Thursday Trade Tracker: Seattle Mariners. Butch, Putz, and Timmy Trumpet

Super Bowl Sunday marks the end of the football season, and more importantly, the start of spring training. Just seeing simple video of the Mets walking from their cars, maybe they are wearing headphones, maybe they are in sweats, and maybe their thoughts are a million miles away. Baseball is back. Bring it on.

Honoring the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks, 14-2 in the regular seaon, seems warranted. Their Seattle brethren, the Mariners, have had many little uninteresting trades with the Mets. However, there have been two that rocked Mets history. One of them had 12 players change teams!

Congratulations, Seahawks. Are Jim Zorn, Steve Largent, and Kenny Easley still playing?

July 26, 2024. Mets get RHP Ryan Stanek for OF Rhylan Thomas.

Getting the 100-mph thrower Stanek for the pennant run seemed like a no-brainer. Stanek had a few good years with Tampa, and after a stop in Miami, he was signed as a free agent by Houston. He pitched three seasons for the Astros, but let's focus in on 2022. This is not a typo...59 games; 62 strikeouts in 55 innings; and a 1.15 ERA. Incredible! A Rivera-like 7 earned runs in 55 innings. The Mets hoped they were getting that guy. In 17 games after the Mets got him in 2024, he gave up 11 earned runs in 16 innings. Yikes. That's a 6.06 ERA! He was better in the post season, giving up only 3 runs in 8 innings. But I think it was 9 strikeouts in those few innings that pulled the Mets to re-sign him. Like putting the soon to be mentioned Butch Huskey at third base, the signing of Stanek was an error. Stanek pitched 56 innings last year, but threw to a disgraceful 5.30 ERA. Was it me, or did every game he came into seemed to be in reach before Stanek's walks and homers made sure the crowd would go home quite upset.

In the last game of the year, in which almost everyone was to blame, Stanek was particularly heinous, giving up 2 hits and 2 earned runs in one third of an inning in the eventual 4-0 loss. I put the blame on Mickey Callaway and Cobra Joe Frazier!

Outfielder Thomas made his major league debut last year and went 1-8.

TEACHER SAYS C. This was tough, but the only reason it wasn't an F was because he gave the team some quality innings in the playoffs.

December 14, 1998. Mets get RHP Leslie Brea for INF/OF Butch Huskey.

Spring training starts this week, so I must mention one of the best spring training hitters in Mets history: Butch Huskey! The 6 foot 3, 244 pound aptly named Huskey would send that ball into orbit at Port St. Lucie. At Shea Stadium? Not so much. Butch spent parts of 5 seasons with the Mets, with the team always hoping that Florida sunshine power could find it's way to the majors. Butch won the third base job to start 1996 because the Mets traded away future Hall of Famer Jeff Kent! Only in 1997, when he hit .287 with 24 homers and 81 RBI, did he seem to be flirting with potential. Other than that, it was a whole lot of weak grounders to second base.

Butch was one of the last Mets to wear #42. He was wearing it the day MLB retired the number in a ceremony at Shea featuring then President Bill Clinton. (Guess who was there? Your Gump of the Mets). Players were allowed to keep wearing 42 if they wanted, but Huskey eventually went to 44 as a member of the Red Sox. Last Met to wear 42? That would be Mo Vaughn.

Other spring training monsters include Dom Smith, Darren Reed, and Luis Guillorme. Although Guillorme was remembered in spring for catching a bat with his bare hands which flung into the dugout after slipping out of a batter's hands, and a 22-pitch at bat.

Brea managed to put up an unsightly 12.27 ERA in 11 innings with the Orioles, who got Brea from the Mets in the Mora-Bordick trade.

Crazy Butch Huskey trivia...he was featured in a song by Yo La Tengo, called "Moby Octopad." Here's the chorus:

Eight o'clock, the lights are on at Shea

Phone turned down, we've nothing much to say

Dozing off, the TV drones

Huskey makes the turn and heads for home.

TEACHER SAYS D. We got nothing, but gave up nothing. Oh Butch, what could have been. Maybe he would have been in more songs.

December 11, 2008. Mets get RHP Sean Green, RHP J.J. Putz, and OF Jeremy Reed for OFs Endy Chavez and Ezequiel Carrera, pitchers Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith (who went to Cleveland), Jason Vargas, and Maikel Cleto, and 1B Mike Carp.

Also included in this monstrous 3-team trade : Franklin Gutierrez and Luis Valbuena, but they weren't Mets in either direction.

J.J. Putz was the big fish for the Mets in this deal. Combining the 6'5", 250-pound Putz with Frankie Rodriguez (K-Rod) seemed like a dominant combination to start the a new stadium in 2009. Sports Illustrated picked the Mets to finish in first place and even wrote, "With Putz and Rodriguez, the Mets have what it takes to win the games that they should, including the very last baseball game of 2009." What could go wrong?

Putz (pronounced "puts" like "he puts the Yankee hat in the garbage" not like the yiddish word for...well, maybe ask your bubbe), was coming off save years of 36, 40, and 15 with Seattle. His 40 saves in 2007 came with a 1.38 ERA. He was the first Mariner to win the Relief man of the Year Award. His only year as a Met had him pitch in only 29 games with a 5.22 ERA. Looks like Stanek numbers to me. Of course, like many players in Mets history, Putz winds up in Arizona where he has seasons of 45 and 32 saves!

Mr. Putz had a dorm mate at the University of Michigan who would achieve a little fame himself. Tom Brady! (You guys are ready for trivia night!)

Sean Green (no relation to me or former Met Shawn Green), put up a season like the back of his baseball card. 79 games with a 4.52 ERA.

The Mets gave up Endy Chavez (The Catch), who would have 5 more years left, but with a negative WAR in 2 of them. Mike Carp had an 8 year career with Seattle, Boston, and Texas, with the highlight being a 12 homer, 46 RBI season in 2011. Jason Vargas, who had only pitched two games with the Mets at the time, went on to win 93 more major league games! Not bad for a guy that couldn't throw near 90 mph. His highlight was an All-Star season with the Royals in 2017 where he won 18 games.

Vargas was most known as a Met for an almost altercation in the locker room. A reporter questioned manager Callaway about a move (question the great Callaway? How could he? By the way, it sickened me every time I had to see Mickey wearing Jerry Koosman's 36). It featured the manager cursing and threatening the reporter and Vargas chiming in with, "I'll knock you the ---- out, bro." Big dudes Carlos Gomez and Noah Syndergaard are credited with holding back Vargas.

Heilman was a starter for the Mets before blowing a bunch of games in the bullpen. A few years back, I made a negative comment on a Mets page when someone brought up Heilman. Heilman's former teammate Steve Trachsel gave me an "angry face" emoji!!! Guess you always stick up for your teammates.

Joe Smith, who pitched in the last game at Shea, had a very long career after leaving the Mets. Smith pitched a total of 15 years in the bigs. The submarine style pitcher threw almost 900 major league games. He was the last Mets player still active to have pitched at Shea. Remember, Shea closed in 2008 and Smith went to 2022. Plain name, terrific career.

TEACHER SAYS F. Putz was no help, but Smith was stellar and Vargas wound up being useful. Even Gutierrez had some good years in Seattle, one of them with a 6.6 WAR. But we all would have made that trade to get J.J.

December 3, 2018. Mets get 2B Robinson Cano and RHP Edwin Diaz for pitchers Gerson Bautista, Justin Dunn, and Anthony Swarzak, OFs Jay Bruce and Jarred Kelenic.

This is the biggie. So many years later, we are still hearing about this trade. It took years to see that the Mets won the deal. Jeff Wilpon shocked the baseball world by hiring an agent to be the Mets GM. Brodie Van Wagenen was an extremely successful agent, getting a guaranteed $137 million dollar contract for Yoenis Cespedes and $240 million for Robinson Cano from the Mariners. He was also Jacob DeGrom's and Tim Tebow's agent. Best Brodie Trivia? His wife's step-father was astronaut Neil Armstrong!

Van Wagenen was brutalized in the press over this trade all because of taking on a ridiculous amount of money for the slowing down and future steroid case Cano and giving up another "Next Mickey Mantle" in Kelenic. Kelenic hit .181 and .141 in his first two years. He never found success, having only 60 at bats last year. Last month, he signed a minor league deal with the White Sox.

Cano was on a Hall of Fame pace with over 2,600 hits and 335 homers. He had 6 seasons with top 10 MVP finishes and was an 8-time All-Star. He would later miss the 2021 season with a PED suspension.

Of course, Edwin Diaz won this trade for the Mets. Timmy Trumpet was at his electric best in 2022. In 62 innings, he struck out 118 batters! Since I'm a math teacher, that's about 2 per inning with a 0.839 WHIP. No one got on base against him. Diaz had a 1.31 ERA. That's Bob Gibson territory. Last year, he was just as good. Diaz fashioned a 1.63 ERA with a 0.874 WHIP. Diaz finished his Mets career third all-time in saves after John Franco and Armando Benitez.

Jay Bruce was a very underrated player. An excellent outfielder with a strong arm, Bruce finished with 319 home runs. That tied him with the Fielder family, Cecil and Prince. Bruce had more home runs than Hall of Famers Scott Rolen, Ivan Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, Ryne Sandberg, Brooks Robinson, and George Brett!

TEACHER SAYS A. Sorry, Brodie, you're really a genius. How did you know Kelenic wouldn't be a star?

Names from other Mets-Mariners transactions include Wayne Twitchell, Rick Sweet, Gene Walter, Blas Minor, Chris Flexen, and Allen Watson.