of him, but he was pitching deep into games. By the end of June his ERA was 1.54 and he had only pitched less than 7 innings in 3 of 15 starts. For the season he would finish with a 1.90 ERA, 305 strikeouts, a 219 ERA+, and 9 WAR in 31 starts. He won his first Cy Young Award despite close competition from in-his-prime Greg Maddux. There was just one problem, the Expos weren’t any good. After the strike ruined the best season in franchise history, they started selling off players and were losing fans fast. The team was slowly dying. With ace of aces Pedro in need of a contract extension, they were not in position to give it to him.

PSP: Washington Forfeits Baseball (Forfeit #1)

After the season, Montreal traded their ace to Boston for pitchers Carl Pavano and Tony Armas. Both ended up being MLB regulars, but the Red Sox just got 26-year-old Pedro Martinez. You’d be hard pressed to find any player in baseball history with a run he was about to go on. The Red Sox gave him the largest ever pitcher contract at the time, 6/$75m. He didn’t dissapoint.

For the next 6 seasons, Pedro would win two Cy Young’s and finish runner up twice more. Those two Cy Young seasons of 1999 and 2000 would be two of the best seasons EVER by a pitcher. For context, the following numbers (with 1997 in Montreal for good measure) were at the absolute height of the steroid era, something Pedro was never accused of:

	WAR	ERA	Ks	BBs	ERA+	FIP	WHIP
1997	9.0	1.90	305	67	219	2.39	0.932
1999	9.8	2.07	313	37	243	1.39	0.923
2000	11.7	1.74	284	32	291	2.17	0.737

Sweet mercy! That’s not to say his other seasons were any slouch, but these are video game numbers coming from the smallest starter in the game.

Meanwhile in Montreal, the Expos were nearly contracted before MLB actually bought the team from it’s owner in a bizarre 3 team “trade.” The current Expos owner was allowed to buy the Miami Marlins from their owner John Henry who was allowed to buy the Red Sox while MLB worked on finding a real owner who would buy and move the Expos. The team finally moved from Montreal and to Washington for the 2005 season with new ownership coming in a year later.

As for Pedro, after years of disappointing pennant races against the Yankees, he would finally win a World Series with Boston in 2004 then go back with the Phillies in 2009.

Stats: Baseball Reference

Photo: Jeff Carlick/MLB Photos/Getty Images

1. I can’t just not mention that on June 3, 1995 Pedro was perfect through 9 innings except the score was 0-0. He gave up a hit to the first batter in the 10th and was removed. The Expos won 1-0 in 10. ↩︎