Dombrowski of the week: Bartolo Colon for prospects Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Grady Sizemore

Dave Dombrowski

• Baseball teams make horrible trades all the time. The master of these trades is current Detroit Tigers general manager, president, and CEO  Dave Dombrowski (he was also the GM of the Marlins and Expos back when they were good). During his time in Detroit, he has made several absolutely unbelievably lopsided trades in his favor, including trading Jeff Weaver for Carlos Pena and Jeremy Bonderman, trading low-level pitchers Juan Gonzalez and Ramon Santiago for Carlos Guillen, and fleecing the Phillies by giving them Ramon Martinez and future Venezuelan prisoner Ugueth Urbina for Placido Polanco. You could also include the times he gave the Marlins a bunch of prospects who amounted to basically nothing for Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera. Or when he gave up an aging Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson for a package that included Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson. Basically, no one should ever trade with Dave Dombrowski. In honor of Dombrowski's mastery of the art of trading, I am naming this column where I discuss some of the most lopsided trades in MLB history Dombrowski of the Week. This week: the 2002 trade that sent Bartolo Colon to the Expos for half a season for Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Grady Sizemore; all of whom had yet to be called up to the major leagues.
  

  

  Bartolo Colon, 12 years and about 100 pounds ago

  
  
• The first thing that should be noted: The trade made some sense at the time. The Expos in 2002 were a very talented team that believed that they could make the playoffs with the addition of an ace pitcher. They already had several star players, including Jose Vidro, Orlando Cabrera, Javier Vasquez, and Vlad Guerrerro (who put up 7.0 WAR and finished 4^th in NL MVP voting that year), who were all between the ages of 25-27. To go along with that, Colon (along with being an all-time Fat Athlete All-Star with such greats as Vince Wilfork, Big Baby Davis, and Jared Lorenzen) was a very good player. He finished the 2002 season with a 20-8 record as well as 147 ERA+ and 7.1 WAR, both significantly higher than his Cy Young-winning season in 2005. If all had worked out for the Expos, he could have been the missing piece on a contender. However, things did not work out. The Expos finished 83-79, Colon went to the White Sox the next season and won the Cy Young with the Angels in 2005, Guerrerro went to the Angels in 2004 and immediately won the MVP award, and in 2005 the Expos ditched Montreal to become the Washington Nationals.
• The second thing to be noted: The Indians did not really maximize their end of the deal, because they are a Cleveland sports team and therefore cannot do anything right. Phillips only played one 100 game season in his four years in Cleveland, and totaled -.4 WAR during his time there. Then in 2006, when Phillips was 25, he was traded to the Reds, where he has been their starting second baseman for 9 straight seasons, made 3 All-Star games, won 4 Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger, and averaged 2.9 WAR/season during his time in Cincinnati (3.7 from age 26-31, his best years). From 2006-2011 the Indians had four different starting second basemen who combined for 4.7 total WAR over those six seasons. Phillips put up 18.3 WAR during that same period.
  
  

  

  Brandon Phillips

• For the most part the Indians did get the most out of Lee and Sizemore. Lee stayed with the Indians for his first eight seasons, winning the Cy Young award in his final full season there in 2008, although his two best seasons by WAR came later while he was on the Phillies. Sizemore stayed on the Indians for eight seasons, first coming up in 2004 and put up four all star level seasons before injuries limited him. 
  
  
  
  

  

  Phillies legend Cliff Lee (he might have also played on Cleveland for a while)

  
  

  
  

   

  

  Indians legend Grady Sizemore (he might currently be playing on the Phillies)

•  So just for the sake of argument, lets say that Phillips was never traded but Lee, Sizemore, and Colon had the same career results. Just how lopsided is this trade?

Team	Player	Seasons	Total WAR
Expos	Bartolo Colon	0.5	2.4
Indians	Grady Sizemore	8	27.5
Indians	Cliff Lee	8	17.3
Indians (hypothetically)	Brandon Phillips	13	25.6
Indians (reality)	Brandon Phillips	4	-0.4
Expos	Total	0.5	2.4
Indians	Total	20 (29 if they had kept Phillips)	44.4 (70.4 if they had kept Phillips)

• So the Indians traded half a season of Bartolo Colon for 3 future perennial All-stars who were at the time age 21 (Phillips), 23 (Lee), and 19 (Sizemore).. They gave up 2.4 WAR for 44.4, and could have had 70.4 if they hadn't traded Phillips. That is a true lopsided trade.