The baseball player traded for nothing
Matt Monagan
There have been some strange trades throughout baseball history.
Starting pitchers traded for catfish. Centerfielders dealt for rent. Johnny Jones acquired for a 25-pound live turkey.
But there’s one that sticks out for how incredibly bizarre it is. You’ll look at it again and again and try to find some way it can’t be true. It can’t be. How could it be? But, somehow, it is.
Back in 2013, Mike Cisco was traded from the Phillies to the Angels for … nothing. Not rent, not a catfish, not a 25-pound turkey. Not even a 10 or 20-pounder.
Nothing. Zip. Zilch.
“It’s always, like, couldn’t you have thrown in some cash?” Cisco told me, laughing, in a recent call.
After being drafted by the Phillies in 2008, Mike Cisco was a good pitcher during almost every year and at every level he played in the Minors. It was, of course, in his genes. His grandfather, Galen, had a seven-year big league career and helped lead the Blue Jays to two World Series titles as a pitching coach.
Mike was a starter for his first few years and then, after becoming a full-time reliever in 2011, went on a dominant run: The righty put up a 1.70 ERA over 137 1/3 innings at both Double- and Triple-A.
“I got all the way up to Triple-A with [the Phillies] and had a good year,” Cisco said. “And I’d been in Double-A Reading for a couple years with the same success.”
By the time he got to Spring Training with the Phillies in 2012, the then 25-year-old figured he’d put in his time and effort during an almost half decade in the Philadelphia system. He needed to begin 2012 in a position closer to the Majors. It was time to say something.
“I had some conversations with the administration and the upper levels on what they were thinking,” Cisco recalled. “I felt like I had proven myself not to go back to Double-A. I kinda let them know that I felt like I’d done enough to start the season in Triple-A.”
By the end of Spring Training, Phillies management came back to Cisco with a solution: He’d be getting on a plane that day to Arizona.
Cisco had been traded to the Angels, and would join them near the end of their Cactus League play. There’d hopefully be more space there for him to rise up to the big leagues.
Cisco was a bit taken aback, but excited for his new team and the possibilities it might bring.
“I felt like the Phillies did right by me,” he told me.
Still, he wondered during those whirlwind couple of days, who had he been traded for? What had the Angels given up to get him?
“Buddies who I’d played with kinda sent me articles and stuff,” Cisco said. “And I was like, ‘Well, s***.'”
Cisco didn’t feel too bad about the extremely historically lopsided trade, knowing that the Phillies did it to try to get him the opportunity he wanted. Unfortunately, the right-hander still started the year in Double-A and spent the entire season there. Once again, he pitched well — putting up a 3.99 ERA in 58 2/3 innings and making the All-Star team.
By the time Spring Training 2013 rolled around, Cisco was a bit exhausted by the up and down nature of his pro career. Baseball had been his entire life, and he was ready for a change.
“I felt like I needed to move forward at that point.”
Cisco went to work for his dad’s honey-baked ham company in South Carolina and opened up his own store in Summerville, S.C., in 2016. Although he says his 37-year-old arm likely wouldn’t hold up and he wouldn’t have the velocity he had back then, he still reminisces about certain aspects of the game.
“I tell you what, I still miss being around the team and the clubhouse,” he told me. “All that stuff.”
And how does he feel about being on these “Strangest trades of all-time” lists that pop up every year?
“That’s nice, wow, yeah, I’ll have to start looking at them. Rehash it,” Cisco laughed. “I’m proud of that. If I didn’t get in the big league book playing, then at least I’m talked about still.”
