Mets: Three all-time worst Mets trades in the month of June

2) Worst June Mets Trades – Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell for Juan Samuel on June 18, 1989

We often think of this as the Lenny Dykstra trade because he had the most immediate success following the deal. However, we need to also make note of the two other incredibly important players in this trade, Roger McDowell and Juan Samuel.

McDowell was the main cohort to travel with Dykstra to the Philadelphia Phillies in this deal. They were later joined by Tom Edens, a future MLB journeyman reliever with minimal innings under his belt. The crux of this deal came down to how the Mets managed to swap a talented reliever and outfielder for an absolute bust.

Samuel is one of those Mets players we all like to forget. Following the trade on June 18, 1989, he hit only .228 down the stretch in his final 370 plate appearances. This wasn’t the same speedy yet powerful player they had faced so many times in Philly. This version of Samuel was far less productive.

As a result, they traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in December.

What makes this such a bad Mets trade is how well Dykstra and McDowell did in Philadelphia. McDowell doesn’t get enough credit for the kind of career he had both in New York and Philadelphia. With the Mets, he was 33-29 with a 3.13 ERA and 84 saves. In his brief time with the Phillies across parts of three seasons, McDowell went 12-17 but with a 2.90 ERA. He also converted 44 saves.

The biggest difference-maker of all in this trade was, of course, Dykstra. After slashing .278/.350/.413 during his time with the Mets, Dykstra went on to hit .289/.388/.422 with the Phillies. He was a three-time All-Star with the Phillies and the runner-up MVP in 1993.

I can’t say enough about how poorly this trade worked out for the Mets. Regardless of what Dykstra was taking to make him a star, it was a deal that haunted the team.

1) Worst Mets June Trades – Tom Seaver to the Reds on June 15, 1977

We are back to where we began this journey. They don’t call it The Midnight Massacre because it sounds great. It’s because the trades the Mets made on June 15, 1977, literally massacred their chances at contending for several seasons.

The Tom Seaver trade to the Cincinnati Reds is regarded as one of the worst ever made by the franchise. Although the Mets did get some quality players back, none came close to replicating what Tom Terrific could.

Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson, Dan Norman, and Pat Zachry are the men the Mets received for their franchise player. If this deal proved anything, it’s how much quality matters more in a trade than quantity.

Flynn did win a Gold Glove with the Mets and Henderson hit .287 during his four seasons with the club. Norman barely played for the team while Zachry gave them six decent years. Coincidentally enough, Zachry led the National League in 1981 with 14 losses while Seaver led it in wins with just as many.

Seaver’s time with the Reds wasn’t as superb as the glory days in Flushing. However it did include a fourth and second-place finish in the Cy Young race along with a pair of All-Star selections.

Looking at the haul the Mets got for Seaver, the deal really wasn’t horrific. All four men did play for the team and some were pretty important. The problem with this trade is how little impact they actually had on the franchise like Seaver would have through the remainder of the 1970s and into the early 1980s.

Seaver did return for one more stint in New York when he pitched for the 1983 Mets. By then, he wasn’t the same star pitcher he was in his earlier days. The trade was still haunting the franchise at the time, too. It would take another year before the team finally began to seriously compete again.

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What other June trades do you remember from Mets history?