The New York Yankees usually have the upper hand when dealing with small market teams when it comes to trades. Here are the top three trades they made with the Montreal Expos.
The New York Yankees drew the ire of other teams when they began to sign up free agents to lucrative free-agent deals. They were the consummate big market ball club who was not afraid to throw their cash around.
The Montreal Expos were long regarded as the poor little orphans of the league. Rightly so, as their final two years before relocating to Washington DC, they were owned by Major League Baseball. The Expos were the definition of a small market team.
For a long time, the joke was the Expos were an AAAA team, one step above Triple-A. Fans called the Expos, the minor league system for other clubs, as once the talent got too expensive it was a given they would be traded off. Lurking in the shadows were the Yankees who didn’t need excuses to spend money.
Even today the running storyline is when a player becomes great, and outplays his current team and contract, the buzz is, “oh he’ll be a Yankee someday”. The Yankees are not afraid to flash the cash or pay players top dollar for their talents.
Here are top three examples of the New York Yankees swooping in and exchanging assets with the Expos.