Lidge Traded to Phillies
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Brad Lidge Traded to Phillies
Brad Lidge was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday in a move which may return Brett Myers to the starting rotation. It was a five player trade, but the key player the Astros received was Michael Bourn, who should move into center field, and allow Hunter Pence to move to right field.
A side note about Myers: in 2004 he had 116 strikeouts in 176 innings then in 2005 struck out 208 strikeouts in 215 innings. In 2006 he had 189 strikeouts in 198 innings then last year he had a phenomenal 83 strikeouts in only 68 innings. Maybe some of the Phillies fans would know why he had such a huge upturn in strikeouts after the 2004 season.
Last season, Lidge was inconsistent having an ERA of 5.79 in April, 1.10 in May, 1.00 in June, 2.79 in July, 5.11 in August and 5.23 in September. He had the most blown saves of his career (8). His strikeout totals have gone down since his phenomenal 2004 season when he struck out 157 in 94 innings a plus 63 strikeouts over innings pitched. In 2007, he had 88 strikeouts in 67 innings a plus of only 21 strikeouts over innings pitched. So it will be interesting which Brad Lidge shows up next season.
The Phillies, who have an abundance of outfielders, traded Bourn, who had only one home run and six RBI's while batting 119 times while hitting .277. Only seven of his 33 hits were for extra bases. The main asset he brings to the Astros will be his speed. He was only caught stealing once in 19 tries but only had one sacrifice hit so he may have problems with bunting unless Charlie Manuel didn't have him bunting often.
Matthews Jr. Finally Being Questioned
Gary Matthews Jr. has finally been questioned about allegations he used HGH, which he has denied. Why did it take nine months to question Matthews Jr.? This only shows that Major League Baseball is not serious about policing use of steroids. They could have interviewed him last February when the story broke. Instead, they let 240 days pass without following up on the story.
If he didn't take steroids why would his name be on the list of steroids purchasers? Of course that doesn't mean he actually took the steroids but why would he spend thousands of dollars on something he wouldn't use?
When the Mitchell investigation is over and the report is released let us hope it doesn't leave us with even more questions instead of answering questions. Without the cooperation of the Player's Union the report may not have much credibility. Whether there is any previously unknown information about Balco Bonds to be revealed remains to be seen.
Worst Trades in Baseball
Nolan Ryan, Frank Estrada, Don Rose and Leroy Stanton were traded by the New York Mets for Jim Fregosi of the California Angels. Ryan won 138 games while with the Angels for eight seasons and had five seasons with over 300 strikeouts. Fregosi played two years with the Mets hitting .232 and .234 so this has to be one of the worst trades in history of baseball.
Sammy Sosa and Ken Patterson were traded by the Chicago White Sox to the Chicago Cubs for George Bell. Sosa played for Cubs for 13 years and hit over 40 home runs seven times in those years including three years in which he hit 50 or more home runs. Patterson had a 2-3 record in 1992 and was out of baseball after the 1994 season. Bell hit 38 homers total in the next two seasons with White Sox and drove in 112 runs in 1992 but was out of baseball after the 1993 season while Sosa was hitting hundreds of home runs for the Cubs. He had 29 career homers when he was traded to the Cubs. By the time he left the team he had hit 545 home runs for the Cubs.
Readers are welcome to comment and add some of the worse trades they know of being made.
