Mark McGwire Hall of Fame?

One aspect of Mark McGwire's career I would like to draw attention to this morning is his past trade worth. McGwire was traded to St. Louis in the middle of 1997 and he went on to hit 220 HR for the Cardinals in 4.5 seasons. Do you know what St. Louis had to give up to get a player many would believe is Hall of Fame worthy? Pretty much nothing.

The A's got Eric Ludwick, T.J. Mathews, and Blake Stein back from the Cardinals in exchange for McGwire. When you look at the productivity of those three players you realize that the A's could have done just as well trading McGwire for three random Rule V choices.

The A's were going to lose McGwire at the end of the 1997 season and weren't going anywhere that season - so it made sense for them to trade McGwire. But why trade him for nothing? St. Louis knew it was giving up a bag of balls and I think Sandy Alderson of the A's knew he was getting nothing in return. Alderson could have held out for a Alan Benes, Matt Morris, or Braden Looper - instead he was content to just dump McGwire's salary for three never-will-be's.

I'm racking my brain but I can't recall any other potential Hall of Fame player being dumped mid-season for salary reasons.

Just another thing to consider about McGwire.