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3 Mets trades that turned out better than expected

By Tim Boyle |
New York Mets
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In the age of social media, we all have a chance to immediate react to anything the New York Mets may or may not do. This wasn’t a luxury our forefathers and their fathers before them had. Our ancestors had to wait until they met up with some friends at the bar to talk about the trade they read in that morning’s newspaper.

The Mets have made plenty of trades which have met, exceeded, or failed to reach expectations. All three of these trades exceeded them, and I’d imagine if Twitter was around at the time, fans would have been surprised to see how well each turned out.

It took a little bit of time for each to payoff. When they did, it was an obvious victory for the Mets.

1) NY Mets traded Jerry Koosman for Jesse Orosco

One of the strangest coincidences in sports history has to be Jerry Koosman getting traded for Jesse Orosco. Each man threw the final pitch of a Mets World Series win. I can’t imagine any other team has had this happen.

On December 8, 1978, the Mets continued to gut the roster when they traded longtime starter Koosman to the Minnesota Twins for Greg Field and a player to be named later. Orosco would become the PTBNL in the deal.

While the Mets continued to struggle, Koosman went out and won 20 games for Minnesota in his first season. He’d pitch until 1985 and would surely have been able to offer the Mets some more quality seasons along the way.

The trade was still a massive success for the Mets. Tears of the fans had dried when Orosco became a major part of the team’s bullpen in 1982 after a handful of appearances in 1979 and again in 1981. In 1983, he was an All-Star with a magnificent 1.47 ERA out of the bullpen. He’d continue to finish off games regularly for the Mets throughout the decade until he was later traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 1987 season.

With the Tom Seaver trade results still fresh in the minds of fans, it’s hard to believe anyone had Orosco becoming so vital to the franchise. None of the four the Mets got from the Cincinnati Reds for Seaver were ever quite as important.

2) NY Mets bought low on World Series MVP Ray Knight

It was in a rare August trade when the Mets acquired Ray Knight in a deal with the Houston Astros. He was hitting a putrid .223/.259/.281 for the team in 1984. The Mets, who seemed to make every right move possible leading up to the 1986 World Series, sent Gerald Young, Manuel Lee, and Mitch Cook to Houston for a shot at Knight.

Clearly, the Mets believed he had something left. They were right.

Knight struggled mightily in 1985 but in 1986 he batted .298/.351/.424 a year later. More importantly, he was clutch in the World Series against the Boston Red Sox.

Although I wasn’t around at the time of the trade, I can imagine Mets fans going nuts seeing them give up three players for a guy struggling as much as Knight was at the time. It almost feels like acquiring Jim Fregosi all over again. An infielder past his prime, the Mets saw enough to believe he was worth acquiring.

It did take a rough 1985 season for this trade to eventually pay off. Any trade which leads to a championship in the end deserves bonus points. When that trade nets you the MVP of the series, it’s clear who the victor was.

3) NY Mets traded Shawn Estes at the right time for Pedro Feliciano and more

Shawn Estes only ended up staying for 23 starts in 2002. The 4-9 record and 4.55 ERA was enough for the Mets to start shopping him at that year’s trade deadline. It didn’t matter if they had just traded for him in December. It was time for the Mets to move on from the soon-to-be free agent. Getting back anything they could in return was the mission.

The Cincinnati Reds were the ones who nibbled on this deal. They sent the Mets four players. Raul Gonzalez, Brady Clark, Elvin Beltre, and a lefty we all got to know well, Pedro Feliciano, made up this package.

The trade already became a pretty good one for the Mets based on what Estes was able to do with the Reds. In his 6 starts for them, Estes posted a 7.71 ERA.

The real story for New York was how valuable Feliciano became later on. He somewhat lost within the organization until 2006 when he appeared in 64 games and gave them a 2.09 ERA effort. From then on, Feliciano was the ultimate lefty specialist. He led the league in games pitched every season from 2008-2010, capping it off with 92 games in the final year of the streak. Unfortunately, we can probably blame all of those appearances on the injuries that sidelined him for 2011 and 2012 and ultimately ended his career after the 2013 campaign.

The goal when the Mets traded Estes to the Reds was to get anything back. It took a few years. They got a gem reliever.

dark. Next. 3 Mets trades we immediately knew were a mistake

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