The 3 worst Mets trade deadline fire sales and why each was so horrible

2003 NY Mets trade deadline fire sale

The Mets traded away some pieces in the 1990s during the lean years but it’s the 2003 trade deadline where they gutted the team. The team finished last in the National League East during Tom Glavine’s first year on the roster. He was clearly not the answer, at least not this season.

The fire sale began early with a July 1 trade of Roberto Alomar to the Chicago White Sox. The Mets picked up Royce Ring, Edwin Almonte, and Andrew Salvo in the deal. It was more of a trade to rid themselves of Alomar who never came close to meeting expectations.

About two weeks later, Jeromy Burnitz was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets picked up three more players for him. Does anyone remember Victor Diaz, Kole Strayhorn, or Joselo Diaz? Only Victor Diaz would ring a bell as he did manage to appear in 89 games for the 2005 team. He’d get traded in August 2006 to the Texas Rangers for Mike Nickeas. For the most part, Victor Diaz is a forgotten Mets player.

The busy July continued with the Mets sending Armando Benitez to the New York Yankees for Jason Anderson, Anderson Garcia, and Ryan Biconda. The month finished with Graeme Lloyd going to the Kansas City Royals for Jeremy Hill and Rey Sanchez getting traded to the Seattle Mariners for Kenny Kelly.

That’s a lot of names to digest and a lot of Baseball-Reference pages to research to see if they ever even made an appearance with the Mets. Whether they did or not, the fact that we don’t have significant memories of any shows how meaningless many of these trades tend to turn out.

Even more recent than 2003 was another fire sale where the Mets made a whole bunch of trades to acquire even more players we don’t remember.