Anyone miss Gord Ash?
January 14, 2001, the Blue Jays traded a 37 year old David Wells and Matt DeWitt to the White Sox for Mike Sirotka, Mike Williams, Kevin Beirne and Brian Simmons.
The only two that mattered were David Wells and Mike Sirotka.
DeWitt and Williams were traded back for each other before the season started. The Jays released DeWitt after the season, he had a 3.79 ERA, with 22 hits and 10 walks in 19 relief innings for the Jays, in 2001. Williams never did make it to the majors.
Beirne pitched 7 innings, with a 12.86 ERA, for the Jays and then was let go after the season was over. Simmons was a good glove/no bat outfielder. He hit .179/8/.239/.280, with 2 home runs and 8 RBI, in 60 games, mostly as a defensive replacement. The White Sox took him back, as a waiver claim, after the season.
Now Sirotka was the guy we wanted. He was 29 year old left-handed pitcher, who had won 40 game the 3 seasons before the trade and went 15-10 with a 3.79 ERA, with 69 walks and 128 strikeouts, in 197 innings, in 2000. The lack of strikeouts would have been worrying, had Sirotka pitched for the Jays.
When Sirotka got to spring training, the Jays found out that he had a shoulder injury, a torn labrum. He went off to see Dr. James Andrews (who must have a yacht paid for by the Blue Jays). The Jays appealed to Bud Selig to overturn the trade, since we received damaged goods. But Selig was good friends with White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf:
"After careful consideration of all the information before me, I uphold the transaction and deny the Toronto club's claim for relief," Selig said. "Although there is a dispute about whether certain facts about Sirotka's condition were disclosed before the clubs agreed to the trade, the Toronto club talked directly to Sirotka about his health on the day of the trade and believed it had the opportunity to make the trade conditional," Selig said. "The Blue Jays never elected to do so."
Gord Ash should have been more careful. We ended up paying $6.8 million, over the next two seasons, for a pitcher who never threw a ball for us. There had been some hope that Sirotka would be the piece we needed to get ourselves back into the playoffs. If if is any consolation, we finished 80-82, 3rd in the AL East. If he had pitched, we wouldn't have been able to make up the 16 games that we finished behind the Yankee
Not that David Wells was great for the White Sox. He went 5-7 with a 4.47 ERA in 16 starts, missing a lot of time with back troubles. And the White Sox paid him $9.25 million for those 5 wins, so really is was cheaper for the Jays to pay Sirotka not to pitch. After the season he signed with the Yankees as a free agent.
Gord Ash didn't have a terrific track record as Blue Jay GM, but this trade might have been about the last straw for the Jays, he was fired after the 2001 season.
Also One Year Ago Today: The Jays signed Colby Rasmus to a one-year $4.675 million contract. I mention this because we should hear that they have signed him to an extension in the next couple of days.