Before Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, there was this NY Mets-Braves trade

Fans of a certain generation will recall how the New York Mets successfully convinced the 2015 Atlanta Braves to send Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe north in an effort to deepen the roster. There was nothing flashy about the trade. However, both Johnson and Uribe were having solid seasons on the archrival Braves. Johnson had a .772 OPS with an ability to play multiple positions. Uribe’s was at .817. They were exactly what the Mets needed at a relatively low cost.

Way before this, in the time of dinosaurs and a time when Atlanta was in the NL West, the two clubs weren’t division foes. Trading with one another came with slightly less pandemonium. On November 1, 1972, the clubs struck a deal.

The Braves sent infielder Felix Millan and pitcher George Stone to the Mets for reliever Danny Frisella and starter Gary Gentry. It turned out to be a heist of epic proportions.

This 1972 Mets-Braves trade deserves credit for the team’s 1973 pennant

The 1973 Mets managed to win the NL East with an 82-79 record. Defeating the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS as the underdog put them in the World Series. Versus the mighty Oakland Athletics, they nearly won it all. It was Oakland who had to stretch the series to 7 games after the Mets led 3-2.

All of this was made possible because of this trade with the Braves.

Millan finished a distant 16th in the MVP race, batting .290 in the regular season with 185 hits. He played his usual elite-level defense at second base. Alongside Bud Harrelson at shortstop, nothing we getting through that they could humanly stop. Millan would spend the next few seasons with the Mets, regularly showing how in-style making contact was. In 5 seasons with the Mets, he walked 161 times and struck out in 92 other plate appearances.

Stone’s time as a top contributor was more limited to the 1973 season. The Braves gave up on him a year too early after a poor showing in 1972. Stone was 12-3 for the Mets in his first year, pitching to a 2.80 ERA. As the lore tells us, he was the one the Mets should have started in Game 6 while leaving Tom Seaver available to close things out in a potential Game 7.

Meanwhile, the Braves received a pair of good Mets pitchers who weren’t quite as good for Atlanta. Frisella had a 4.67 ERA in two seasons. In comparison to the 3.08 ERA he had for the Mets, the Braves should feel robbed. Gentry’s career took a turn for the worse due to injury. He did well in 1973 but would only throw 113.1 more innings in the majors after leaving New York.