The 5 Most Shocking Baseball Trades in Light of Doncic Deal
After the shocking trade that rocked the sports world this past weekend, with the NBA's Dallas Mavericks trading superstar Luka Doncic to the LA Lakers out of nowhere, it's a good time to consider the most shocking trades in baseball this century.
2004: Alex Rodriguez traded to NY Yankees from Texas Rangers for Alfonso Soriano
2012: 13-player trade between Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins, featuring Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle going to Jays
2020: San Diego Padres acquire Blake Snell from Tampa Bay Rays & Yu Darvish from Chicago Cubs on back-to-back days
2020: 3-team deal as Red Sox trade Mookie Betts, David Price and cash to Dodgers for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong; Twins trade Brusdar Graterol, Minor League prospect and 67th pick in 2020 Draft to Dodgers for Kenta Maeda
2021: Nolan Arenado (a 5-time All-Star and 8-time Gold Glover at the time) traded from Colorado Rockies to St. Louis Cardinals for five players
The A-Rod swap was certainly a ground-shaking blockbuster, though it wasn't as "shocking" as the Doncic trade because everyone knew that A-Rod would be dealt—it was just thought that it would be to the Red Sox, which is what made it a stunner.
Rodriguez was the reigning MVP, and was in the middle of a monstrous $250 million long-term contract. Soriano was coming off a Top-3 MVP finish for the Bronx Bombers, and had 39 homers and a league-leading 41 stolen bases the year before.
The only other true "superstar" that was traded on the above list was Mookie Betts (sorry, Red Sox fans). That one has the potential to rival the Doncic deal as the 'worst' shocking trade of the last 25 years due to the wide disparity in what the BoSox got in return. Betts would go on to help the Dodgers to two World Series championships (and counting), vs. the one he won with Boston two years before this trade.
Photo credit: Keith Allison from Baltimore, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
