In 1991 Willie Blair and Ed Taubensee were shipped to Houston for Kenny Lofton and Dave Rohde. What seemed like a benign transaction has garnered this organization three World Series dates and quite a few playoff runs. Let’s break this down!
Photo via Society for American Baseball Research
Officially this was not the trade that created the 90’s Indians was we knew them. Hank Peters, then GM, traded for Carolos Baerga and Sandy Alomar, Jr. first. But, this was new GM John Hart’s first trade. And with the other moves and philosophy of handing out longer term contracts to the young studs, this set a stage for success. But who would have thought it would go to the 2020’s!
1997 Hello Marquis and Dave
In the spring of 1997, Hart traded with Atlanta for Marquis Grissom and David Justice, giving Kenny a new home along with Alan Embree. But that wasn’t the end of the Kenny saga. Yes, Cleveland made and should have won the World Series. And we brought Kenny back in 1998! But David Justice was the next domino to fall er…be traded.
20 Mar 1999: Outfielder David Justice #23 of the Cleveland Indians swings at the ball during the Spring Training game against the New York Yankees at the Chain of Lakes Park in Winter Haven, Florida. The Yankees defeated the Indians 8-7.
2000 Justice for Jake!
In 2000 we sent Justice to the Bronx Bombers for rookie Jake Westbrook, Ricky Ledee and Zach Day. It was the first time missing playoffs since 1993, but Jake was a nine year mainstay on the club whether it be bullpen or starter. Manny Acta, in his first horrendous year as the skipper, lead the club to a terrible first part of the season. And Mark Shapiro, realizing this wasn’t the year, opened the club up for trades! The biggest was on July 31, 2010. And a crazy three team trade commenced bringing to Cleveland…Corey Kluber.
2010 Welcome, Klubot!
So let’s try to make sense of this trade. Cleveland sent Jake to St. Louis while the Cardinals dispatched Ryan Ludwick to the Padres. In turn, the San Diego shipped Nick Greenwood to Missouri and Corey to Northern Ohio!
Corey gave so much to the organization. In many ways we could say he was the MVP for almost ten years. He was professional, robotic, and fearless. His stretch from 2014 – 2018 is as good as Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander and Sale. He pitched the most innings over that span and was second in bWAR to Scherzer. His performance in the 2016 playoff run is often forgotten. He won games 1 and 4 in the World Series and starter game 7 on short rest. He grabbed two Cy Youngs in that stretch and was our ACE!
But like all good things, his reign of dominance came to an end and we traded him to Texas in exchange for DeLino DeShields and Clase!
Yes, him!
Kenny Lofton’s trade
So a trade in 1991 for Kenny Lofton had life until Clase was basically out of baseball for good. That’s 1991 to 2025. Thirty-four years!
To review: Kenny for Justice. Justice for Jake. Jake for Kluber. Kluber for Clase. (Man I hate typing that man’s name!)
From a winning standpoint, the trade for Kenny in ’91 gave us a ‘95 World Series, a ‘97 World Series, a 2016 World Series and numerous playoff runs since Covid. I realize there were more important signings and such, but this is about a small deal on December 10th, 1991. (NOTE: On December 9th we selected Pete Rose Jr. in the Rule 5 draft off the White Sox!)
Trades can build a small market club into a dominant force for a few years. But swing and miss and you have five years of hell to pay. But the Lofton trade has paid huge dividends for the ballclub and fans. For over thirty years!
What trade should be made next? And could this profit the Guardians going forward like Lofton’s? What would you like to see, fans?
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