The 30 worst trades in MLB history
By David Rouben
1: Babe Ruth to the Yankees
The trade: New York Yankees received Babe Ruth
Boston received $100,000
Because there really was no other choice for number 1. This deal was so bad, so illogical, that there is a curse named after it. After the Red Sox inexplicably sold the best player in baseball to their archrivals for $100,000 in return, they fell under the Curse of the Bambino and couldn’t win another World Series for 86 years. Before the deal, the Red Sox had won five World Series titles, while the Yankees didn’t become perennial winners until after they acquired Babe Ruth. Pretty funny how that works out.
The Red Sox had won five out of fifteen World Series, and Babe Ruth won three of them. Once he moved to the Yankees, he won four World Series titles – the first four in franchise history. 95 years later, the Red Sox still have yet to win four more World Series titles. He was the AL MVP in 1923 and led the AL in home runs 10 times while with the Yankees.
So why did the Red Sox sell the greatest to ever play baseball for $100,000? Nobody knows for sure, although the most popular theory is that the money was used to finance the Broadway production of No, No, Nanette. However, the show’s first performance didn’t come until five years after the Ruth sale and I’m sure it flopped just as badly as the Red Sox after the deal.
Anyway, it’s been fun
torturing fanbases
revisiting these lopsided trades just as we get set for another crazy offseason. But the MLB has been around for over a century, and as such there have been plenty of bad trades to go around. Narrowing it down to 30 was a difficult task and some had to be left out. But of course, that’s what the comments section is for – if you disagree with a ranking, or you thought a deal should’ve made the list but didn’t, feel free to leave it in the comments below.