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Son of Harry Chitti

MFS62 Nov 10 2005 04:37 PM

A week ago or so, it was announced that Detroit sent Toronto an undisclosed amount of cash to complete the trade of "future considerations" for John MacDonald earlier this year. Today on the transaction wire: "Toronto acquired infielder John MacDonald from the Detroit Tigers for cash considerations" A "player traded (actually sold) for himself" kind of deal first accomplished by the Mets for Harry Chitti. Mets were years ahead of the rest of the league. Later

Johnny Dickshot Nov 10 2005 04:56 PM

I've brought this up before, but unless I'm overlooking something, the early Mets made lots of "trades" like that, and that the Chiti deal became famous only after Breslin wrote about it in his book. Essentially, Weiss would buy players for X dollars, with the agreement that if he stuck with the Mets by a certain date he'd owe the team X + Y (y being, more $$ or a player) and if not, he'd be offered back for X. Chiti came from the Cleveland org., stuck with the Mets a few weeks and was sold back to an Indians farm team. I'm pretty sure this legend has more to do with Breslin interpreting a typical "future considerations" deal for its entertainment/storytelling potential than it was a unique kind of offer.

Edgy DC Nov 10 2005 05:06 PM

Outiside of perhaps taking the Mets position, and allowing them to be jobbed on the draft rules, Weiss was no dummy. I imagine one thing missing from his bag of tricks was his Yankee move of offering a universally pursued bonus baby less money on the promise that he could get more with the post-season shares during his career. After a few months on the job, I think Weiss was just a victim of depression (who wouldn't be?) and the game passing him by (the latter feeding the former).