4 more Atlanta Braves trades gone wrong
By Josh Mathews
December 13, 2003: Wainwright for Drew
J.D. Drew was traded by the St. Louis Cardinals with Eli Marrero to the Atlanta Braves for Ray King, Jason Marquis and Adam Wainwright.
This deal was more traditional than the 3 team salary dump fest described above, so we’ll get right down to it.
What we got:
J.D. Drew, a Georgia native was one of the most anticipated players coming out of the 1997 draft, but balked at being picked by the Phillies. The following season, the Cardinals picked him 5th and made his major league debut that same year.
While he didn’t turn out to be a Hall of Famer as early speculation may have suggested, he was worth 44.9 WAR over his career.
He actually his best season of his career with Atlanta. Drew hit .305 with a career-high 31 home runs and 93 RBI. That line led him to finish in 6th place in the National League MVP vote.
Surprisingly, that season, he wasn’t an All-Star, but he later made it to the mid-summer classic in 2008 with Boston.
But alas, the Atlanta Braves seemed to have no plans to sign Drew, who was a free agent after the 2004 season. The Los Angeles Dodgers scooped him up.
The second piece in the deal was Eli Marrero. His best year came in 2002 where he had a career high in at-bats, and also had career highs in home runs and RBI for St. Louis.
For the Atlanta Braves, he set a new career high in batting average at .320 and hit 10 home runs in part-time duty.
What we gave up:
Ray King was a big-bodied lefty reliever that definitely had his best years in the first half of his career. He was a workhorse, making 80 appearances for the 2003 club, pitching to a 3.51 ERA.
His 2004 year with St. Louis was one of the best of his career, with a 2.61 ERA over 86 appearances; afterwards, the decline was fairly sharp.
At one time a big prospect in his own right, Jason Marquis had a long career at the major league level, spanning 15 seasons.
He, like King, has his best season with St. Louis in 2004, winning 15 games and losing just seven. In the two years afterward, Marquis was little more than an innings eater for the Cardinals.
In 2006, he led the league in losses (16), earned runs allowed (130), home runs given up (35) and registered a 6.02 ERA. In 2009, Marquis would put together a fine first half and he was an All-Star with Colorado.
Giving up Adam Wainwright may be least part of the reason that the Atlanta Braves have been a bit reluctant to deal starting pitching – ever.
With St. Louis, he’s racked up 151 career wins, finished in the top three of the Cy Young voting four times, made three All-Star teams and won 92 games from 2009-2014. The Missouri native also earned a World Series ring in 2006.
He survived Tommy John surgery in 2011, but after an Achilles injury in 2015, he’s been much less effective. In fact, his lowest season ERA post injury is 4.31, which is his figure in 2019.
Analysis:
This one hurts because of Wainwright. What’s interesting, is like the Mark Texiera trade, we actually got the best from J.D. Drew in the season that we had him. Both Tex and Drew had MVP-like tenures.
Marrero was a nice pick-up for Atlanta, but ultimately, that’s not enough to make up for Wainwright. The Atlanta Braves clearly picked the wrong arm to send over in the deal.