Who amongst us didn’t marvel at Gary Matthews, Jr. robbing Mike Lamb of a home run in July, 2006?. It was just one obvious highlight in a career year for the Texas Ranger, who parlayed what might’ve been PED assisted numbers into a monster deal with the Angels the following winter. It would be, however, a colossal understatement to say Matthews underachieved in Anaheim ; in September of ’08, Tim Marchman called Sarge’s kin “the Least Valuable Player” in all of Major League Baseball, writing “anyone who makes $9.4 million for hitting like Melky Cabrera and playing much worse defense certainly deserves an award of some sort.”
With Matthews a year and a half older, and still owed nearly $20 million dollars, the Angels have finally managed to rid themselves of the centerfielder via a Friday trade with the New York Mets. The Halos receive reliever Brian Stokes while the Amazins are only obliged to pay $2 million of Matthews’ salary over the next two seasons. It seems like a relatively low risk gambit, especially if you’re not troubled by the prospect of a defensively-challenged, injury prone player on the downside of his career patrolling the vast expanse of the Citi outfield