On this day in 1991 the Jays made a big trade. They sent Denis Boucher, Glenallen Hill, Mark Whiten and some cash to the Indians for Tom Candiotti and Turner Ward.
At the time of the trade, the Jays were in first place in the AL East and wanted another proven arm for their rotation. Tom Candiotti was a RH starter, a knuckleball pitcher, who also had good curve and a pretty decent fastball (for a knuckleball pitcher). When we traded for him, Tom had a 2.24 ERA and a 7-6 record, in 15 starts, with the Indians. With us he went 6-7, with a 2.98 ERA in 19 starts. Hard to understand how he had a losing record with such a great ERA, when we had a terrific offense at the time. But we just didn't seem to score for the guy.
We lost out to the Twins in the ALCS, 4 games to 1. Candiotti didn't help us.. He started and lost game 1, going just 2.2 innings and giving up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. He got the start in game 5 as well, doing some better, 5 innings, 9 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned. When Cito took him out of the game, we were up by 3 runs, but he had 2 runners on and none out, in the 6th. Mike Timlin let the inherited runs score, and and another run to have the Twins tie it. Duane Ward gave up 3 runs in the 8th to lose it for us.
Candiotti was just a rental. He left as a free agent after the season. We got 2 compensation picks for him. One of the picks turned into Brandon Cromer, a shortstop, who never made it to the majors, but with the other choice we got Shannon Stewart. Stewart played with us for 10 seasons, putting up a .298/.365/.440 line in 907 games. That line was marred some by his late career return to us in 2008.
The other player the Indians sent to us, Turner Ward, played with us for 3 seasons as a 4th outfield type. He hit .220/.310/.344, between stints on the DL.
The players we gave up? Well, Denis Boucher didn't turn out to be much, he played two seasons with the Indians, going 3-6 with a 7.07 ERA before going to play a couple of seasons for his home province team, the Expos.
Glenallen Hill went on to have a pretty good career, ending up with 186 home runs, 586 RBI and a .271/.321/.482 over 13 seasons. Only 3 of those were with the Indians and he didn't hit much there, .241/.293/.415. The Indians traded him to the Cubs for Candy Maldonado in 1993, who was in the decline of his career by then.
Mark Whiten turned into a pretty decent player too. He hit 105 homers, 378 RBI and a .259/.341/.415 line in 11 MLB seasons. Most of his best work came after he left Cleveland. He was traded to the Cardinals for starting pitcher Mark Clark, after 2 pretty nondescript seasons as an Indian.
It was Pat Gullick's attempt to push us over the edge and into the World Series. It didn't work. Candiotti pitched well enough and all, but he didn't get us over than hump. But then we ended up getting Shannon Stewart, who was better than either of the outfielders we gave up in the trade.
The next big trade he made turned out a lot better.