Broglio for Brock.

Back in 1964 there was a trade between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. Lou Brock was trade for a pitcher named Ernie Broglio. There were some other players in the trade, they were inconsequential, then and inconsequential now. This trade comes up fairly often in blogs, lists, and books listing the worst trades ever. Ernie Broglio was pitcher that injured his arm and never really amounted to much and Lou Brock went on a tear, helped the Cardinals win the pennant (took a collapse by the Phils, but thats a blog for a different day) and helped them beat the Yanks in the World Series. He then went on to set the record for stolen bases (since broken by Rickey Henderson) and to collect 3000 hits. However is it really fair to call this a historically bad trade? The answer is no. When looking at trades to determine if they are really bad you have to look at what the GM was looking at during that season. At the time Broglio was a young pitcher who had already won 20 games. He by all account had good stuff, and looked like he would be a good pitcher. Brock on the other hand had never really been much of a hitter. On top of that he wasn't much of a fielder. Actually he didn't really have a position. At the time, weak slugging speedy guys were expected to play center. He didn't have the arm to play right field, and left field really needed to be reserved for guys that could slug the ball, but were weak defensively. Brock was considered expendible by the Cubs and given the sample so far, although he had hit the ball in the minors, that probably was not a bad call. The Cardinals already had Curt Flood in Center, so they didn't mind playing another speedy guy in Left, and in fact were just looking for someone to steal some bags. At the times in truthfully looked like a win, win situation for both teams with maybe even the Cubs making out better. No one could predict that Broglio would have arm issues and lose his stuff. Its not fair to judge trades with hindsight. Sometimes a deal just doesn't work out, its not the GM's fault and the Cardinals didn't have some magic 8 ball. Sometimes trades are just stupid and people get fleeced, and those deals deserve to be torched. But deals like this, which weren't really bad at all given the scenario do not deserve to be remembered in infamy.