Today in Blue Jays History: Travis Trade

Today in Blue Jays history:

Three years ago:

The Jays traded Anthony Gose to the Tigers for Devon Travis. It was a trade I didn’t see coming, and it seemed pretty amazing that we could get Travis for Gose. Gose was a player with all the talent in the world, who couldn’t seem to turn that talent into production.

In parts of 3 seasons, Gose had hit .234/.301/.332 with 34 steals. Travis was blocked from the majors by Ian Kinsler, so the Tigers really didn’t have a place for him.

Since the trade, Travis has missed time each season with injuries. When healthy, he’s hit .292/.331/.462 with 24 homers in 213 games. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been healthy enough of the time.

Gose? Well, he played parts of two seasons with the Tigers, hitting .247/.315/.363, with 23 steals (caught 12 times). This season, Gose decided to try his luck as a pitcher. It didn’t go all that well, he had a 7.59 ERA in 10.2 innings. He allowed 7 hits, 6 walks. The good part was he struck out 14. At the moment Gose is a free agent.

At the time we liked the trade:

It was a very good trade. It would be so much better if Travis could make it through a season injury free. Maybe 2018 will be the year.

Seven Years Ago:

Man, time flies.

The Oakland A’s claimed Edwin Encarnacion off waivers from us. Looking back, this could have been the worst moment in Jays history. Edwin put on waivers (along with Brian Tallet and DeWayne Wise) to make room, on the 40-man, for Rommie Lewis Jesse Litsch and Dustin McGowan.

Fortunately, the A’s let Edwin become a free agent and we signed him again. It’s hard to imagine how the last few years would have gone if the A’s held on to Edwin.

The comment thread of our post on the subject is pretty interesting. Some were thrilled Edwin was gone (many were more thrilled Tallet was gone). Some thought we were calling Alex Anthopoulos an idiot because we disagreed with the move.

In the end it turned out Billy Beane was the idiot.

Eight Years Ago:

Jon Heyman told us that the Yankees were interested in trading for Roy Halladay. I was suicidal.