IN February, 1972 Phillies traded Rick Wise, a fine pitcher who never really had a break-away year, to the St. Louis Cardinals straight up for Steve Carlton who had 3 decent years, 1 poor one and a break-out year of 1971 where he was 20-9 for the Cards.  Lefty went on to win 241 games and four Cy Young Awards for the Phils.

Carlton came to the Phils in 1972 as they were moving into then-new Veterans Stadium.  Lefty promptly put together one of the great all-time years in Phillies history compiling a record of 27-10 with 30 complete games for a team that won a mere 57 games.  In 1973 Lefty finished 13-20 for a team which won 71 games, but went on to put a string of fine seasons together between 1974 - 1984 including 4 years of 20 plus wins each.

Rick Wise, on the other hand, who was known for having a few two homerun games, one of them in the same game as he pitched a no-hitter.   Wise won 15, 13 and 17 games in the 3 years before the trade finished 16-16 in 1972 and 16-12 in 1973 before being traded away by the Cards to the Boston Redsox.  The BoSox later traded Wise to the Cleveland Indians who, in turn traded him to the San Diego Padres where he finished his career.

IN April, 1992 the Phillies traded sometimes erratic pitcher Jason Grimsley (1-7 in 1991) to the Astros in exchange for pitcher Curt Schilling in what could only be considered one of the trading steals of the 90s. 

Grimsley went on to be a spot starter for 3 seasons with the Cleveland Indians, then an average to mediocre set-up reliever for the Angels, Yanks Royals and Orioles.

Schilling went on to post 2 good years with the Phils (’92: 14-11, 93: 16-7) leading them to the NL Pennant and a World Series appearance against the Toronto Blue Jays where he was 1-1 winning the 5th game of the series with a 2-0 shutout of the Jays in the game following the Mitch Williams fiasco where the Phils lost at home after blowing a 12-7 lead.  In ‘94, he had an off-year due to injuries, in ‘95 and he suffered arm injury-plagued seasons going 7-5, 9-10.  In ‘97, he returned going 17-11, 15-14, 15-6 in the ‘97, ‘98, ‘99 seasons including ‘97 where he struck out 319 in 254 innings and in ‘98 where he struck out 300 more while completing 15 games.  

MIDWAY through the 2000 season, after Schilling held a 6-6 record, he was traded after voicing displeasure with Phillies management; “claiming they were not doing enough to build a winning team.”  He requested to be traded and was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks for 1B Travis Lee, and pitchers Omar Daal, Vicente Padilla, and Nelson Figueroa.

Schilling teamed up with Randy ‘Big Unit’ Johnson to give Arizona 2 aces and helped lead the Diamondbacks to their 1st World Championship and later led the Boston Red Sox to their 1st World Championship in 86 years, finally releasing Boston from “the Curse of Ruth.”

On the other hand, Travis Lee had 2 1/3 mediocre offensive years with the Phils, Omar Daal was a collective 15-16 with the Phils for 2000, 2001,  Padilla was 44-42 with close to a 4.0 ERA in 4 average to mediocre years with the Phils and Nelson Figueroa who lasted only the 2001 season with a 4-5 mark.

In retrospect, the Phillies apparent lack of seriousness in building a winner brought about the Schilling deal due to management’s displeasure with him.  But Schilling’s mark over the past 6 years stands at 82-36, vs the 3 pitchers received by the Phils in the deal whose records were a collective wash.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 9:24 am and is filed under All Time Baseball Highlights, All Time Pitching Highlights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.