Well this has sent me down a nice little rabbit hole. Did you know that there's a person on this planet called Noochie Varner? I didn't. He's actually a baseball player, and was involved in a Richie Sexson trade, which makes him relevent. He might actually have beeen a 2p2er, given
this revelation.
Anyway, Richie Sexson was, if I'm remembering him correctly, kinda like the original Aaron Judge. "Holy frig, this guy is tall" people would say. He also hit some tape measure homers, and struck out a lot. Now I admittedly don't remember why Sexson got traded from Cleveland, but I've got a guess. Cleveland had Jim Thome at 1B, and picked up David Segui at the deadline in 2000 to DH, moving Russell Branyan to the outfield. Sexson wasn't much of an outfielder himself, so he was squeezed out and flipped for Bob Wickman, who would become Cleveland's closer. What I definitely don't have a guess at is why Milwaukee was the team to go get him. They were fresh off an 11 game losing streak and were now 13 games under .500. They certainly didn't have much going on at 1B before that, but they certainly weren't a good team, and this trade seemed unnecessary.
I say it was unnecessary, because they didn't do **** to build around him or any of the other decent pieces they had. The Brewers obviously missed the playoffs in 2000, but also managed to lose 94 games the next year, lost 106 in 2002, and 96 more in 2003 (Sexson was definitely a bright spot on those teams though). Milwaukee opted to move Sexson to Arizona before the 2004 season, with Shane Nance and the aforementioned Varner for for Chris Capuano, Craig Counsell, Chad Moeller, Lyle Overbay, Jorge De La Rosa and Junior Spivey. A pretty decent haul, considering Sexson had one year of control remaining.
In true LOLDbacks fashion, Sexson managed to play 23 games for Arizona before getting hurt checking his swing, and then walking away in free agency. Sexson was worth .3WAR for Arizona, neutered by Nance being worth -.5WAR, and Noochie never reaching the majors. As a saving grace, the DBacks got a compensation pick the next year in the draft for losing Sexson. They blew that too, though, taking Matt Torra 31st overall and subsequently selling him to Tampa a few years later on.
The Brewers got plenty of value from their side though. Capuono's best years were in Milwaukee, giving 8WAR before leaving in free agency. Counsell was worth 1 WAR in his only season for Milwaukee. He left and re-signed in Arizona. Moeller was one of those guys who played forever just by virtue of being a catcher. He provided negative WAR, but that's almost expected from a glove-first backup catcher. Spivey hung around for a year and a half, putting up a few WAR, before getting traded for Tomo Ohka. Ohka put up 1.7WAR and then left. I think he's a knuckleballer in Korea now, maybe?
Jorge de la Rosa debuted with Milwaukee and toiled for a couple years, before being traded to KC for Tony Graffanino. Graffanino was alright, giving Milwaukee 2.7 WAR over a season and a half. As mentioned, JDLR made it back to Arizona this past season.
Finally, Lyle Overbay was worth 4.3WAR in his first tour of duty in Milwaukee. He was traded after two seasons to Toronto with Ty Taubenheim in exchange for Dave Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson. Bush put up two decent years in his first three seasons, and then became the worst and walked. Gross gave 3 WAR over 2 seasons before being traded to Tampa for Josh Butler. He stunk.
Jackson wasn't very good at all, and didn't provide anybody any value on the field. However, he was a piece in one other trade during his career...
Quote:
July 7, 2008: Traded by the Milwaukee Brewers with a player to be named later, Rob Bryson (minors) and Matt LaPorta to the Cleveland Indians for CC Sabathia. The Milwaukee Brewers sent Michael Brantley (October 3, 2008) to the Cleveland Indians to complete the trade.
Sabathia was only in Milwaukee for half a season, but that didn't stop him from putting up 4.9WAR over 130 innings. Sabathia made 17 starts, had 7 CG's, including 3 shutouts. 1.65 ERA, 8.8k/9, etc. He also made one start in the playoffs and got shelled by the Phillies, so whatever. He would leave in free agency at the end of the 2008 season, and would sign a huge free agent deal in NY.
The Brewers took Kentrail Davis and Max Walla with their compensation picks for losing Sabathia, neither of whom has seen MLB time.
All told, Arizona got more value out of JDLR this year, 12 years onward at age 36, than they did out of the entire Richie Sexson trade, while Milwaukee got like 10 WAR out of Sexson, then traded him for a million pieces and got pretty good value for the one season that they traded away.