Little-mentioned fact. Phillips was part of the trade that sent him, Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, and Lee Stevens from the Expos to the Indians in exchange for Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew. I believe the Expos were being run by MLB and Selig at that time and I thought the trade was some part of conspiracy to contract to Expos by emptying their minor league system of high-ceiling stars. Anyway, now Phillips and Colon are teammates.
One of 2 possibilities. Either it was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Expos or demonstrated Frank Robinson's incompetence. Brandon Phillips was actually considered the centerpiece of the deal at the time. Grady Sizemore ended up being pretty amazing for a while, and nobody expected that Cliff Lee would be practically all world.
jpx7 (02-15-2017)
True, this isn't like the Simmons trade at all. The Braves gave up almost nothing here and are not paying him much either. So if he busts like Aybar you just release him. But there was a reason no one but the Braves had any interest in Phillips and even the Braves still had concerns about his hand injury (according to the Bowman article at Braves.com). That said, hopefully it works out and he bounces back on defense as that is what I most liked about him prior to last year's decline.
Whatever gain Phillips may bring is more than off-set by the loss of Sean Rodriguez IMHO. I really liked that signing and it sucks that he'll likely miss the season now. He could've really helped out everywhere and also with his bat more than Phillips too.
I wasn't comparing Phillips trade to the Simmons trade. I was simply saying all the stuff about Phillips resurgence is the same crap I spewed last year about Eric
Braves1976 (02-14-2017)