Franchise-to-Franchise Trade History – Baseball-Reference.com
Posted by Sean Forman on July 18, 2011
Find Franchise Trade History - Baseball-Reference.com
In honor of the trade deadline approaching, I've created a tool that will show you all of the trades between two franchises, or all of the most recent trades for any one franchise and every other franchise.
July 18th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
All transactions between the Dodgers and Giants since 1893. There have been only twelve trades in 119 seasons (and one, the Jackie Robinson trade, was voided).
Great idea, Sean! Will this tool reside on the same page as the multi-team and multi-franchise player search tool?
July 18th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
yes, the link to it will be on the frivolities section, though I will add it to teams main index also.
July 18th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
There is some very interesting stuff when you look at the trades (not purchases) the Philadelphia Athletics made with National League teams. I only found two so far, one with the Dodgers for Kermit Wahl, and another with the Cardinals for 3 players. it took another 30 years before the Athletics traded with the Cardinals again.
ZB
July 18th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
i'd love to see a 30x30 matrix
July 18th, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Sean, great idea! Thanks.
July 18th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Hard to believe that there have been no trades between the Rangers and Rays.
Great tool.
July 18th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
VERY cool... Thanks.
July 18th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
fantastic.. i completely love this.
Piggy backing on @6, does anyone have the time or interest in doing a little search to see the complete list of teams that have never made trades together? It surely can't be many right?
July 18th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Not sure if this is a feature but you appear to get all the trades for a ballclub if you enter the same team for both Franchise #1 and Franchise #2.
July 18th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Great idea. Another thing that I will check to learn one thing and then keep poking around in for hours
July 18th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Oh, very cool!
It's very interesting to see some of the odd peculiarities in frequency some teams made trades with each other.
For instance there's huge gaps of time between the Mets and the Yankees where they didn't even make a trade with each other. For instance, From July of 1967 to November of 1977 the Mets and Yankees never traded players. And then another gap occurs from October of 1993 until November of 2001 where they never made a trade.
After making trades pretty regularly from 1962-1988, The Mets and the Pirates didn't make a trade with each other from April 1988 until March of 1997.
The Mets and Braves were regular trade partners when the Braves were in the NL west but since their move to the NL East in 1994, they've only made 2 trades together.
The Mets haven't made a trade with either the A's or the Phillies since 2001.
July 18th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
The Philadelphia A's and Phillies never made a trade. The Phillies purchased two A's players. That's it. Presumably the bad blood from the A's stealing their players never went away.
To add to the "two teams that never traded" list is the Phillies and Rockies
July 18th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Some years ago, somebody compiled a neat book of baseball cards for all the players involved in Cubs-White Sox trades. For all the foofraw over the "rivalry" between the two clubs, I was surprised there were so many deals between the two.
For a stretch of time the Cubs and Phillies were making trades, some of which enabled the Cubs to win the division in 1984.
And check out Athletics-Yankees. That list supports what I read as a kid, just rumors back then, that there was an under-the-table agreement in which the Yanks would subsidize the A's through trades and player purchases. The A's developed the players like a minor league team, and the Yanks had first dibs on whether to buy them when the A's could no longer afford to keep them. Would Roger Maris have hit 61 HR playing in KC?
July 18th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
21 transactions between the Yankees and Athletics in a 10 year period (1952-1961) including 6 in 1959
July 18th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/corner/c042001b.shtml
Good article on the Athletics-Yankees trades
July 18th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
I quickly scanned the Yankees/Dodgers pairing, and the most significant deals helped set up front office relationships.
In separate transactions, the Yankees sent Tommy Lasorda to the Dodgers, and years later the Dodgers sent Gene Michael to the Yankees.
(I find that interesting...)
July 18th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
The only two Browns-Cardinals trades:
June 11, 1949: Browns traded Don Richmond to Cardinals for Bobby Young.
June 30, 1932: Cardinals traded Showboat Fisher to Browns for Tom Jenkins.
July 18th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
First trade ever between the Braves and Red Sox:
May 17, 1960: Milwaukee Braves traded Ray Boone to Boston Red Sox for Ron Jackson.
They started slow — Boone was in the final season of his career, and Jackson never played an inning for Milwaukee.
July 18th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Before 1959, interleague trading was not permitted, but sales of players were. That's why you had so many players whose careers were just in the American League or the National League. When a player did change leagues, it was either because he was sold or because he was released and then caught on with a team in the other league.
So it makes sense that the Philadelphia A's and Phillies never made a trade with each other or that the Braves and Red Sox didn't make a trade with each other until 1960, after the Braves had moved to Milwaukee.
July 18th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
@ 19 - was it a rule or just really frowned upon so that interleague trading could not occur? Because in post 17 there are Cards-Browns deals. Just checking quickly the Braves-Yankees made deals before 1959. And Enos Slaughter was traded from the Cardinals to the Yankees in 1954. It looks like purchasing players was much more common than trading them pre-1960, regardless of league.
Looking at three consecutive Cardinals/Orioles deals:
June 1983 - Floyd Rayford sent to the Cardinals for player to be named later (Tito Landrum)
March 24, 1984 - Tito Landrum sent to the Cardinals for Jose Brito
March 30, 1984 - Cash ($$$, not Dave or Norm) sent to the Cardinals for Floyd Rayford
Apparently the Cardinals could not live without Landrum and the Orioles needed Rayford.
Also, any idea who the Mets received (if anyone) when they sent Mike Jacobs to the Blue Jays last summer? It's listed as a player to be named later, but that was a year ago.
July 18th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
I didn't think it was a rule or frowned upon, but that players had to pass through waivers before they could be traded to the other league.
July 18th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I always thought certain GMs get cozy with one another.
I remember tons of trades between the Dodgers and Mets in the late 80's early 90's.
I think I'll go look into that.
Thanks Sean.
Welcome back Cotter... err, I mean Twisto.
July 19th, 2011 at 2:24 am
@13 Phil,
I think the main reason for all those Cubs-Phillies trades in the early 80's came about because Dallas Green was hired to be the Cubs G.M. after the 1981 season. He started making a lot of trades to acquire Phillies players that he liked. There were a bunch of ex-Phillies on that '84 team, actually the whole outfield was ex Phillies (Mathews, Dernier, and Moreland). Then they had Sandberg and Bowa in the infield. Dick Ruthven & Dickie Knolls were on the pitching staff. I think he acquired ex-Phillie Warren Brusster from the ChiSox as well.
All the trades from '81-84 went in the Cubs favor. The only decent player the Phillies received was Mike Krukow but they would trade him a year later with Mark Davis for one year of a 39 year old Joe Morgan.
The Phillies could have been a very good team in the 80's but they traded away so many good young players and got little or nothing back in return.
July 19th, 2011 at 2:53 am
Great info Sean and everyone else -- thanks.
And K-Tuna @1: Thanks for briefly pointing out the Jackie Robinson trivia. I've always loved the fact that he decided to retire rather than play for the rival Giants! Sal "The Barber" Maglie made the difficult switch, but Jackie didn't want to go there!
July 19th, 2011 at 4:33 am
Thanks a lot for adding this. I used the bar that listed each team's most recent trade with each other team, and found that the longest current such drought by any pair of teams is by the Royals and Twins, who haven't made a transaction since Royals purchased Randy Bass from the Twins on April 4, 1978. If you don't count purchases, their last trade was on October 24, 1973, when the Royals traded Tom Burgmeier to the Twins for Ken Gill (who never played in the majors). Those are the only two transactions they've ever made.
July 19th, 2011 at 8:19 am
Ah, most of what I thought were trades were just coincidence.
Gary Carter, Sid Fernandez, Juan Samuel, Roger McDowel, and others all arrived at the dodgers via other routes.
July 19th, 2011 at 9:59 am
From Nov. 21 to Dec. 15, 1959 waiver-free interleague trading was allowed for the first time.
July 19th, 2011 at 11:15 am
@13-just finished Peter Golenbock's book, Dynasty, about the Yankees
from 1947-1964. Fantastic book, which confirms your suspicions re: Yanks and A's as trade partners.
In fact, Yankee Pennant's in 56,57,58, and 60-64, are at least partially due
to some very willing trade partners in KC. How many would be a very interesting debate.
July 19th, 2011 at 11:16 am
I should have included 1955 as well.
July 19th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Wow...Yankees and Red Sox have not made a trade since 1997...the Tony Armas / Mike Stanley trade. A whole lot of players have played for both teams since then, but obviously not switching directly via trade.
July 19th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Trades between the Cubs and Cardinals were pretty much an annual occurrence before December 1980, when Chicago traded Bruce Sutter to St. Louis. In the 30+ seasons since then, the teams have traded with each other only twice more:
6/16/95, Cardinals traded Todd Zeile and cash to Cubs for Mike Morgan and minor leaguers Francisco Morales and Paul Torres.
8/25/02, Cubs traded Jeff Fassero to Cardinals for two PTBNLs, who turned out to be Jared Blasdell and Jason Karnuth.
No direct player purchases since 1980, either.
July 19th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
@28 Iron Horse,
There was a good book that came out a few years ago about the Yankees and A's disreputable relationship during the 50's and early 60's.
http://www.amazon.com/Kansas-City-Wrong-Half-Yankees/dp/0977743659/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Essentially the Yankees controlled 2 of the 8 teams in the American League during the late 50's. It's a fairly complex entanglement. Essentially Arnold Johnson owned Yankee Stadium and then bought the moribund Philadelphia A's and was permitted to move the team to K.C. as long as he sold Yankee Stadium. The rumor was that the A's move would be temporary as soon as Johnson could get a good deal from L.A. Once the Dodgers moved in '57 moving to L.A. was kind of moot.
Johnson meanwhile had many obligations to the Yankees owners Webb & Topping partly because Webb's construction company had rebuilt Municipal Stadium in K.C. Johnson was in debt to Webb for about $3 million so it's believed that Johnson was obligated to make favorable deals to the Yankees because of this debt.
Maris, Terry and Clete Boyer were the best players the Yankees received from the A's. The Yankees actually traded Terry to the A's and then got him back for next to nothing.
All of the Yankees A.L. Championships from 1956, '57, '58, '60, '61, '62, '63 and '64 should really be looked upon with an asterisk because of this relationship.
It's interesting, 8 guys throwing 1 WS is seen as the greatest scandal in the game yet here's One team controlling two teams in an 8-10 team league for 7-10 years.
July 19th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
I'm late to the party here, Sean, but great feature.
@32
John Q., go to the link that Charles included in post #15. It documents, trade by trade in those years, how the Yankees used the Athletics as a farm/player development team.
"It's interesting, 8 guys throwing 1 WS is seen as the greatest scandal in the game yet here's One team controlling two teams in an 8-10 team league for 7-10 years."
John Q., do you figure a stronger commissioner would have called the Yankees on their dealings or were they too prestigious a franchise to be disciplined?
July 19th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
@33 Neil,
It's pretty amazing the amount of players the Yankees received from the A's when you read Charles' link. I think it's debatable if they would have won in '55, '56, '57 '58 with/without those trades. Mantle was having one of the best Four year spans in the history of baseball and he really should have won the MVP award 4 consecutive seasons.
On the other hand they made a lot of moves from KC that indirectly helped them in '55-58. Harry Bryd was traded to the Yanks and then sent to Baltimore to get Don Larsen & Bob Turley.
The A's would "Purchase" worn-out players like Ewell Blackwell in 1955 who was out of baseball for 2 years yet they paid $50,000 for is services. To put it in perspective, Mickey Mantle was earning $17,000 in 1955. Seriously why didn't the Yankee just point a gun at the A's?
Then the A's would "purchase" a guy like Lou Sleater. Sleater went on to post a 1-1 record with a 7.71 era in 25 innings pitched for the A's.
1960-1964 is a different story. There's no way the Yankees win 5 consecutive pennants or any pennants without Maris, Terry and Boyer.
As far as the Commissioner goes, I guess the Yankees had way too much power and clout for a commissioner to act in the best interest of baseball. I find it ironic that Frick was so worried about the integrity of "The Babe" and his record yet he wasn't worried about the integrity of the entire baseball regular and post-season.
July 19th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Wow. I've known about all the trades NY made with KC. I had never heard about their owners' various business entanglements forcing the A's to purposely make bad deals with the Yanks. That's outrageous. I guess I'll have to check that book out.
July 19th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Follow-up to my post #13 re: Yanks-A's trades, which seems to have generated some debate here. My point was that, at the time these deals were going on, there were rumors of something improper, but I don't recall any real reportage of it until years later when books started coming out. The commissioner, Ford Frick, was basically a National League guy, and yes, Yankee power may have been an intimadting factor. Also keep in mind that sportswriters probably left the story alone because Frick was a former sportswriter, and they wouldn't want to make him look bad. They even named a Hall of Fame award for him later on. It wasn't just the trades, it was the connections at the ownership-management level that stunk. And keep in mind that the commissioner is hired by the owners. But baseball is exempt from anti-trust regulations because it's not a business, according to the lawyers, so beyond the commissioner, who could have done much about the situation anyway?
July 19th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Here are how many games ahead the Yankees finished from 1960-64
8-8-5-10.5-1
In 1964, Maris had 4.2 WAR. Could they have found that in another player if they did not have him? Might be interesting to look at who was traded, who else they had that could have been in RF. But 1964 sure looks like a year it could have mattered
July 19th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
But baseball is exempt from anti-trust regulations because it's not a business, according to the lawyers, so beyond the commissioner, who could have done much about the situation anyway?
Congress, by holding hearings in 1958 to examine whether to allow MLB to keep its antitrust exemption. Also the magnates who drew up the plans for the Continental League. The two main consequences of these events, expansion and the amateur draft, seem pretty tame to us today, but they at least forced the Yankees to operate under some of the same uncertainties faced by the other American League franchises.
do you figure a stronger commissioner would have called the Yankees on their dealings?
I wasn't asked, but I think a stronger commissioner should have disbanded the Yankees franchise at the end of the 1965 season, transferred the Mets to the AL, awarded an expansion NL franchise to Seattle, and arranged for the Beatles to purchase Yankee Stadium as a concert venue.
July 19th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
@37 Cyril,
Well in 1964 Boyer and Terry were pretty terrible so you can take them off. Maris like you said had a 4.3 WAR.
1964 was very tight race with the Yankees only winning by 1 game. Without Maris they're about 3 games back behind the White Sox and the Orioles. Could they have gotten someone with at least a 3 war to play rf? Maybe but it would have cost them.
The crux of the problem with getting players like Maris, Terry, and Boyer the way they did is that it didn't cost the Yankees anything. If they wanted Maris in a fair deal, then it would have cost them legitimate prospects. If they had made the mistake of trading Terry to another team, then they wouldn't have been able to get him back for nothing.
With the arrangements they had with each other who knows if the Yankee-A's games were even on the level all the time. For instance, the Yankees played the A's 6 times in September of 1964. Going into the month, the Yankees were in 3rd place, they ended up going 6-0 against the A's. It's not even that the A's were good, they were a terrible team but an arrangement like that opens a lot of questions.
July 20th, 2011 at 7:24 am
TEAM PCT 1947-55 PCT 1956-64
Athletics 0.657 0.731
Senators/Twins 0.689 0.635
Indians 0.561 0.626
Red Sox 0.558 0.610
White Sox 0.626 0.588
Browns/Orioles 0.753 0.538
Tigers 0.596 0.522
July 20th, 2011 at 7:30 am
The Athletics had 4 winning seasons from 1947 to 1955, 0 from 1956 to 1964. Yankees had 18
RECOVERY:
From 1968 to 1976 Athletics had 9 winning seasons, 5 playoffs, 3 WS
From 1968 to 1976 Yankees had 7 winnining seasons, 1 playoff
July 20th, 2011 at 9:12 am
@ 39 The first 3 games of the six were close with either 1 or 2 runs difference. The last 3 games were decided by 4 or more, but the Yankees were on a roll in the midst of an 11 game winning streak and they left their starting rotation intact for the second set of 3 games. They were 24-9 in their September and October losing at least one game to all the teams they played except the Athletics. They did not play Boston, Chicago and Baltimore. They only won 4 of the last 8 after the 11 game streak. One more loss and they would have tied Chicago. They were 8-10 vs Baltimore and 12-6 vs the White Sox. On Sept. 3 they were 4 games behind Chicago and 3 behind Baltimore. They eliminated Baltimore on Oct.2, Chicago on Oct. 3 and finished on Oct. 4.
Chicago finished 18-10 (7-0 vs Athletics) to finish 1 game back, winning their last 9.
Baltimore finished 18-13 (3-3 vs Athletics) to finish 2 games back, winning 7 of the last 8.
July 20th, 2011 at 10:07 am
[...] amazing Sean Foreman has created a tool at Baseball-Reference.com that lets you look up trade history between two teams. There goes your afternoon, [...]
July 20th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Reply to post #38 Kahuna Tuna: in the wake of the McCarthy hearings, Congress was still embroiled in rooting out Commies instead of the Kansas City A's, but I did find this quote (www.baseball-almanac.com) from those anti-trust hearings. They weren't specifically looking at the Yankees-A's relationship, but one of their expert witnesses kind of touched base with them on the subject. . .
"Senator Kefauver: One further question, and then I will pass the other Senators. How many players do the Yankees control, Mr. Stengel?
Mr. Stengel: Well, I will tell you: I hire the players and if they make good with me I keep them without criticism from my ownership. I do not know how many players they own as I am not a scout and I cannot run a ball club during the daytime and be busy at night and up the next day and find out how many players that the Yankees own. If you get any official with the Yankees that is here, why he could give you the names.
"
July 20th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I wonder whose testimony Kefauver enjoyed more, Stengel's or Frank Costello's.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=61192