Perhaps the best definition of “paper tiger” comes in the form of the 2002 New York Mets, a team that was widely hyped as a possible wild card contender. When Steve Phillips went back to the well to provide the core of the 1999-2000 Mets one last chance at glory, he needed to fix the Mets offense, which had scored the fewest runs in the National League in 2001, by bringing in more top-level talent. However, instead of chasing big name free agents like Jason Giambi or Barry Bonds, Phillips opted mainly to build the Mets with trades. While pursuing this strategy, he was forced to build a high-risk team because he simply didn’t have the ammo to trade for more than one star player.

After landing Roberto Alomar in a deal that most everyone thought would work out, Phillips made the horrendous decision to move overpriced but reliable starter Kevin Appier to the Angels for Mo Vaughn, who finished out his tremendous six-year/$88 million contract with an injury-prone and somewhat effective season in 2002, hitting 26 homers, striking out 145 times, and shattering the single season Mets record for “clubhouse chairs broken”.

More importantly for the constructs of this article, this gave Phillips a “trading chip” in Todd Zeile, if you can call a mediocre first baseman a commodity. Phillips now had a fresh hole in the rotation after dealing away Appier, and was unwilling to give Benny Agbayani a starting outfield role after his poor and injury-riddled 2001 season.

The Mets found a dance partner in the Milwaukee Brewers, who had two years and $17.5 million left on a huge deal that they had handed out to former Met Jeromy Burnitz. Burnitz was still a very capable hitter at this point but had just endured back-to-back seasons where he hit .232 and .251, while only barely managing to bring his slugging percentage over .500 in 2002. They also had the very capable, and very injury prone, Jeff D’Amico, who had tantalized teams with his 2000 season where he was 12-7 with a 2.66 ERA. However, he had thrown just 162 2/3 innings in that season, and was sidelined for much of 2001, when he started just 10 games, posting a 6.08 ERA in 47 innings.

Phillips looked past these deficiencies, instead choosing to see Jeromy Burnitz as the missing piece in his lineup; the guy had hit 30 homers in each of the past four seasons. Jeff D’Amico, meanwhile, had the talent to dominate. So what if he got injured every year?

January 21, 2002: The New York Mets trade Lenny Harris and Glendon Rusch to the Milwaukee Brewers for Jeff D’Amico, Jeromy Burnitz, Lou Collier, Mark Sweeney, and cash. The New York Mets trade Todd Zeile, Benny Agbayani, and cash to the Colorado Rockies for Craig House and Ross Gload. The Rockies also send Alex Ochoa to the Brewers.

Even despite how poorly this trade worked out for the Mets, it’s hard to call it a failure because they hardly gave up anyone who would amount to anything. Jeromy Burnitz ended up hitting .215/.311/.365 for the Mets in a tremendously disappointing 2002 season, good for an OPS+ of 80. He was a focal reason that the Mets, picked by many to finish high in the standings, would finish last in the NL East. After Phillips was exiled in a bloody coup resigned in the middle of 2003, the Mets dumped Burnitz, one of the few bright spots of the 2003 season, to the Dodgers for Victor Diaz, Jose Diaz, and Kole Strayhorn.

D’Amico was performing incredibly well at one point for the 2002 Mets; he had a 2-1, 2.94 April and a 2-3, 3.12 May. However, in June and July, he managed to completely reverse the good, going 0-3, 8.19 and 1-2, 7.01 for those two months before he was unceremoniously yanked from the rotation. Bobby Valentine blamed it on him hitting a wall; he had almost never pitched that many innings in his career. Shockingly, D’Amico would continue to pitch sparingly and ineffectively throughout the rest of his MLB career. I have to wonder, given his repertoire, what would have happened if someone tried to make him a reliever.

Lou Collier tried his best to be useful for the Mets, getting traded to the Expos for Jason Bay and Jimmy Serrano in spring training, but the Mets managed to muck that up, too. Collier washed out as a MLB utility infielder in 2004 and ended up playing for the Lucky Goldstar Twins of the Korean Baseball Organization. He retired with the Ottawa Lynx in 2007.

Mark Sweeney was released just two short months after being acquired; the Mets had no need for a left-handed hitter who could throw up a decent OPS as a pinch-hitter and spot starter at first base, especially with an injury-prone sloth like Vaughn manning first base. Instead, those at-bats were all given to Super Joe McEwing, who proceeded to hit .199 in 2002. Sweeney is someone the Mets should be looking at this offseason as well, which is yet more evidence against Steve Phillips’ sanity.

Gload would have been another solid option as a backup first baseman/pinch-hitter, but instead he was sold back to the Rockies five days after the trade, and went on to do exactly that for the White Sox and currently the Royals.

Craig House only had a brief cup of coffee with the Rockies in 2000, walking 17 in 13 2/3 innings, but his legacy lives on in two ways. First, there was his extremely unique delivery, which was described by former Baseball Prospectus writer Derek Zumsteg this way:

Now Craig House…if you recognize the name, you’re probably already thinking “I heard he had a wacky delivery.” Wacky doesn’t do it justice. Neither will my description. Watching his delivery you’ll see him kind of do a double-hitch as he fires, a strange hip-and-shoulder thing that seem to be unrelated to pitching.

The other legacy, of course, is his magical MLB Showdown Card.

For the Brewers

The key point in the trade was lefthander Glendon Rusch, who was touched up quite a bit more in 2001 than in his very promising season for the 2000 NL Champs. He struck out 156 in 179 innings for those 2001 Mets, so he was still missing bats even despite allowing 216 hits. For the Brewers, he was an innings sponge for 2002, soaking up 207 of them despite regressing further. Later on, he’d end up being converted into a lefty-specialist/long-man, much like Ron Villone before him. Also, he gives up doubles to breast cancer.

Brewers GM Dean Taylor trumpeted the fact that dealing Burnitz would let them sign Eric Young and acquire former Met Alex Ochoa, but Ochoa washed out with the Brewers after just one season. He ended up playing with the Chunichi Dragons of the Central League, playing a key role on the 2006 CL Champs. Young put up two solid years for the Brewers, including a weird 15-homer outburst in 2003 (he had 79 career homers) before being dealt to the Giants after the waiver deadline in a salary dump.

For the Rockies

Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd decided he wanted Zeile as his third baseman after he dealt Jeff Cirillo to the Mariners for Brian Fuentes, Jose Paniagua, and Dennis Stark. But only at a budget friendly price—he held up this trade for a few days over $500,000 more to cover the last year of Zeile’s deal. Zeile ended up hitting .273/.355/.425 in Coors Field, which was pretty abysmal. He ended his career with the Mets, as they showed a bizarre sense of respect for someone who had never been that good for them to begin with, allowing him 348 craptacular plate appearances in 2004.

Agbayani got off to a slow start in April and was eventually benched for Todd Hollandsworth, then was waived and acquired by the Red Sox. Eventually he washed out of the majors and went to Japan, leading Bobby Valentine’s Chiba Lotte Marines to the 2005 Japan Series and Asia Series crowns.

Analysis

In the end, one of the longest transaction lines in baseball history ended up doing very little for any of the sides involved. The players that Phillips thought would put the Mets over the top flopped, Glendon Rusch washed out of Milwaukee, and the Rockies gained very little out of having Zeile patrol third base for them.

The most important lesson to take from this is that big market teams shouldn’t be trying to deal for mediocre pieces when there are premium free agents out there. Phillips watched Bonds re-sign with the Giants for 5 years and $90 million, passing on the chance to add a real superstar to the lineup. Phillips also watched Moises Alou take three years and $27 million from the Cubs, and leadoff man Johnny Damon take four years and $31 million from the Red Sox, while he toyed around with Roger “Mr. Hankey” Cedeno. Of course, you can see more examples in other offseasons: Alex Rodriguez circa 2000, and Vladimir Guerrero in the 2002-2003 offseason (EDIT FOR CLARITY: This happened on Dan Duquette’s watch, technically).

The primary reason Phillips’ teams never got over the hump after 2000, was that he believed he only needed to tinker with his past success instead of instituting vast changes by going after franchise players via free agency. Omar Minaya took over and immediately signed Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran; the Mets have not been under .500 since.