Philadelphia Phillies: 15 best trades in franchise history
By Tim Boyle
14) Best Philadelphia Phillies trade: Hunter Pence from the Astros.
The Phillies managed to snag a lot of good players from the Houston Astros. One of them was outfielder Hunter Pence who amazingly didn’t even retire until almost a decade after his last at-bat with the Phillies.
Pence was an outfielder for Houston slashing .308/.356/.471 at the time of the deal. On the verge of undertaking a massive rebuild for the entire organization, the Astros began disassembling the team further than they already had in the past.
The year was 2011 and the Phillies were about to put together another great regular season but disappointing postseason. Pence came over, sparked the club, and went on to hit .324/.394/.560 for them while adding 11 home runs and 35 RBI.
The cost of this trade ended up being Jarred Cosart, Jon Singleton, Josh Zeid, and a player to be named later who would become Domingo Santana. Among all four, the biggest storyline to come out of any of their careers was Singleton getting a failed major league deal before ever playing a big league game.
Pence remained with the Phillies the following year but with the team declining greatly in 2012, he ended up traded to the San Francisco Giants in what should be considered one of the worst trades the franchise ever made. We’ll always have “let’s go eat.”