Trade tid-bits

At one point, Ryan Langerhans was said to have a better future in baseball than that of Andruw Jones. Let me catch someone’s mistake and clarify that as complete bullshit.

Langerhans is involved in a very interesting season. You see, Langerhans began his season with the Atlanta Braves by going 3 for44, which equates out to a .068 average at the dish. It was so bad that when I was combing through the box scores one morning, I looked at that average and actually said out loud “oh shit”, wondering who this poor sap was.

The Braves probably became as aware as I was at that moment that they might have been a bit wrong on the projection of Langerhans’ once promising big league career. He was traded to the Oakland Athletics for hayseed, and a yo-yo. They just wanted to get rid of him, they didn’t want his shitty hitting to spread through the Braves clubhouse like a virus, an unstoppable rebel force.

Langerhans arrived in Oakland, missed a routine fly ball in centerfield against the Red Sox, and went 0 for 4, striking out twice in parts of two games with the Athletics. However, he did have a walk!

Promptly the A’s realized what they’d traded for, and became angry. Afterall the yo-yo was a collectors item, and they promptly shipped Langerhans’ inept ass to the Washington Nationals for ‘future considerations’. The ‘future considerations’ are rumored to be a get out of jail free card in monopoly, a coupon for a free soft drink at any Speedway Gas Station (good until 7/31/2007), and some mojito mix.

When you get traded twice in one week, and you’re hitting 1/3 of your weight, and wind up in baseball purgatory that is the Washington Nationals, you might start to have some doubts about your abilities. Personally, I’d just like to see his slump continue and become the first major leaguer ever with 300+ at-bats in a season to hit under .100, and I’m going to keep at least an eye on his sorry ass each time he appears in the box score.

Another trade tid-bit is what I realized about former Cleveland Indians infielder John McDonald.

Mcdonald was traded for himself. He was sent by the Toronto Blue Jays to the Detroit Tigers for a player to be named later on July 22, 2005- a date that will live in infamy forever in huge-trade history not really. Then on November 10, 2005 (the day I turned 22 years of age), Mr. McDonald was sent back to the Toronto Blue Jays as the player to be named later. Yes, in essence, McDonald was traded for himself. Talk about feeling unwanted. Can you just imagine how the conversation went?

Blue Jays: “Hey, so what about that player you owe us we gave you for that one guy, the infielder?”
Tigers: “Yeah, we were thinking about that, and we got a look at him in the second half of the summer and we decided that we don’t really want him that bad, so we are thinking about sending him back, to complete the deal.”
Blue Jays: “Hmmmm, that’s interesting. Give us a voucher for a steak dinner somewhere nice and we’ll call it even.”
Tigers: “Nope, we’re not budging on this one. McDonald, or you get nothing and like it.”
Blue Jays: “Alright fuck it. Send him back.”