Traded: Inside the Most Lopsided Trades in Baseball History
Written by Doug Decatur

Have you ever wondered who truely won a baseball trade? It’s easy to look at a trade after the fact to determine the winner. The Cardinals obviously took the Cubs in the Ernie Broglio/Lou Brock deal, but how much did it contribute to the team?

Doug Decatur, a former baseball statistical consultant, decided to look at the future win shares a team received and lost in deals from the 20th Century. He ranks the 306 most lopsided deal, looks at the net future win shares each team recieved in those deals, and identifies the red flags in lopsided deals.

Decatur starts out by giving a little background on his project and how he came to use win shares as his measure of choice. He then lists the 306 lopsided trades (#306 is the Expos receiving Denny Martinez and John Stefero from the Orioles for Rene Gonzalez; the Expos netted 111 future win shares). He then analyzes the trades by team, ranking the teams by total net future win shares in those deals. He breaks down the top 5 trades, their bottom 5 trades, how their trades effected world champions (or 90+ win teams if a team hasn’t won a world series), and the best GM based off the trades listed.

The book is a fun read and informative. The only problem I had was with using total future win shares to evaluate the trade. It may show what a team received, but most of the time the players doesn’t achieve the full win share for the team they were traded to. For example, trade #163 was the Reds picking up a net future win share of 157 by acquiring Paul Konerko and Dennys Reyes from the Dodgers for Jeff Shaw. Konerko picked up a majority of his win shares playing for the White Sox. It doesn’t truely reflect what the Reds picked up.

That gripe withstanding, I’d still recommend the book to baseball fans, especially those who follow baseball trades like I do. Rating: 4.5/5