10 Years After
A decade ago, the Sox made a deadline deal that rocked baseball
MLB. Today marks the ten-year anniversary of a trade that reshaped two clubs and, in some ways, the baseball industry as a whole. The deal that sent Heathcliff Slocumb from the Red Sox to the Mariners on July 31, 1997, in exchange for prospects Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe reverberates in baseball’s consciousness.
A club’s decision to address an immediate need at the expense of its future remains a cautionary tale for baseball executives a decade later. The cost of improving an area of weakness, considered steep a decade ago, is increasingly viewed by front offices as prohibitive, for obvious reasons.
“At the time, you're giving up a closer to get two minor-league guys from Seattle,” recalled Red Sox hurler Tim Wakefield, who was in his third year in Boston at the time. “Nothing against Heathcliff Slocumb, but these guys turned out to be superstars.”
The Mariners, of course, never envisioned such an outcome. Instead, after its bullpen absorbed five July losses to whittle a six-game lead down to a half-game, Seattle felt its options were exhausted.
Their bullpen, spearheaded by closer Norm Charlton — who that year became one of five pitchers to claim 10 or more saves with an ERA over 7.00 — was a tinderbox. A team that featured arguably the best pitcher (Randy Johnson) and position players (Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez) in the American League could ill afford such a shortcoming.
“We were in first place, but we had trouble in the bullpen,” recalled White Sox bench coach Joey Cora, then Seattle’s second baseman. “We thought that if we didn't make a trade, if the bullpen wasn't fixed, it wasn't going to last…We weren't thinking about ‘98, ‘99, 2000. We needed to win then.”
The Mariners expressed interest in Slocumb several days before the deadline. The Sox, amidst their only losing season since 1995, hoped to restock their system with both a catcher and a pitcher.
With Dan Wilson — a player who was then to Seattle what Varitek is now to Boston — entrenched behind the plate for the Mariners, Varitek seemed an obvious chip. After being named Player of the Year at Double-A Port City in 1996, the 25-year-old was hitting .254 with a .772 OPS and 15 homers for Triple-A Tacoma.
Duquette liked Varitek, whom he had scouted — alongside Georgia Tech teammate Nomar Garciaparra — several times at Georgia Tech. Even so, while the young catcher received raves for his leadership skills and work behind the plate, Varitek remained a work in progress.
“I was a huge question mark. They had, in my opinion, the best game-caller in the game, an outstanding teammate and outstanding player in (Wilson),” said Varitek. “(That year) was the first time that I had some things come together. I started off really struggling, catching and throwing. I figured some things out on that end, and then my hitting came around.”
His name was attached to every rumored Mariners deal, whether for White Sox closer Roberto Hernandez, Toronto reliever Mike Timlin or Phillies closer Ricky Bottalico. Yet Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette considered Varitek an insufficient return on Slocumb.
Just one year earlier, after all, Slocumb had amassed 31 saves (with eight blown saves) and a 3.02 ERA. His performance had been impressive enough that the Sox explored a three-year contract extension before the 1997 season. Even when the pitcher rebuffed the team’s proposals for an extension, Slocumb remained under Boston’s control through 1998.
That prospect, however, was anathema to New Englanders. Boston’s bleachers made little secret of their contempt for a pitcher who seemingly started more fires than he extinguished in going 0-5 with a 5.79 ERA for the Sox in 1997.
“Oh my God — they buried (Slocumb). Every time he warmed up, they started booing,” remembered Jim Corsi, a Sox reliever that year. “After he failed a few times, it was probably a blessing in disguise that he got traded, for his own sanity.”
Duquette, who had deployed scouts Eddie Haas and Gary Rajsich to search the Mariners farm system, targeted 22-year-old Ken Cloude, a Double-A power pitcher. Seattle was more interested in shopping Lowe.
The 24-year-old had pitched well for in Triple-A (3-4, 3.45 ERA) but got hammered (2-4, 6.96) during a brief call-up to the Mariners. Despite his big-league struggles, Lowe’s raw stuff that year was the best that Varitek ever saw from his former teammate.
“All of those pitches that he had that year in Triple-A were probably the best I'd seen from him,” said Varitek, eyes wide. “I thought, 'This is special.'”
On July 30, a perfect storm set the deal in motion. The Mariners, facing the Sox in Fenway, forged a 7-2 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth. A bullpen that entered that night with a league-worst 6.14 ERA and 14 blown saves commenced a collapse whose echoes are still felt.
The Sox rallied for a pair of runs. With Seattle’s lead narrowed to 7-4, Slocumb entered the contest for the top of the ninth. For one night, at least, Boston’s closer was filthy.
“He threw 95 to 97 miles per hour and he got his breaking ball over,” recalled Duquette. “He overpowered Seattle. Lou Piniella saw that.”
Piniella also saw that his bullpen lacked such an arm. In the bottom of the ninth, Mariners closer Charlton wilted. A trio of hits and an RBI groundout made the score 7-6, bringing Nomar Garciaparra to the plate with two outs and a runner on third.
The eventual Rookie of the Year bounced a grounder, fielded cleanly by Mariners shortstop Alex Rodriguez. But Rodriguez — who would, almost exactly seven years later, engage in a memorable dust-up with Varitek at the same ballpark — threw the ball into the Sox dugout, allowing the tying run to score. One inning later, Garciaparra lined a walkoff single to left.
“I take full responsibility," A-Rod told reporters. “I don't blame anybody but me.”
The Mariners didn’t see it that way. The brutal loss forced Seattle, which had declared its top prospects untouchable, to change course and make available players who they never wanted to market.
“(Piniella) said we’re not going to win without a bullpen, and we need a guy in the ’pen,” remembered Marlins scout Roger Jongewaard, who oversaw Seattle’s amateur scouting and player development at the time. “We were desperate at the time. I didn’t think we were THAT desperate, personally, but that’s the way it goes.”
Less than 24 hours later, the Mariners bit hard and shocked their players by trading top prospect Jose Cruz Jr. to the Blue Jays for Mike Timlin and Paul Spoljaric. When news of that deal made the rounds of front offices, Duquette immediately dialed Woodward.
“I was just praying,” recalled Duquette, “that they’d still have some interest in Slocumb.”
The Mariners G.M. reassured Duquette that his team was still shopping for another bullpen arm, and that he would stay in contact with the Sox during the final hours before the trade deadline.
Varitek, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief. With Timlin now in Seattle and the White Sox having dealt closer Roberto Hernandez to San Francisco, the Mariners prospect believed that he would stay put, allowing him to stop focusing on the rumors that had dominated his attention for days.
“(The Mariners) stated they would not trade (Cruz),” Varitek remembered. “They made a trade with Toronto, got that deal done, and (we thought), 'Okay, it's over.'”
That night, Boston claimed a 2-1 lead against the Royals in the top of the 10th inning, resulting in a call for Slocumb to close out the affair. A calamity rapidly unfolded: hit batter, groundout, single, walk, run-scoring wild pitch, intentional walk, game-winning single.
After his team’s 3-2 loss, Duquette reached out to Woodward, who seemed bemused about the outcome of Boston’s game.
“I called Woody back at 10:30 and he said, ‘Don’t tell me Slocumb blew the lead,’ Duquette recalled. “I said, ‘Okay, I won’t tell you that.’”
Still, the general managers struggled to match supply and demand. Woodward balked, first at Duquette’s insistence that the M’s part with two prospects, and then with a modified proposal to deal Slocumb straight-up for Cloude.
The conversation was put on pause, and Woodward made a last round of calls to other clubs to see if he could find a deal to his liking. He couldn’t. Finally, with the minutes until the trade deadline dwindling and Seattle unable to find any deals on its terms, a compromise was struck.
“I called back at 11:30 — the trade deadline was at 12 — and I said, ‘Woody, we’ll take Varitek and Lowe for Slocumb if you want to do the deal,’” said Duquette. “He felt that he was in a position to trade two young kids for a closer. That’s how we got ‘em.”
Word of that deal then traveled west. After Seattle’s Triple-A club finished a game in Colorado Springs, Varitek was informed of the deal by a source whose credibility seemed dubious.
“We played our game, then all of a sudden after the game, Derek was bee-bopping through the locker room and said, 'Hey — we got traded.' I was like, 'Yeah, right,'” Varitek said. “Seconds later, the manager called us in.”
The Mariners’ major-league club, meanwhile, enjoyed a palpable sense of relief. The team believed that its fatal flaw had been addressed.
“We thought we had become better at the time, definitely,” recalled Cora. “Varitek and Lowe, we basically didn't know who they were. At the time, we said, 'Who cares? They're in Triple-A—they're not helping us here.’”
They would help in Boston. It took little time for both players to make an impression in their call-ups in late 1997.
Long-time Sox ambassador Charlie Wagner told Duquette that Lowe was the second coming of Jim Lonborg. Varitek, meanwhile, received direct praise in the waning days of the ’97 season.
“(Red Sox manager Jimy Williams) saw something in me that he liked,” Varitek said. “He said, 'Son, keep doing what you're doing. You're a baseball player.'…That meant the world to me, because that's how I wanted to be viewed. That terminology means you play the game right and go about your business as expected.”
That laud has been repeated by the Red Sox for ten years spanning five playoff appearances and a World Series title. The Mariners, meanwhile, have been left to lament the deal.
Slocumb saved 10 games while recording a decent 4.14 ERA for Seattle, helping the M’s to reach the 1997 playoffs. But Seattle was evicted in the first round of the postseason that year, resulting in a “what-if” game whenever the Sox and Mariners cross paths.
“We'd be like, 'They could have been on our side!’” recounted Joel Pineiro, who pitched for the Mariners from 2001-06. “’We traded this guy, and that guy? Where's our guy?’”
“It was one of the best trades the Red Sox ever made and one of the worst for the Mariners, ever,” added Jongewaard. “But you never know that at the time.”
Over eight seasons in Boston, Lowe became an All-Star closer and starter, punctuating his Red Sox career with wins in series clinching contests in all three rounds of the 2004 World Series run. Varitek remains the backbone of the Boston clubhouse.
The deal that brought that pair to the Sox now seems like something from another epoch. Baseball’s escalating salaries have placed an enormous premium on the value of prospects. As a result, the sort of trade that remade the Red Sox 10 years ago seems unlikely to recur at this year’s deadline.
“We used that time, when we were out of contention, to put ourselves in position to contend for a long time,” Duquette said. “You’d like to make a Varitek and Lowe trade once a year, but it doesn’t work out that way.”
For the Red Sox, it would seem, one such trade in a decade proved ample.