Thursday, August 21, 2008

#632 Steve Shields



Why this card is awesome: Because of the trade mentioned on the back, one of several bad trades the Mariners made in the 1980s. Scott Bankhead had one excellent full season with Seattle (and a bunch of injury-riddled ones) but Mike Kingery and Steve Shields were both pretty poor players. That's very little to get in return for Danny Tartabull, who hit more than 200 homers and drove in 100 runs 4 different times after he left Seattle. Granted Tartabull had an injury-riddled career as well, but he was still a far more productive player than the three guys Seattle got combined.

Cool stat: Shields is one of just 16 pitchers since 1901 with a career ERA+ under 78 and a W-L% of .500 or better (minimum 16 decisions.) Of course, that's nothing more than dumb luck.

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