Neifi Perez - The Worst Season in Recent History

I just remembered why I didn't like Allard Baird.

about 3 years ago kcinstl 22 comments 0 recs |

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he was the beginning of a huge suck at shortstop

Angel B-error-a
Tony Pena, Jr.

thank you, whoever made the decision, for bringing Aviles up last summer

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. - Collected sayings of Muad'Dib

by buddyball on Dec 26, 2008 7:20 PM EST reply actions

I like what Retro once said about Neifi...

“If I ever see him around, I might challenge him to a fight. After all, I know he can’t hit.”

On the brighter side of things, at least Ed Hearn is closing in on eight years of no longer being the guy involved in the worst trade in franchise history. Go him.

by DarthYoshi on Dec 26, 2008 7:33 PM EST reply actions

uhh...ed hearn is still a worse trade...

do you realize how good david cone was from 87-92 with the mets?

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Dec 26, 2008 7:57 PM EST up reply actions

Dye/Perez is a worse trade for a number of reasons

First and foremost, few people at the time thought that the Cone/Hearn trade was a bad idea, since at the time, Cone was simply a decent reliever, and nobody was projecting him as a future staff ace. When the Dye/Perez trade went down, everybody and their mother knew it was an awful, awful move by Allard Baird.

There was no logical reason to trade for Neifi (we still had Rey Sanchez at that point, he played excellent defense and even though it was his contract year, he would have probably been cheaper to re-sign than Neifi). Retro does a very good job of debunking the idea that we traded Dye in order to dump salary—the Royals saved less than $3M/yr on the deal. There was a logical, albeit slightly ridiculous, reason to trade for Hearn—Jim Sundberg was pretty clearly done for, and Mike Macfarlane was still a ways from the majors, and the Royals had no real in-house options for a starting catcher in the meantime.

I’m not talking simply about the lost production—in both cases, the Royals traded away a bona fide All-Star for crap. I’m fully aware of how dominant Cone was in New York. But I’m saying that the Hearn/Cone trade at least made a modicum of sense at the time. Nothing about the Perez/Dye trade made sense. Nothing. It was and is the worst trade in Royals franchise history. Hearn/Cone comes in at #2 because it wasn’t nearly as nonsensical.

by DarthYoshi on Dec 26, 2008 8:23 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

6 years of bona fide all star cy young competitor versus a borderline all star outfielder...

for what?…3 years?

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Dec 26, 2008 8:41 PM EST up reply actions

Do you seriously not get what I'm saying?

This isn’t about the production lost on either side. Expecting John Schuerholz to know that Cone would become such a great SP in New York is like expecting me to know whether it will rain in London a year from today. Hearn for Cone was a bad trade, but it was a logical trade to make. There was a reason for why it happened. There was no reason why the Dye/Perez trade had to happen (or, if Dye had to be traded, why it had to be for Neifi Perez).

Or, put differently, Dye was an All-Star game starter when we traded him. David Cone was an above average RP when we traded him. See the difference?

by DarthYoshi on Dec 26, 2008 8:49 PM EST up reply actions

yes...i get what you're saying i guess...

i just dont really agree. cone was a stud starting pitcher in the minors…traded for a meh minor league catcher…who didnt really project as a mlb starting catcher…besides, MacFarlane was a better player who was a couple of years younger at the same level already in our organization.

you cant really use rey sanchez as a reason to not trade for a SS of the future…he was old, didnt play great defense and OPSed in the 600s

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Dec 26, 2008 8:56 PM EST up reply actions

Two ways to look at a trade

You can evaluate it years later based on how the players performed after the trade. Or you can evaluate it at the time. Few saw Cone as a future star. He was a good prospect, but not a great one. He pitched pretty well in the low minors but with consistent control problems and then got to AA at 21 and had a poor seasons (ok ERA, horrible peripherals). Then he missed his entire age 22 season due to injury. He pitched well at age 23 in AAA before being called up to the majors where he showed absolutely no control. I wouldn’t have liked the trade at the time, because Cone still had good upside potential, but I wouldn’t have thought that the Royals were trading away a pitcher who was about to become great.

In the Cone trade, the Royals new they were trading away a very good, young player and instead of trading him for good, young, cheap talent, they traded him for a known quantity piece of crap.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 26, 2008 9:18 PM EST up reply actions

well...i prefer to look at it in the way of what became of the trade....

the thing about the Dye trade is that he was about to become expensive and there wasnt a chance in hell we were going to resign him at that point. We thought we were getting our SS of the future and had nobody in the pipeline. With Hearn, he wasnt any good and we had a better, younger in house option in MacFarlane. So with, Cones potential at the time and what became of him, I consider this to be a far worse trade than the Dye trade. I even think the Beltran trade was worse. Not that we got nothing back from Beltran, but its just that he was such an elite talent.

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Dec 26, 2008 9:28 PM EST up reply actions

he thing about the Dye trade is that he was about to become expensive and there wasnt a chance in hell we were going to resign him at that point.

I didn’t have any problem with trading him. If the Royals couldn’t afford him, then the thing to do is trade him and not just let him go to free agency. But the issue, as always, is what did they get for him.

We thought we were getting our SS of the future and had nobody in the pipeline.

You see, that’s the problem. For anyone to think that Neifi Perez was the SS of the future for the Royals was breathtaking incompetence. When the Royals got him, he was 28, so he was essentially at his peak. There was no reason to believe he was going to be getting better. And he had never hit well, despite playing in Colorado. Park and league normalize his numbers before he got to KC and looked a lot like Tony Pena Jr. in 2007. Good defense, horrible hitting. So the trade looked horrible at the time, and played out to be even worse.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 26, 2008 9:37 PM EST up reply actions

wasnt perez one of those guys who aged 3 years overnight?

If Im recalling incorrectly, then that changes my perception of the trade

TPJ...you're dead to me

by billybeingbilly on Dec 26, 2008 9:41 PM EST up reply actions

I'm calling shenanigans on Neifi as our "SS of the future"

First, as NYRoyal points out, Perez was 28 at the time of the trade. He was at his peak, and his peak was, well, really crappy.

Second, at the time, we had Angel Berroa lighting up AA pitching like a Christmas tree that season. The reason we had traded away Johnny Damon the previous year was to obtain our SS of the future. Perez was not supposed to be our SS of the future, Berroa was (of course, we all know how that turned out too, but Berroa was much more highly regarded at the time).

Third, and this is an aside, but Rey Sanchez was a way better SS than Perez, which says a lot considering Sanchez was, I think, 34 at the time and Perez was 28. Sanchez committed very few errors and stacked up well in many defensive metrics. And as bad as his offensive production was, he was still significantly better at the plate than Perez. We could have afforded to keep Sanchez around for another year while Berroa kept developing.

by DarthYoshi on Dec 27, 2008 12:15 AM EST up reply actions

Second, at the time, we had Angel Berroa lighting up AA pitching like a Christmas tree that season.

Good point. Berroa was acquired in that trade to be the Royals SS of the future, and Berroa’s minor league performance was making it look like he really would be. Perez was a space filler who I guess was supposed to help the Royals win a few more games right now. That was a short-sighted strategy and a very poorly executed one at that. And you’re right that Rey Sanchez was a better short-term strategy who the Royals didn’t have to give up Dye for.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 27, 2008 12:23 AM EST up reply actions

+1

One thing to remember, too, is that at the time of Cone-for-Hearn, Macfarlane was coming off rotator cuff surgery. Although he was a decent prospect, in early 1987, the surgery had to have made him a bit of a question mark.

I would vote for the second Cone trade as worse than the first.

by jbrocato on Dec 26, 2008 10:40 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

Dye for Perez

May have been the worst trade in Major League history. Everyone knew it was a horrible trade THEN, not in hindsight or after a breakout. I nearly vomited when I heard about the trade, and Perez was the impetus for me to temporarily (the 2nd year) stop purchasing tickets until he was gone

by KHAZAD on Dec 26, 2008 10:46 PM EST up reply actions

I had to reply to myself

because thinking about this trade STILL makes me livid. I would have rather had 1 single A prospect or just let Dye play out the year and leave. To me Baird should have been fired the very next day. Perez is the biggest bowl of suck to ever be a full season starter for the Royals and on top of that he was whiny and had zero hustle. There may not be a worse player with as many Major League games played in the history of the game. I think he made a deal with the devil.

by KHAZAD on Dec 26, 2008 10:56 PM EST up reply actions

Glass wouldn't have fired Baird over the Perez trade the day after

That being said, part of me wishes that if (and I’m not at all saying this was what happened) Glass had told Baird to trade Dye for Perez, that Baird would have resigned rather than make that trade, simply for Baird’s own sake. At least that way, Baird would not have destroyed his credibility to such an extent. You ask a random sampling of baseball people and Royals fans who Allard Baird is, and I guarantee you one of the five most frequent replies will be something along the lines of, “He’s the dumbass who flipped Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez.”

I would not go so far as to call it the worst trade in MLB history. Boston trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees probably takes the cake (or the hot dogs).

by DarthYoshi on Dec 27, 2008 12:05 AM EST up reply actions

My guess

I think back in those days that Glass was putting pressure on Moore to use scarce resources (both the limited payroll and the trading chips) to make immediate improvements on the team. I think that is why FA contracts went several older, established players, rather than getting one genuinely good player and filling in other positions with young, developing players. I think that is why Baird traded Dye for Perez. If my theory is true, then the problems were 1) that Glass was pushing short-sighted, immediate, small improvents, and 2) that Baird did a poor job of recognizing which players actually were improvements. Neifi was not.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 27, 2008 12:14 AM EST up reply actions

And if RamRam becomes a dominant closer where does his trade rank?

#3? Hell, I might rank it there anyway just for bringing us another first baseman when everybody on the team can play that position. Gordon, Teahen, Gload, Shealy, Butler, Ka’aihue, and Jacobs can all play there. What’s one more guy when you already have 6?

by AxDxMx on Dec 26, 2008 8:31 PM EST reply actions

Nunez was traded for Jacobs, RamRam was traded for Crisp

And I don’t think anyone expects Nunez to be a dominant closer, nor that he’ll regularly pitch healthy for compete seasons. That doesn’t mean it was a good trade. It wasn’t. That trade sucked. However, for this to be one of the worst trades in Royals history, Nunez would have to become more than a good setup man who is more than occasionally injured.

The immoderate moderator

by Scott McKinney on Dec 26, 2008 8:40 PM EST up reply actions