NY Mets trade retrospective: 12th overall pick traded for a pair of role players

With the 12th overall selection in the 2003 MLB Draft, the New York Mets selected a high school athlete named Lastings Milledge. You recall the name because of how unique it is. Create-A-Player A.I. wouldn’t dare come up with anything close to represent a player bound for greatness and a lengthy career in the majors.

Reaching as high as number 9 on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect list in 2006, it took only two years in the majors for the Mets to realize there was a ceiling on their once-prized prospect.

An outrageously poor defender without a bat to keep up, the Mets ended up trading him away prior to the 2008 season. It was on November 30, 2007 when the ball club decided they had seen enough and were willing to send him to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

Was there an actual winner in this Mets-Nationals trade?

Milledge’s lasting moment (I swear, pun totally not intended) in the majors didn’t end up with a speech in Cooperstown like many thought. A 2006 incident where he high-fived fans after returning to the field following his first big league home run caused controversy in a way that almost 20 years later feels like baseball just wasn’t fun for anyone back then.

Lastings hit well for the Nationals in 2008, clobbering 14 home runs with a .268 batting average. His nearly 600 plate appearances would account for a good percentage of the ones he’d have in his career. He wouldn’t make it through the 2009 season with Washington. They traded him midseason to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

A similar fate befell Church who hit well in 2008 for a Mets team that famously collapsed late. He, too, would end up traded mid-season in 2009. His time with the Mets had as equal of a non-baseball legacy. After a concussion, the team flew him on a plane despite the common knowledge that it’s one of the worst things you can do for a person who suffered from one.

As for Schneider he was a serviceable catcher in 2008 and a backup by the time 2009 rolled around. He was the only one of the three involved in this deal to play two full seasons with his new club.

This is one of those intradivisional trades neither ball club talks much about because neither directly led to a championship or all that much excessive success.