What trade hurt the most? The Mark McGuire trade turned me into a Cardinal fan.
August 6, 2025
What trade hurt the most? The Mark McGuire trade turned me into a Cardinal fan.
42 comments
Man I was 7 when it happened and I cried the whole day. At least I got used to it at a young age.
true story: i went to taco bell in 1998 wearing a MM jersey and a goatee, and the kids there thought i was him
That one hurt horribly. So did cespedes
The trade that made John Fisher the primary owner of the team.
Céspedes and Donaldson trade..
Huddy
Mark McGwire almost made me a St. Louis fan, especially with LaRussa there too. But home is in Oakland…. 🤷🏻♂️
McGuire as a kid and Donaldson as an adult.
Mark Mulder crushed me. Hudson not as much but close
Canseco. It absolutely crushed me as a kid!! Then later on in life Milton Bradley hurt! He is one of my top 5 a’s players! 🙁
Cespedes felt like a betrayal
Cespedes man. He fell off pretty hard after the trade too but glad he got paid.
Another trade that hurt was bringing in Jason Hammel. Good lord that guy was crap with us and then goes and wins a WS with the cubs. FJF✌🏽
Cespedes. Went from the best record in the AL to losing a wildcard game. It can all be directly tied to that.
When the big 3 broke off I cried myself to sleep, as a 10 year old fan a part of my fandom died with that move. That was my introduction to how the A’s do “business”
Céspedes and Donaldson. Granted I was a teenager so I’m sure that made the cut feel deeper but I shed a tear or two.
For me it was Reggie. After back to back to back championships and 5 AL West titles in a row, Finley sent Reggie & Ken Holtzman to Baltimore before the ‘76 season for Don Baylor and Mike Torrez. It was crushing to then watch him go to NY as a free agent the next year and win titles with Catfish in NY.
To be fair to the A’s or to provide context, iirc McGwire wanted out of Oakland and he was having problems with his foot/heal. I think he was coming off a season where he barely batted over .200. In fact, McGwire was criticized for sitting the last game because if he went “O for,” his BA would dip below .200. Simply put, McGwire’s trade value was down and the Cardinals were targeted as a team for him to go to. St. Louis wasn’t going to give much for him in a deal, they didn’t have to.
TLDR, the deal was awful BUT there were circumstances that help place the trade into context.
Donaldson. I thought that 14 team would actually stay together and they would build long term around that core. The cespesdes trade hurt but it was a baseball trade, we got a certified ace in return, but trading Donaldson for an 18 year old was a dagger
Rickey or McGwire
But trading Chappy, Olson and Murphy in succession was brutal
FJF
Cespy had me sick to my stomach
McGwire > McGuire
This has always been weird to me. I know a guy that followed Montana to KC. He eventually became insufferable.
I cried as a kid when Canseco was traded. lol
McGwire really hurt. Tejada leaving probably hurt the most. At least Schott tried to resign Giambi so nobody really blamed the owners. We blamed Giambi for leaving. Fisher and Wolff didn’t even offer Tejada a fucking contract at all. So we blamed the team for the first time.
That Cespedes trade hurt. He was a force in the middle of the lineup and was always a big at bat. They were the best team in baseball at that point and then it all went wrong. Lester didn’t even want to be here at all.
Donaldson trade was the true really wtf. They only continued it with Olson and Chapman and Murphy… guys who we had under team control and we just dump. We had a great Manager in Melvin at the time too who was told he wouldn’t be getting paid by the A’s anymore and to find a new job for himself.
The Bash Brothers
Rickey
Weiss
Céspedes
not a trade, but giambi leaving (to go to the yankees!) was probably my biggest gut-punch
This is recency bias, but watching all of our stars get traded in 2020 and 2021 while the whole Howard Terminal debacle was going on was very painful. What followed was much worse.
The McGwire trade turned me into a Cardinals fan too. Funny story, I was in Cincinnati for work and the Cardinals were in town. I was so stoked to have a chance to see McGwire in person again. I paid extra for good seats. Got my beer and dog. Sat down to enjoy watching my favorite player once again. First inning, he’s called out looking. Argues with the umpire and gets tossed! WTF?
Man. The McGwire trade gutted me. I never recovered from that one. Cespedes was painful as well. And losing Donaldson was another shit move. McGwire was my hero as a kid though…so that one stung the most for me. Especially to see him break the home run record as a Cardinal. That being said…the peak of baseball in my lifetime was the home run race between Sosa and McGwire. Just sucks he wasn’t an A when that happened.
Huddy and Mulder were wild as young kid. Really made me grow up and get numb to the other trades that happened.
Canseco to the Rangers at the ‘92 deadline.
Carlos Gonzalez is a forgotten blunder
Cespedes trade. Showed that Beane had absolutely zero understanding of chemistry and got a hugely flawed starter we didn’t even need.
Honorable mention of Jemile Weeks for Jim Johnson and Seth Smith for Luke Gregerson. Two fan favorites and not half bad outfielders for two professional choke artists.
My first ever A’s game, hell, actually, first ever PRO SPORTING EVENT was in 1997. I was a HUGE A’s fan, and Mark McGwire was basically my childhood hero. We drove all the way from Carson City to see them play the Orioles. I was finally going to get to see my hero in person.
We got to the stadium to learn that he had been traded that day to the Cardinals 😑🤦♂️
My dad is from STL, so we went to Bush the next season and got to see him strike out twice and pop up to first once in 98, though!
Cespedes for Lester or Street and CarGo for Matt Holliday. The first arguably torpedoed our run to the World Series, the second screwed us coming *and* going.
donaldson easily
cespedes trade sucked too, but people acting like that was the reason the team floundered down the stretch are forgetting that donaldson was playing hurt and moss slumped hard until the WC game when he homered twice
Not keeping Miggy when he wanted to stay hurt. He was even I offered a hometown discount Cespedes about killed me.
While I grew up as a kid in the 510 in the 80s-90s as a HUGE Bash Bros fan, the one that really put the nail in the coffin for me was the Cespedes trade.
The A’s had 7 all stars, having just picked up Shark from the Cubs. I was feeling great about the team, and got myself a “La Potencia” Atléticos jersey from the jersey customization station in the 100 level. Like three weeks later Cespedes was traded for starting pitching depth that we didn’t even need. All seven of those all stars were gone from the team within the next year.
After that I pretty much gave up on the A’s organization. I still went to the occasional game, but wasn’t emotionally invested like I had been my whole life up to that point. I gradually checked out entirely and didn’t go to any games during the final few years in Oakland, aside from the very last game in Oakland.
The Céspedes trade killed all offensive synergy. & my joy.
After all the trades in my fandom-life(I’m 28) the cespedes and Donaldson trades are the only one I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I found out.
The McGwire trade (obviously) for me was a big deal, but I stayed a Big Mac and Oakland fan plus I picked up a 2nd team to root for.
I think the trade that stood out the most was Cespedes. He was looking like a superstar in the making and with how the playoffs ended it was maddening.
P.S. No offense to you OP, but the number of people using McGuire and not correcting is sad asf
42 comments
Man I was 7 when it happened and I cried the whole day. At least I got used to it at a young age.
true story: i went to taco bell in 1998 wearing a MM jersey and a goatee, and the kids there thought i was him
That one hurt horribly. So did cespedes
The trade that made John Fisher the primary owner of the team.
Céspedes and Donaldson trade..
Huddy
Mark McGwire almost made me a St. Louis fan, especially with LaRussa there too. But home is in Oakland…. 🤷🏻♂️
McGuire as a kid and Donaldson as an adult.
Mark Mulder crushed me. Hudson not as much but close
Canseco. It absolutely crushed me as a kid!! Then later on in life Milton Bradley hurt! He is one of my top 5 a’s players! 🙁
Cespedes felt like a betrayal
Cespedes man. He fell off pretty hard after the trade too but glad he got paid.
Another trade that hurt was bringing in Jason Hammel. Good lord that guy was crap with us and then goes and wins a WS with the cubs. FJF✌🏽
Cespedes. Went from the best record in the AL to losing a wildcard game. It can all be directly tied to that.
When the big 3 broke off I cried myself to sleep, as a 10 year old fan a part of my fandom died with that move. That was my introduction to how the A’s do “business”
Céspedes and Donaldson. Granted I was a teenager so I’m sure that made the cut feel deeper but I shed a tear or two.
For me it was Reggie. After back to back to back championships and 5 AL West titles in a row, Finley sent Reggie & Ken Holtzman to Baltimore before the ‘76 season for Don Baylor and Mike Torrez. It was crushing to then watch him go to NY as a free agent the next year and win titles with Catfish in NY.
To be fair to the A’s or to provide context, iirc McGwire wanted out of Oakland and he was having problems with his foot/heal. I think he was coming off a season where he barely batted over .200. In fact, McGwire was criticized for sitting the last game because if he went “O for,” his BA would dip below .200. Simply put, McGwire’s trade value was down and the Cardinals were targeted as a team for him to go to. St. Louis wasn’t going to give much for him in a deal, they didn’t have to.
TLDR, the deal was awful BUT there were circumstances that help place the trade into context.
Donaldson. I thought that 14 team would actually stay together and they would build long term around that core. The cespesdes trade hurt but it was a baseball trade, we got a certified ace in return, but trading Donaldson for an 18 year old was a dagger
Rickey or McGwire
But trading Chappy, Olson and Murphy in succession was brutal
FJF
Cespy had me sick to my stomach
McGwire > McGuire
This has always been weird to me. I know a guy that followed Montana to KC. He eventually became insufferable.
I cried as a kid when Canseco was traded. lol
McGwire really hurt. Tejada leaving probably hurt the most. At least Schott tried to resign Giambi so nobody really blamed the owners. We blamed Giambi for leaving. Fisher and Wolff didn’t even offer Tejada a fucking contract at all. So we blamed the team for the first time.
That Cespedes trade hurt. He was a force in the middle of the lineup and was always a big at bat. They were the best team in baseball at that point and then it all went wrong. Lester didn’t even want to be here at all.
Donaldson trade was the true really wtf. They only continued it with Olson and Chapman and Murphy… guys who we had under team control and we just dump. We had a great Manager in Melvin at the time too who was told he wouldn’t be getting paid by the A’s anymore and to find a new job for himself.
The Bash Brothers
Rickey
Weiss
Céspedes
not a trade, but giambi leaving (to go to the yankees!) was probably my biggest gut-punch
This is recency bias, but watching all of our stars get traded in 2020 and 2021 while the whole Howard Terminal debacle was going on was very painful. What followed was much worse.
The McGwire trade turned me into a Cardinals fan too. Funny story, I was in Cincinnati for work and the Cardinals were in town. I was so stoked to have a chance to see McGwire in person again. I paid extra for good seats. Got my beer and dog. Sat down to enjoy watching my favorite player once again. First inning, he’s called out looking. Argues with the umpire and gets tossed! WTF?
Man. The McGwire trade gutted me. I never recovered from that one. Cespedes was painful as well. And losing Donaldson was another shit move. McGwire was my hero as a kid though…so that one stung the most for me. Especially to see him break the home run record as a Cardinal. That being said…the peak of baseball in my lifetime was the home run race between Sosa and McGwire. Just sucks he wasn’t an A when that happened.
Huddy and Mulder were wild as young kid. Really made me grow up and get numb to the other trades that happened.
Canseco to the Rangers at the ‘92 deadline.
Carlos Gonzalez is a forgotten blunder
Cespedes trade. Showed that Beane had absolutely zero understanding of chemistry and got a hugely flawed starter we didn’t even need.
Honorable mention of Jemile Weeks for Jim Johnson and Seth Smith for Luke Gregerson. Two fan favorites and not half bad outfielders for two professional choke artists.
My first ever A’s game, hell, actually, first ever PRO SPORTING EVENT was in 1997. I was a HUGE A’s fan, and Mark McGwire was basically my childhood hero. We drove all the way from Carson City to see them play the Orioles. I was finally going to get to see my hero in person.
We got to the stadium to learn that he had been traded that day to the Cardinals 😑🤦♂️
My dad is from STL, so we went to Bush the next season and got to see him strike out twice and pop up to first once in 98, though!
Cespedes for Lester or Street and CarGo for Matt Holliday. The first arguably torpedoed our run to the World Series, the second screwed us coming *and* going.
donaldson easily
cespedes trade sucked too, but people acting like that was the reason the team floundered down the stretch are forgetting that donaldson was playing hurt and moss slumped hard until the WC game when he homered twice
Not keeping Miggy when he wanted to stay hurt. He was even I offered a hometown discount Cespedes about killed me.
While I grew up as a kid in the 510 in the 80s-90s as a HUGE Bash Bros fan, the one that really put the nail in the coffin for me was the Cespedes trade.
The A’s had 7 all stars, having just picked up Shark from the Cubs. I was feeling great about the team, and got myself a “La Potencia” Atléticos jersey from the jersey customization station in the 100 level. Like three weeks later Cespedes was traded for starting pitching depth that we didn’t even need. All seven of those all stars were gone from the team within the next year.
After that I pretty much gave up on the A’s organization. I still went to the occasional game, but wasn’t emotionally invested like I had been my whole life up to that point. I gradually checked out entirely and didn’t go to any games during the final few years in Oakland, aside from the very last game in Oakland.
The Céspedes trade killed all offensive synergy. & my joy.
After all the trades in my fandom-life(I’m 28) the cespedes and Donaldson trades are the only one I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I found out.
The McGwire trade (obviously) for me was a big deal, but I stayed a Big Mac and Oakland fan plus I picked up a 2nd team to root for.
I think the trade that stood out the most was Cespedes. He was looking like a superstar in the making and with how the playoffs ended it was maddening.
P.S. No offense to you OP, but the number of people using McGuire and not correcting is sad asf