FanShot

Crasnick: Colon Trade Looked Bad at the Time

6

Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew from Cleveland to Montreal for Lee Stevens and minor leaguers Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Brandon Phillips -- June 27, 2002 The headline: "Minaya works some magic" (Montreal Gazette) With the Expos 6½ games behind Atlanta in the National League East and a contraction guillotine reportedly hanging over the team's head, general manager Omar Minaya raids the farm system to acquire Colon, who is 10-4 with a 2.55 ERA in Cleveland. In the pre-blogging days, when Baseball America is the only outlet monitoring every breath that prospects take, Minaya is widely praised for his coup. Montreal columnist Jack Todd refers to him as "brilliant" and says he has "utterly changed the way the Expos do business" since coming over from the Mets. Uhh, yea.