Since it’s trade season and the Phillies are playing Washington, let’s look back into the history books for a memorable deadline deal in Nationals franchise history. Back in 2002, the Montreal Expos were thinking they might get contracted by MLB, so they went ALL in on a deadline deal to get Bartolo Colon from Cleveland. Who needs prospects right? How often do they even turn into stars? Who ever heard of Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips anyway?
Monday, August 3 at 6:40p – Aaron Nola v Andrew Alvarez (L)
Citizen’s Bank Park – Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, August 4 at 6:40p – Jesus Luzardo vs Zack Littell (R)
Wednesday, August 5 at 6:40p – Andrew Painter vs Jake Irvin (R)
Thursday, August 6 at 6:05p – Cristopher Sanchez vs Foster Griffin (L)
Here was the state of the universe on June 27, 2002. After a year of contraction talk, the Expos were now owned by Major League Baseball. Omar Minaya was installed as the GM and given an edict to not increase payroll by their 29 owners/competitors (seems fair). That aside, he was given free reign to do as he pleased. He wanted to make the playoffs.
The Montreal Expos were 41-36 and having career seasons from Vladamir Guerrero and Jose Vidro. The rotation was ok but really could have used an ace at the top. Unfortunately, this was only good enough to be 6.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East. As for the wild card, remember, this was the time of only a single wild card team making the playoffs. How were the Expos doing there? 5 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks who were the defending champs. Needless to say, they were not all that close. Still, Minaya wanted to try.
Well, on June 27th, Minaya went for it and acquired an ace. At 29 years old, “Big Sexy” Bartolo Colon was heading to Canada. At the time, Colon was dominating in what would be his best season. He had a 2.55 ERA in 16 starts and 4.7 WAR. He would go on to finish with 7.1 WAR and a 2.93 ERA going 10-4 for the Expos. It wasn’t enough. The Expos faded badly and finished under .500 the rest of the way, 19 games behind both the Braves in the NL East and the Giants for the wildcard. YIKES.
As for Colon, he was due a raise the next season and the Expos couldn’t have that. Montreal traded him to the White Sox for Rocky Biddle, Jeff Liefer, and El Duque Orlando Hernandez. Well, Biddle would manage -2.8 WAR for the Expos in two seasons, Liefer was better with only -1.2 in just 35 games, but the best was El Duque who would never pitch for Montreal at all and was released. Colon would pitch to a 5.1 WAR on the South Side. It was a disaster but somehow not nearly as bad as the original trade.
Brandon Phillips would debut for Cleveland that season, but would eventually get dumped for very little to go to the Reds where he would become a 3x All-Star and one of the best 2nd basemen of his generation. He would play for 17 years and collect nearly 30 WAR.
Grady Sizemore would have his career cut short by injury but looked like a perennial MVP candidate when he burst on to the scene. After debuting in 2004, his next 4 seasons averaged 6.2 WAR, 40 doubles, 25 HRs, and 80 walks per season. He was on a Hall of Fame track.
Then there is Cliff Lee who was simply one of the best pitchers in baseball from 2008 to 2013. He finished Top 10 in Cy Young voting 4 times and won it in 2008. He made the World Series as the #1 starter twice. His 37 WAR in that time was among the best in baseball.
This wasn’t the first time the Expos would trade their lifeblood away, but it would be the last. By 2005 they were in Washington and baseball would leave Montreal for good. MLB stripped them down as best they could so that they could completely kill any fanfare over stealing and moving the team.
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