A look back at Jose Cruz Jr. and J.P. Ricciardi

[Halladay_is_God]

TorontoSun.com - Bob Elliott - Elliott on baseball

Sun, July 16, 2006

In late July of 2002 the Blue Jays were nearing the end of the line with outfielder Jose Cruz Jr.

Cruz owned a .227 batting average at the break with 13 homers and 45 RBIs.

Finally, they found someone with interest in Cruz.

The New York Mets said they would take Cruz, offering a minor-leaguer playing his first full season at class-A.

Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi decided against taking the minor-leaguer for Cruz. The Jays also refused the Seattle Mariners' offer of prospect Rafael Soriano for Cruz, after the Mariners refused to move reliever Clint Nageotte.

The Jays held on to Cruz, who finished the 2002 season with a .245 average, 18 homers and 70 RBIs. After the season the Jays decided not to tender Cruz a contract and he signed as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants.

That class-A kid? Well, it's tough evaluating 19-year-olds as the kid was at the time.

That season at class-A Capital City the kid hit .266 with 11 homers and 93 RBIs. He had 76 walks, 114 strikeouts.

The kid? You may have seen him at Tuesday's all-star game -- and on a hundred or so highlight clips -- as he grew up to be all-star third baseman David Wright.

Wright's 2006 stats: A .315 average, 20 homers and 75 RBIs.

As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

its a article that's a couple of years old now but damn

**** you J.P. **** you

yes hindsight is 20/20, Wright may have not worked out as he did under the Blue Jays but damn

[HollywoodLeo]

The Padres had an offer on the table of catcher Carlos Hernandez to the Cardinals for minor leaguer Albert Puljos once.

Although, that one was shot down by the Cardinals, so I can't really say "**** you" to Kevin Towers for it not happening.

The Cardinals sent us Ben Johnson, instead, who later got dealt for Heath Bell. So it still worked out ok.

[Halladay_is_God]

at least you got something for him, JP could had nice looking prospect at the time but got nothing

[ljshorty89]

Wow. The interesting part about Wright is that the Mets didn't even take him with their own pick, it was a compensation pick. David Wright was their compensation for....you guessed it....MIKE HAMPTON. So we let go of an injury prone guy who wanted too much money to go to a better school district, and in return, we get David Wright. Good deal for us, I'd say.