Good Morning. Happy Birthday Carson Benge.
On January 20th, 1984, the Chicago White Sox took Tom Seaver from the Mets as free agent compensation for losing Dennis Lamb to the Toronto Blue Jays. It was the "Free Agent Pool" - the result of the 50 day in-season baseball strike in the Summer of 1981. Owners wanted compensation when they lose a free agent just like Football had. The Players offered up the Pool System that allowed a team that lost a free agent to select from any other team's pooled players. The Mets, having hot prospects like Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling, Jesse Orosco and others projected those players letting Tom Seaver and his large salary available. The Mets thought his salary and age would keep him on the Mets. The White Sox took him anyway.
Mets returned to relevancy in 1984 winning 90 games, 6.5 games behind the Cubs and won 98 games in 1985, 3 games behind the Cardinals. Some speculate that Seaver would have been the difference on those staffs. That the Mets make the playoffs with him.
In Davey Johnson's book Bats - Davey talked about how the White Sox offered Seaver back to the Mets in 1985 for minor league outfielder John Christensen but Davey nixed the deal because he didn't want to commit to Seaver for the rest of 1985 and all of 1986. He wanted to prioritize the Mets group of young pitching.
For the full list of player the Mets protected see Greg Prince's column for Faith and Fear in Flushing: "Saving Ron Gardenhire (Instead of Tom Seaver)".
1984 |
1984: The Chicago White Sox claim 39-year-old pitcher Tom Seaver from the New York Mets as compensation for the loss of free agent pitcher Dennis Lamp to the Toronto Blue Jays. The Mets left Seaver off their protected list assuming (wrongly) that no team would want to select the aging star, who finished 1983 with a 9-14 record and a 3.55 ERA. But Seaver will improve to 15-11 with the White Sox this season.
Born on this date:
- Jesse Gonder (1936)
- Travis Taijeron (1989)
- Ali Sanchez (1997)
- Ariel Yera (1997)
- Willy Taveras (1998)
- Gregory Guerrero (1999)
- Nathan Lavender (2000)
- Carson Benge (2003)
Died on this date:
- Ron Herbel (2000)
- Vern Ruhle (2007)
Transactions:
New York Mets signed free agent Karim Garcia of the New York Yankees on January 20, 2004.
New York Mets signed free agent Jose Parra on January 20, 2004.
New York Mets signed free agent Tom Martin on January 20, 2009.
New York Mets signed free agent Cory Sullivan of the Colorado Rockies on January 20, 2009.
Houston Astros signed Cory Sullivan of the New York Mets as a free agent on January 20, 2010.
New York Mets signed free agent Rafael Montero on January 20, 2011.
Oakland Athletics signed Alejandro De Aza of the New York Mets as a free agent on January 20, 2017.
Toronto Blue Jays signed Joe Panik of the New York Mets as a free agent on January 20, 2020.
Toronto Blue Jays signed Ruben Tejada of the New York Mets as a free agent on January 20, 2020.
Five Years ago, after GM Jared Porter was fired and the Mets lost out on George Springer:
Metstradamus: The One That Escaped To The North. “But if you had told me after Steve Cohen and all his money took over the Mets that they would go 0-for-3 in the room with JT Realmuto, Trevor Bauer, and George Springer, I would have told you that you were out of your mind.”
Mike’s Mets: Thoughts on George Springer and Jared Porter.
Joel Sherman NY Post: “The Mets let Springer’s camp know over last weekend that they were willing to go to six years at $120 million, but no further. At that point, the Mets were pretty much out of contention, as Springer headed toward the six-year, $150 million pact he reached Wednesday with the Blue Jays.”
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