“It just shows the Astros don't want to win,” read one response that echoed the sentiment of many others. A decade later, the reactions to the trade are quite different. The deal, which was made 10 years ago Saturday, is now considered one of the most lopsided in baseball history. Fields posted a solid 2.61 ERA in 124 games with the Dodgers from 2016-18, but Alvarez is one of the game’s premier sluggers and is the favorite to win the American League MVP Award this year. “I don’t think anyone is going to tell you [that] when we traded for Yordan, that we thought he would be what he is, the most dangerous hitter in baseball,” said Kevin Goldstein, the Twins’ vice president of international scouting who was the Astros’ director of pro scouting at the time. “We certainly saw a really big guy with a whole lot of tools, who had a lot of power and looked like he could hit, too,” Goldstein said. “And so that's exciting. There was certainly upside there. It didn’t take long in his time with the Astros to think this guy might be special. And here we are. It’s crazy.” |
Alvarez, who was 19 years old when the trade went down, had reached a $2 million international deal with the Dodgers about six weeks earlier, and was living and working out at the team’s academy in the Dominican Republic. “I remember being in my bed when somebody knocked on the door and they asked me if I can go to the main office,” Alvarez said during an interview in English on Wednesday. “They let me know I was traded to the Astros and somebody was going to pick me up. My first thought was, ‘They fired me.’” Alvarez admitted he didn’t even know how trades worked at the time. Eventually, he packed up his things and waited outside the Dodgers’ academy. And waited and waited. He called the Astros, who had forgotten to arrange transportation to their academy, which Alvarez said was a 25-minute ride in a minivan. “We got a driver to go hurry over and pick him up and take him to our place,” Goldstein said. Alvarez had been working out in the gym and doing some baseball drills to stay in shape but hadn’t played a Dominican Summer League game or even put on a Dodgers uniform when he was traded. The Astros had been interested in signing Alvarez earlier -- Astros senior scouting advisor Charlie Gonzalez pushed especially hard -- but they didn’t have any money left in their international budget. “We certainly remembered the name,” Goldstein said. “At that time, we were one of the few teams really focusing on complex-level players.” |
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When the Dodgers were interested in trading for Fields, Gonzalez got a call from general manager Jeff Luhnow asking who the Dodgers had that the Astros should target in the trade. “Are you kidding me?” Gonzalez said in 2022. “Who do they have? How about the guy I’ve been burning up your phone about for the last year?” Except when Luhnow texted Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi to ask for a return in the trade, he wrote: “Y. Alvarez.” Zaidi thought Luhnow was asking for Yadier Álvarez, a Cuban pitcher whom the Dodgers signed for $16 million a year earlier. “And Farhan came back and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’” Goldstein said. “‘This guy's like our top pitching prospect. … What are you doing?’ And Jeff said, ‘No, no, Yordan.’” Trading away Fields actually paid dividends for the Astros long before Alvarez was the 2019 AL Rookie of the Year and a four-time All-Star. Fields gave up back-to-back home runs to Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa in the 10th inning of the Astros’ thrilling come-from-behind win over the Dodgers in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series at Dodger Stadium. “The funny thing is I remember I was playing in the Arizona Fall League when the Astros were playing in the World Series and they mentioned my name,” Alvarez said. “It was very exciting.” |
Alvarez has never met Fields but faced him post-trade in the Minor Leagues when Alvarez was with Triple-A Round Rock in 2019. He remembers seeing his name on the scoreboard. “There was a big silence between me and him when he was pitching,” Alvarez said. “It was fun.” |
The trade will be remembered by Astros fans in the same way as the club’s infamous 1990 trade with the Red Sox. Houston acquired future Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell for veteran relief pitcher Larry Andersen. The Dodgers have done just fine without Alvarez, winning three World Series titles since they traded him, but Alvarez is on a Hall of Fame arc of his own and has carved out a great legacy during his eight seasons with the Astros. “I just thank God that my life turned out this way,” Alvarez said. “I don’t know how my life would have turned out if life had taken me that way, but I don’t need to think about that.” |
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