Former NY Mets GM does his best to explain one of his worst trades

Just like every organization in baseball, the New York Mets have made a few terrible trades in their history. While many are quick to point to the Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver trade, over the past 20 years, one of the worst deals the Mets made was sending Scott Kazmir to the Rays. The Mets sent Kazmir, along with Joselo Diaz, to Tampa for Victor Zambrano and Bartolome Fortunato.

Although this trade has gone down in infamy as arguably the worst Mets trade of the 21st century, that has not stopped former General Manager Jim Duquette from trying to justify it. In a recent article for ESPN, Duquette discussed a previously unknown piece of information. Here's is what Duquette said and why it does little to change the perception of this trade.

Jim Duquette excuse does little to make the Kazmir trade look better

In the article, Duquette revealed that even Kazmir did not know the actual reason why the Mets moved him. Even after all these years, this remains something that has been overlooked in the discussion. Here is why Duquette pulled the trigger on this terrible deal.

"A lot of it centered on the medical," Duquette said. "[Kazmir] was high risk... It didn't help that we had an inexperienced ortho group that had just started overseeing our entire medical staff in 2003, after their hospital had signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with the organization"

Jesse Rogers, ESPN

In other words, Duquette and the Mets front office were concerned with Kazmir's health. This was nothing new, as they had been worried since the time they drafted him that he might have something wrong with his elbow. He even tries to blame their inexperienced medical staff for providing them with incorrect information on both Kazmir's and Zambrano's health. They were given bad intel, and that's what ultimately led to the bad decision.

While that excuse is good when it comes to being open to moving Kazmir, it does not explain why they traded him in this deal. For starters, the Mets had no reason to make this trade. They were in fourth place in the NL East, seven games behind the Braves. They were also seven and a half games behind the Padres for the Wild Card, with them needing to jump seven teams to make it. There was no reason for the Mets to be buyers, just to acquire pieces that could have made them a third-place ball club.

Zambrano was also an average reliever in his career up until that point. His rookie year was his best season when he pitched to a 3.16 ERA over 51 1/3 innings. After that, he threw over 100 innings and always had an ERA between four and five. While Kazmir was still in the minors, he was rather impressive. While it's revisionist history, it doesn't make sense to trade a high-up pitcher for a reliever who had been average at best up until that point.

While these comments do not make the trade look any better, it's nice for fans to at least see the thought process behind it. This allows fans to see the deal from the front office's point of view, not just from the fans' perspective.