YOU KNOW all the cliches about baseball trades.
The best trades are the ones that help both teams. They happen, but not all that often. Usually one team gets the bull and the other one gets the horn.
And in this era of the salary dumps of megabuck veterans being passed on to contenders for a package of untested minor league prospects, there is a two-way peril.
Sometimes, the veteran counted on to earn his inflated salary in return for pitching your team into the postseason, becomes an Inglorious Basterd. And the prospects surrendered actually give a decent return.
Unless it is too painful to contemplate the horrors of 2007, when the single victory that Freddy Garcia managed cost GM Pat Gillick $10 million large. It also cost him righthander Gavin Floyd, a No. 1 draft pick who signed for a $4.2 million bonus contract. Floyd was a flop here. But he has given the White Sox some bright moments. And wouldn't you know it, Floyd, who was 17-8 in 2008, and the resurrected Garcia, are in the same rotation. And wouldn't you know it Part II, Gio Gonzalez, a minor league lefthander (from the Jim Thome trade) is 6-4 for Oakland with a 3.79 ERA.
Sort of a case of not having your cake and not eating it, too.
With the suddenly impotent Phillies reeling on the ropes of mid-June, looking up in the wild-card standings and no longer masters of all they survey, the strident roar of the vox populi continues to protest what is perceived as the Great Cliff Lee Giveaway.
The party line is that the stunning Lee trade to Seattle for three lower-echelon minor leaguers named Pierre, Tyson and Juan Carlos - two Canadians and a Nicaraguan - was necessary to rebuild the suddenly punchless and pitchless farm system. To land Lee at the deadline last season, the Phillies expended pitcher Carlos Carrasco, catcher Lou Marson, infielder Jason Donald and pitching prospect Jason Knapp.
