(From: The Pursuit of Red Sox)
In the 17th round of the 1998 draft, the Mets selected Ty Wigginton out of UNC. From that 50 round draft, only 6 Mets draftee's ever made it to the majors, and Ty has been above and beyond the most successful one of the bunch. He would later make his major league debut at the age of 24 in 2002 with the Mets where he had 116 at bats and a .302 batting average (he would also belt 6 homers that year). In 2003 he got 573 AB's with the Mets and his batting average dropped to .255 and he only hit 11 homers. His 2004 campaign started off with the Mets where he had 312 AB's and had 12 homers but another Mets star was set to make it through the minors that year, and the Mets could use some more pitching, so away went Ty.
Right before the trading deadline, the Mets made a package of Ty Wiggington with Matt Peterson and Jose Bautista to go the Pirates for Jeff Keppinger and Kris Benson. The rest of the of the story on the Mets side we all know. Kris Benson had some short lived fame in New York, or rather, his wife had some short lived fame up here. He would later be traded to the Orioles for Jorge Julio and throw-in John Maine. Julio would later (that same season) be traded to the Diamondbacks for El-Duque and together El-Duque and Maine would become pivotal pieces of that 2006 and 2007 Mets rotation.
But what about who we traded away? Well Ty would later be released by the Pirates in 2005 as he really struggled in Pittsburgh. He was then picked up by (the then called) Devil Rays where he had a terrific season hitting .275 but also hitting 24 homers. The following season, his numbers would stay consistent as he was traded midway through the season to Houston for Dan Wheeler. After another successful 2008 season with Houston (.285, 23 homers), he was granted free agency where he was then picked up by his current team, the Baltimore Orioles. His last season was alright with the birds (.273, 11 homers), but this season has been a different story.
Ty Wigginton is literally the most exciting player on the Orioles. I was at the game last night, and he really is the player the fans hold in the best light because he has been their most consistent player this year. He was just supposed to fill strange roles but when Tejada went down, he had to step up, and step up he did. He actually, until this week, was leading the majors in homers (13). Leading the majors! Who would think he would do that? Now, of course he trails Konerko and the other piece to this story.
This article has focused on Ty so far, but now its time focus on Jose Bautista. Jose was drafted in 2000, and by the time he got to the Mets, he already was bounced around a lot. The Mets got him from the Royals,after a complicated two days for Bautista. Now Bautista never played a game in the Mets uniform. The Mets traded Huber to KC to get Bautista and then flipped him to the Pirates to get Kris Benson (all on the same day). Actually in a three day stretch he was technically (although never played for some of these teams,) an Oriole, a Devil Ray, a Royal, a Met and a Pirate. He would stay in Pittsburgh until 2008 when he was traded to Toronto.
Now these stories merge. Jose Bautista has become the major league leader in homers (15).
Thus ends a strange tale that one day in 2004, the Mets traded away 2 of the 3 players that would be leading the majors in homers in 2010.
Of course, the best part of this story, in my mind, is generally when you would tell someone “Hey! Six years ago you traded away two of the HR leaders!” your reaction would probably be, “ugh, frustrating”. However, thats not the case here. First of all thats probably the case because by the end of July, some more familiar names will take those leading spots for homers, but Ty and Jose, they were never really the pieces the Mets were looking at, because of options that we have had and have now. So this is more of a good for you and “Hey! We actually drafted someone of talent!”
