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May 30

Trading back

Given the number of player trades that go on in professional sports, I suppose it must occasionally happen that both teams involved in a trade decide they would have been better off if it hadn't happened. Can anyone name any instances where two teams chose to exactly reverse a trade deal they had previously made? (This does not include other ways that players might change teams.) For example, say that in the fall of 1968 the Toronto Maple Leafs had traded Norm Ullman, Paul Henderson, Floyd Smith, and Doug Barrie to Detroit in order to get back Frank Mahovlich, Pete Stemkowski, Garry Unger, and the rights to Carl Brewer. I imagine that if such a reversal did ever happen, it would involve a smaller number of players than that example.

Just curious. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 05:06, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, adjustments do happen sometimes. Usually, it's because of damaged goods (i.e. a player was injured and the receiving team was not aware); it may then ask for the sending team to take him back, or to offer additional players or money as compensation. One famous example: on July 22, 2003, the Boston Red Sox sent Brandon Lyon and Anastacio Martinez to the Pittsburgh Pirates in return for Mike Gonzalez and Scott Sauerbeck. However, Lyon turned out to be injured, so on July 31st, the Pirates sent both him and Martinez back to Boston, along with Jeff Suppan, and retrieved Gonzalez but also acquired Freddy Sanchez while the Sox got to keep Sauerbeck. Ironically, Sanchez turned out to be the most valuable player in the entire deal. There have been other similar cases. --Xuxl (talk) 12:35, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For a particularly interesting case, see Harry Chiti, the first player ever traded for himself.--Jayron 32 13:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

These cases are interesting, all right, but the case of Lyon et al. is not the exact reversal I asked for; and the case of Chiti may be considered as a completion of the original deal rather than a reversal. Any better examples? --76.69.46.228 (talk) 02:58, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's the case of Wayne Nordhagen: On June 15, 1982, he was traded from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Philadelphia Phillies in return for Dick Davis; the Phillies then flipped him to the Pirates for Bill Robinson. Nordhagen played one game for the Pirates, they claimed he had a pre-existing back injury and on June 25th, sent him back to Toronto and received Davis, who had played 3 games for Toronto, as compensation (Robinson stayed put in Philly, however). I'm sure there has been a direct one-for-one deal that was reversed, with no others involved, but one doesn't come to mind immediately. But once more than two players are involved, the teams will usually try to work out something that is not quite a full reversal, like the Brandon Lyon example I cited above, as the fact one player is injured does not negate the teams' interest in the others involved in the deal. Xuxl (talk) 12:33, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good one - I was a Jays fan for years and I wasn't aware of that. Injuries would seem to be a kind of special case, though. When that comes to light, it's usually the case that the trade is nullified rather than reversed, in the sense being used here. The Nordhagen case is obviously different. Matt Deres (talk) 14:41, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your consideration, and a future consideration to be named later. :-) --76.69.46.228 (talk) 05:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]