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The rumor was that the Mets could have also swapped Matlack to Boston for George Scott; or to Kansas City for John Mayberry, but I guess they wanted a slimmer and more stylish first baseman.
The whole shebang was motivated by the Rangers' desire to rid themselves of Blyleven's contract, and found the Pirates the only interested takers, but the Pirates were also looking to shed Al Oliver and HIS $$, but only if they got a hitter to replace him. The Mets were the key to making it all happen because the Pirates had little that interested the Rangers and vice versa. The Mets obviously were in the market for a new first baseman but neither the Pirates or Rangers were offering one, so they involved the Braves, which were only interested in unloading expensive players for less expensive ones.
So the Rangers and Braves agreed on an initial deal -- young pitchers Devine and Boggs and minor league outfielder Miller for Montanez; the Rangers then traded Montanez (who at $300 K per, would become the Mets most expensive player) with Greive and a PTBNL to the Mets for Milner and Matlack, allowing Texas to accomodate Pittsburgh's desire to move Oliver, plus the Nelson kid, who was considered a real comer, for Milner. (so the Rangers made 3 separate trades, all arranged in one package.
I think for the Mets to have won this deal they would have needed Greive to bounce back to his 75-76 form and Montanez to maintain his 1977 form ( which he did). They waited all that time for a PTBNL (Henderson) only to trade him almost immediately.
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Atlanta saved $$ & got a few good years out of Boggs, but Devine was nothing special.
Matlack gave the Rangers 1 big year and a few other decent ones, and Oliver was quite good for them.
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