Brad Ausmus
If you haven’t seen this video yet, don’t wait to see it – watch it now. It’s too damn funny. (Hat tip to Pete Abe.)
The Brad Ausmus transaction timeline:
June 2, 1987: Drafted by the New York Yankees in the 48th round of the 1987 amateur draft.
November 17, 1992: Drafted by the Colorado Rockies from the New York Yankees as the 54th pick in the 1992 expansion draft.
July 26, 1993: Traded by the Colorado Rockies with a player to be named later and Doug Bochtler to the San Diego Padres for Bruce Hurst and Greg Harris. The Colorado Rockies sent Andy Ashby (July 27, 1993) to the San Diego Padres to complete the trade.
June 18, 1996: Traded by the San Diego Padres with Russ Spear and Andujar Cedeno to the Detroit Tigers for John Flaherty and Chris Gomez.
December 10, 1996: Traded by the Detroit Tigers with Jose Lima, Trever Miller, C.J. Nitkowski, and Daryle Ward to the Houston Astros for Doug Brocail, Brian Hunter, Todd Jones, Orlando Miller, and cash.
January 14, 1999: Traded by the Houston Astros with C.J. Nitkowski to the Detroit Tigers for Paul Bako, Dean Crow, Brian Powell, Carlos Villalobos, and Mark Persails.
December 11, 2000: Traded by the Detroit Tigers with Doug Brocail and Nelson Cruz to the Houston Astros for Roger Cedeno, Chris Holt, and Mitch Meluskey.
Ausmus went out with a bang this season. Good for him.
You know, Brad went on to play 1,914 big league games in his career. I wonder how many players were drafted/signed by the Yankees who went on to play close to 2,000 major league games – without ever playing for the Yankees? That’s got to be a small list.
O.K., how about this? How many guys were drafted by the Yankees in the 48th round of the draft and then went on to play close to 2,000 games, period, in the bigs? That’s got to be a small list as well.
How can you not be happy for a guy like Brad Ausmus – getting as far, and doing it for as long, as he did?
In fact, Ausmus is the only one from the Yanks’ 48th-round selections to make it to the Majors. Not bad.
Hey, I did say it was a small list!
It’s good to be a defensive catcher.
Those HOU-DET trades remind me of the flurry of trades the Yanks & White Sox made with each other in the late 80′s
IIRC, those Astros-Tigers deals were father-son deals between Tal and Randy Smith…but I could be wrong.
He had to be the worst player ever drafted by the Yankees.
Ausmus ranks 9th for worst career RCAA over the past half century. Nobody ahead of him was ever drafted by the Yankees.