TRADE WINS ... AND LOSSES

A look at a few of the most notable trade-deadline deals in baseball history:

2008

The Boston Red Sox not only sent to L.A. Manny Ramirez, one of baseball’s best right-handed power hitters, they agreed to pay his salary for the rest of the season. Ramirez hit .396 with 17 home runs and 53 runs batted in over 53 games, leading the Dodgers -- a .500 team at the time of the deal -- to the National League Championship Series for the first time since 1988.

2001-2008

Pittsburgh shed Jason Schmidt (2001), Aramis Ramirez (2003) and Jason Bay (2008) in the span of seven years. Combined, the three former Pirates made six All-Star appearances over the next eight seasons. The players Pittsburgh received in return? Zero.

2001

Jermaine Dye was sent by Kansas City to Colorado, which then shipped him to Oakland. The Royals got Neifi Perez for him; the Rockies got Todd Belitz, Mario Encarnacion and Jose Ortiz. Three of those four players were out of the major leagues before Dye, a two-time All-Star, was named MVP of the 2005 World Series.

1998

The Houston Astros turned a tight division race into a rout by picking up from Seattle left-hander Randy Johnson, who had a record of 10-1 with a 1.28 earned-run average over the final two months of the regular season.

1997

Oakland, with Mark McGwire’s contract about to expire, unloaded him to St. Louis for three pitching prospects. McGwire hit 24 homers the rest of that season, then stayed with the Cardinals and smashed 70 the next season. On the same day the Cardinals got McGwire, Seattle, in a less-noticed deal, sent prospects Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek to Boston for Heathcliff Slocumb. Slocumb went 2-9 for the Mariners and the Red Sox won two World Series championships in the next decade.

1995

Three years after a late-summer trade sent David Cone from the New York Mets to Toronto, where he pitched the Blue Jays to a World Series title, the right-hander returned to New York -- this time to the Yankees -- in exchange for three minor leaguers. He went 9-2 down the stretch, helping the Yankees to the postseason for the first time in 14 seasons.

1988

The Yankees traded Jay Buhner to Seattle for Ken Phelps, a deal so spectacularly bad for New York that it inspired an episode of “Seinfeld” in which Frank Costanza berates Yankees owner George Steinbrenner about it.

1984

The Chicago Cubs, in a seven-player swap with Cleveland, picked up Rick Sutcliffe, who went 16-1 for his new team, leading it to the NLCS.

1964

Lou Brock spent 21/2 uneventful seasons with the Chicago Cubs before St. Louis acquired him as part of a six-player deal. With the Cardinals, he won two World Series championships and established single-season and career stolen-base records en route to the Hall of Fame.

-- Kevin Baxter