<!–[if !mso]> <! st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } –>

Why the hell did the Cardinals trade for Ozzie Smith?

While in hindsight the Garry Templeton for Ozzie Smith deal worked out great for the Cardinals, it was rather lopsided in the Padres favor at the time it went down. It’s remembered as a heist, but when the trade was made, who really got the better of the deal?

At the time of the trade, Templeton was quite simply, a much better baseball player than Ozzie Smith. While Smith was The Wizard with the glove, Templeton by most accounts was no slouch himself. What really separated them was their bats. At the time of the trade, Smith was coming of his age 26 season, and Templeton was over a year younger. Check out their career lines at the time of the trade:

Ozzie Smith was better at stealing bases than Templeton, but everything else was an absolute slam dunk in Templeton’s favor. Also, Smith wasn’t showing much of an improvement, his last year in San Diego, his 4^th full season in the bigs his OPS+ was 62. It’s not like there were any signs that he was figuring it out. Templeton meanwhile was coming off a 98 OPS+, which was below his career at the time, was still very strong for a shortstop in the early 80’s.

The reason for the trade was not that St. Louis thought they were getting the better player, but simply because Templeton had been a head case, and was wearing Whitey Herzog’s patience thin. In 1981 he had asked to be traded, and was later suspended and fined for making obscene gestures at fans. This is what led to the trade, and while the Cardinals in hindsight look like geniuses, they were simply taking 60 cents on the dollar to unload a clubhouse cancer. This is one of the few times in history that it ended up paying off for the team trading the better player.

Obviously Smith improved with the bat, and Templeton’s early career stardom was sidetracked by injuries. While he did stick around in the big leagues and improve his reputation, he simply wasn’t he same player after he left St. Louis, in fact he never put up a 100 OPS+ after he left, despite having 3 seasons in his first 4 that exceeded that mark. Ironically enough, despite the trade being deemed a slam dunk win in hindsight for the Cardinals due to Smith’s HOF career, Garry Templeton was still a decent player. While Smith took off, and Templeton regressed, their career lines are very similar.

There are many times where you can look back at a trade and wonder what the hell where they thinking? Sometimes you can go back and realize that the trade didn’t make any sense at the time, but in some cases, what looks like a steal in retrospect, simply wasn’t the case. Templeton for Smith is a great example. San Diego simply did not get robbed, and had great reasons for making the deal, but for a myriad of reasons it simply didn’t work out. I was 2 at the time of the trade, so I grew up with Ozzie as a Cardinal, and couldn’t figure out why in the hell the Padres would have traded him. A little research made it all clear, and you can certainly question why the Cardinals made the trade. It certainly worked out for the Cards, and they got the best of both Templeton and Ozzie, while San Diego got the worst of each.