Friday, July 27, 20125,000 days since the Giles-Rincon tradePosted by Chris Jaffe 5,000 days ago, a rather one-sided trade took place. Admittedly, both sides got a good player in it, but one guy’s value was more than a little bit higher than what the other guy brought to the table. It was Nov. 18, 1998, and the Indians landed Pittsburgh reliever Ricardo Rincon for up-and-coming slugger Brian Giles. Now, Ricardo Rincon was a quality pitcher in the bullpen. After he spent seven years in Mexico, the Pirates picked him up and got a pair good seasons of middle relief from him. And he had a number of good seasons in front of him. Though Rincon could pitch, he couldn’t pitch much. A LOOGY, Rincon threw 443.2 innings in 565 career appearances with five teams over 11 years. He typically threw 40 innings per season. And with that little quantity, you didn’t trade away quality like Brian Giles. In his first year in Pittsburgh, 28-year-old Brian Giles came into his own, hitting 39 homers with 115 RBIs while batting .315. Oh, he also drew 95 walks. That set the tone for Giles in Pittsburgh. In four full seasons and part of a fifth, Giles batted .308 with 165 home runs. Giles received MVP support in each of his four full seasons there. While the trade didn’t work out for Cleveland, you can understand the Indians' logic. Giles was a late bloomer whose 10th big league at-bat came when he was 25 years old. In 1997-98, Giles got serious playing time, and while he was good he wasn’t great. At ages 26 and 27 he hit a little under .270 with about 20 homers. He was nice, but that was it.And the team already had guys who could hit. Manny Ramirez. Jim Thome. Yeah, they could hit a little. David Justice. Kenny Lofton. They had their advantages, too. Heck, even Travis Fryman had a good track record. Plus they had another kid coming up named Richie Sexson. But they could use some help in the bullpen. Their only left-handed reliever of note was Paul Assenmacher. He was very good for a great many years, but he was going to be 39 in 1999. He couldn’t last forever—and in fact he fell apart completely in 1999. And Rincon was a legitimately good LOOGY. So Cleveland dealt a strength to address a weakness. That’s just sound baseball logic right there. But it came off looking like a terrible trade when Giles suddenly metamorphasized from a good hitter to an MVP candidate. Thus the trade is one Cleveland would probably like to have back. But it’s too late—5,000 days too late, to be precise.
Manny
My thought is that the FO gives Alomar the full-time gig and use nostalgia/good will with the fans to try and buy some time to rebuild. Thing is, IMO, the FO has less goodwill than they think.
