Trades that popular opinion had wrong...SIM or MLB

[Mets]

Trades that backfired, turned out to be anything other than obvious, and completely made members of the media/scouts put their foot in their mouth.



Cubs trade Lou Brock to the Cards for Ernie Broglio (June 15, 1964)

When the Cubs traded away Brock, he was a 24-year-old with a .260 average in two big league seasons. "Brock struck out a lot and didn't know how to run the bases," said Bill White, who played first base for St. Louis in 1964. "We thought we had given up too much." Broglio was a good pitcher, winning 70 games in a little more than five seasons for the Cubs before being traded, and leading the NL in wins with his 21-9 record in 1960, but he had developed a sore arm and went only 7-19 in two-plus seasons with the Cubs.

Brock helped the Cards take advantage of the 1964 Phils astounding collapse. St. Louis won the NL flag and beat the Yankees in the World Series. Brock hit .348, stole 33 bases ... and then went on to lead the NL in steals eight times and bat over .300 eight times. He became a Hall-of-Famer in 1985.

"That was the greatest deal made at the deadline," said Jerome Holtzman, MLB's official historian. "It was one of the worst trades in the history of the Cubs."