Cardinals Acquire Matt Holliday

The St.Louis Cardinals have acquired OF Matt Holliday from the Oakland A's for 3 prospects, including the Cards' top hitting prospect. Yet another shady Oakland-St.Louis deal see:
1. Mark McGwire deal in 1997, total BS, St.Lou gave up basically nothing to get the then top slugger in MLB.
2. Mark Mulder to St.Louis in 2004. Mulder was at the time, one of the best pitchers in the game, few saw the injury problems ahead, well maybe Billy Beane. In return the A's got Dan Haren among others, Haren turned out to be a stud, he was later dealt to the D-Backs for more prospects, Haren is currently one of the premier pitchers in the NL.
3. Willie McGee to Oakland in 1990. McGee actually won the NL Batting Title in 1990 despite being traded to the AL at the deadline, he had enough at-bats, McGee was also the 1985 NL MVP. Nevertheless, the Cards did not get much in return, and McGee helped Oakland get to the World Series, where they eventually lost to Lou Piniella's Cincinnati Reds.

So maybe today's deal between the Cards and A's is the Cards getting paid back for McGee? Matt Holliday is hitting .286, 11Hr, 54 RBI, .378 OBP which is not actually that bad considering he plays in Oakland (and isn't on steroids like Miguel Tejada or Jason Giambi, Oakland is a bad hitters park!). He got off to a terrible start this season and is in the midst of his best stretch of the season. Holliday was a strong performer while with the Rockies, he was constantly near the top of the leaderboards in AVG, HR, and RBI each of the last few seasons. He also knows NL pitching. The Mark DeRosa deal has not worked out as well as the Cards had hoped, so they were forced to acquire another power bat to go with Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick. The only question is where are they going to play him, the outfield is getting pretty crowded in St. Louis with Ludwick, Rick Ankiel, Colby Rasmus, and Skip Schumacher already out there. Who would play right? Holliday I guess would have to play right. Hopefully for Cubs fans, Holliday stays in his funk from earlier in the season, if not it could be a long couple of months for the Cubs as we chase the Cards.

Maybe Tony LaRussa is why the Cards and A's do so many deals? I mean he has managed both of them to a World Series Title. Also, lots of teams make frequent deals together, the Cubs themselves send off their rejects to Baltimore for their mid-level prospects, examples: Corey Patterson, Felix Pie, Rich Hill, Joey Gathright, and Sammy Sosa for basically Mike Fontenot and Ryan Freel. And we did make multiple deals with the Pirates, a division rival, in 2003: getting Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for Bobby Hill and Jose Hernandez, and later aquired Randall Simon for basically nothing. Point is, there are lots of shady trades in baseball, it is just when it comes to the Cards and A's there are usually some big names being traded for very little in return. Here's to the Cubs playing better baseball rendering this trade useless!