The Dale Murphy trades that could have happened in 1988

In December 1988, the baseball winter meetings were held in Atlanta. The Braves were coming off a 106-loss season, the third year of their rebuild. There was pressure to do something, but the front office couldn’t swing a trade.

Sometimes the best trades you make are the ones you don’t, and then sometimes you look back on a situation and cringe at what the possibilities may have been if a trade had been made.

Bobby Cox was the general manager for Atlanta back then. He’s credited, rightfully so, with making some crucial decisions that forever changed the fortunes of the franchise. However, when it came to the timing of trades, Cox was not always perfect.

Dale Murphy, the Braves’ star in the late-1980s, was coming off a disappointing 1988 season. His average dropped from .295 in 1987 to .226. His home runs fell from 44 to 24, while his runs batted in decreased from 105 to 77. His OBP also dipped from .417 to .313.

Even though he was the fan favorite for the team, the Braves were rebuilding. Murphy was going to turn 33 years old in March of 1989. So, it made sense to at least see what could be available in a potential trade.

The New York Mets, at that point the kings of the National League East with a World Series in 1986 and a division title in 1988, wanted Murphy the most. They offered Howard Johnson and Len Dykstra straight up for Murphy, but Cox held out for the Mets’ best pitching prospect, left-handed David West.

West was a 6-foot-6 left-hander who had been 12-4 with a 1.80 ERA in the minors in 1988. He was considered one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Cox was focusing his rebuild on pitching, and if he was going to trade his best player, he wanted a pitcher in return.

Mets’ GM Joe McIlvaine did not want to part with West. He wanted Murphy, but only for Dykstra and Johnson. The talks went on for the entire winter meetings but went nowhere with both sides sticking to their demands.

West was finally traded at the trade deadline that next July to the Minnesota Twins in a package that sent Frank Viola to New York. And West flopped. In 1990, in Minnesota’s starting rotation, West started 27 of 29 games and had a 5.10 ERA, with 78 walks and only 92 strikeouts in 146.1 innings.

He later became a reliever and actually had a good season or two with the Phillies, but his overall numbers were far from spectacular: 31-38, 4.66 ERA in 204 games with 78 MLB starts.

Dykstra got traded that next summer, as well, to the Philadelphia Phillies in the Juan Samuel deal. Starting with the 1989 season through the end of his career in 1996, Dykstra hit .288 with a .387 OBP, 182 stolen bases and made the All-Star team three times.

Johnson was an All-Star with the Mets in 1989 when he hit 36 home runs and drove in 101 runs and led the National League with 104 runs scored. He was also an All-Star in 1991 when he led the NL with 38 home runs and 117 RBI. Johnson finished fifth in the MVP voting those two seasons. From 1989 through 1995 when his career ended, Johnson had 128 home runs and 439 RBI.

But here is the worst part of this story. San Diego also wanted Murphy. “Trader Jack” McKeon, the Padres’ GM, had an extra catcher to offer in a trade. Benito Santiago was already the starter, but the Padres had 6-foot-5 catching prospect Sandy Alomar, Jr. available.

“If he (Cox) takes him (Alomar) in a trade, he’ll either have his catcher for the future, or he can make a heck of a trade with him,” McKeon told the AJC on December 10, 1988.

It’s the next line in that AJC article that will make you cringe.

“Cox said the Braves are committed to veteran catcher Jody Davis,” wrote AJC Braves beat reporter Chris Mortensen (yes, that Chris Mortensen).

Davis had been acquired late in the 1988 season for two minor league pitchers – Kevin Coffman and Kevin Blankenship. He had been the Cubs’ starting catcher for seven seasons, but Davis hit .241 in his last four years as the starter.

Davis was 32 at the time of the trade. The Braves had a catching problem, as Ozzie Virgil had not done well at the end of his third season as the starter in Atlanta. Jimmy Kremers, had been drafted the previous June in the second round out of the University of Arkansas, and Cox thought he had a chance to be Atlanta’s starting catcher of the future.

Well, it didn’t work out well. Davis was awful. He hit .169 in 231 at bats in 1989, with only four home runs and 19 RBI. He started the 1990 season with the Braves, but after hitting .071 he was released, and his career was over. He hit .161 in his 267 at bats in an Atlanta uniform.

Kremers made it to the big leagues in 1990, playing in 29 games for Atlanta. He hit .110 with eight hits in 73 at bats, with a home run and two RBI. That next spring, Kremers was sent to the Expos in the Otis Nixon trade and never played in the major leagues again.

Alomar was traded by San Diego a year later to the Indians in the Joe Carter trade. He was a six-time All-Star in his 20-year career, with a .273 batting average, 112 home runs, 588 RBI and 1236 hits. Alomar also won one Gold Glove in 1990.

Murphy was traded a season-and-a-half later to the Phillies for reliever Jeff Parrett, outfielder Jim Vatcher (who hit .259 with three RBI in 27 at bats for the Braves in 1990) and infielder Victor Rosario (who played in nine games for the Braves in 1990 and hit .143).

Parrett was the big piece for the Braves, but over the course of two seasons, he pitched in 38 games and had an ERA of 4.47 and two saves.

Murphy’s career really didn’t get back on track after he was traded. Between parts of three seasons with the Phillies and then a short stint with Colorado, Murphy hit .244 with 27 home runs and 123 RBI in 862 at bats before his career ended in 1993.

The Murphy trade was a disaster, and to think of how the Braves mishandled the timing of his trade also it tough to remember.

However, in hindsight, Murphy may have been traded at the right time. When he was dealt at the end of the 1990 season, the Braves somewhat turned the page on the 1980s era of the franchise. David Justice moved from first base to right field, and then next season the Braves went from worst to first.

But what if Howard Johnson or Lenny Dykstra or Sandy Alomar, Jr. had been part of those teams in the 1990s? It makes you wonder.

Listen to The Bill Shanks Show weekdays at 3:00 p.m. ET on Middle Georgia’s ESPN. You can listen online at TheSuperStations.com. Follow Bill on Twitter at @billshanks and you can email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.