Ken Griffey Jr. Once Rejected a Trade to the Mets For a Rejected Met

Imagine if a scene like this had happened at Shea Stadium with Griffey wearing a Mets uniform.  (Elaine Thompson/AP)

With today's news that Seattle legend Edgar Martinez failed to garner the votes necessary for Hall of Fame election, that leaves Ken Griffey Jr. as the only player with a Mariners cap on his plaque in Cooperstown.  But nearly two decades ago, a deal was in place that could have seen Griffey change the "S" on his cap to an interlocking "NY".  That is, if Griffey hadn't rejected the trade.

According to the Seattle Times, Mariners general manager Pat Gillick and his Mets counterpart Steve Phillips had discussed a trade in December 1999 that would have brought Griffey to New York to join fellow 2016 Hall of Fame inductee Mike Piazza in the middle of a formidable Mets lineup that had come within two wins of a National League pennant just two months earlier.  But Griffey was adamant about only playing in Seattle or Cincinnati, where he grew up and went to high school.  As a 10-and-5 player (ten years in the majors, the last five with his current team), it was Griffey's right to reject any trade he didn't approve of, which he did after the Mariners asked for his approval of a potential move to New York.

Who would the Mets have sent to Seattle for the future Hall of Famer?  Well, Roger Cedeño would have taken his .313 batting average and then-club record 66 stolen bases to the Pacific Northwest in the nixed deal.  So would Octavio Dotel, who ended up pitching for a major league record 13 teams in his 15 major league seasons.  A third player would also have been jettisoned to Seattle to go with the speedy Cedeño and the peripatetic Dotel.  That player would have been Armando Benitez.

Yes, that Armando Benitez.

Benitez had become the Mets' closer in 1999 after John Franco was lost for two months with an injury.  Although Benitez had a dominant regular season (22 saves, 1.85 ERA, 128 Ks in 78 IP), he was just ordinary in the postseason, blowing a save in the division series (a game the Mets eventually won in extra innings) and failing to hold a one-run lead in the tenth inning of Game Six of the NLCS (the Mets lost that heartbreaker to the Braves).

Booooo!!!   (Gregory Bull/AP)

Had Griffey just said yes to the Mets, Benitez would have been in Seattle in 2000.  That means he wouldn't have allowed a game-tying three-run homer to the Giants' J.T. Snow in the ninth inning of Game Two of the 2000 NLDS.  And he certainly wouldn't have blown a ninth inning lead to the Yankees in Game One of that year's World Series, which completely changed the course of that Fall Classic.  And let's not forget how Benitez allowed eight runs in two late-season appearances against the Braves in 2001, coughing up a three-run lead and four-run advantage in those ill-fated outings, all but ending the Mets' unlikely post-9/11 push to a potential division title.

Benitez remained a Met until 2003, which was more than enough for him to incur the wrath of long-time Mets fans as well as recent converts.  Dotel and Cedeño, who were two-thirds of the rejected trade for Griffey in 1999, were eventually traded that winter to the Houston Astros for Derek Bell and Mike Hampton, with Hampton eventually being named the Most Valuable Player of the 2000 National League Championship Series.  Fortunately for Hampton, Benitez didn't blow any of his leads in his two NLCS starts, although Benitez did allow two runs in the ninth inning of Hampton's first NLCS start, turning a comfortable 6-0 lead into a 6-2 final.

Could the Mets have won the 2000 World Series if Griffey had okayed the trade?  Would John Franco have gone back to being the Mets' closer and would he have held the leads that Benitez blew in so many crucial situations?  We'll never know.  But the thing we can say with certainty is that every person who booed Benitez would have cheered for Griffey.  And Mets history would have looked a whole lot different.

Where In The World Is Octavio Dotel?

When Octavio Dotel broke into the major leagues in 1999 as a member of the New York Mets, no one expected him to do much.  He had already pitched four seasons in the Mets' minor league system and was halfway through his fifth when he got the call to join the big club in late June.

Dotel ended up being a pleasant surprise for the Mets, going 8-3 as a spot starter and making the postseason roster as a reliever.  He was the winning pitcher in the "Grand Slam Single" playoff game and was supposed to be a future star for the Mets.

Then Mike Hampton became available.

Considering that Al Leiter, at age 33, was the youngest starting pitcher in the Mets' regular rotation in 1999, the possibility of adding a 22-game winner who was just 27 years old made Dotel expendable.  Hampton became a Met.  Dotel became an Astro.  It would not be the first time Dotel would switch teams.  In fact, with yesterday's news that Dotel signed a one-year deal with the Detroit Tigers, he has now become the player with the most changes of address in major league history.

When Octavio Dotel takes the field for the first time as a Tiger in 2012, it will be his 13th team in the major leagues.  That will break the record set by Mike Morgan in 2000 and tied by Ron Villone in 2009 and Matt Stairs in 2010.

What makes Dotel's accomplishment more amazing is that at age 38, he'll be playing for his 13th team at an age younger than Morgan, Villone and Stairs were when they made their first appearances for their 12th team.  Morgan was 40 when he pitched for Arizona in 2000, while Villone was 39 when he first took the mound for Washington in 2009.  Stairs was the elder statesman of the trio, making his first appearance for his 12th team (San Diego) at age 42.

Dotel wasn't as peripatetic when he was in his 20s.  After his trade from the Mets to the Astros following the 1999 season, he remained in Houston until 2004, when he was dealt to the A's at the trade deadline.  At the time, Dotel was 30 years old and had only played for two major league teams.  Since then, he's suited up for (take a deep breath) the A's, Yankees, Royals, Braves, White Sox, Pirates, Dodgers, Rockies, Blue Jays and Cardinals, finally winning a World Series ring for the first time in St. Louis this past season.

Is Octavio Dotel participating in the Cardinals' victory parade or is he just sitting on his moving van?

With his move to Detroit, Dotel will now be playing for his third American League Central team, following his short stay in Kansas City in 2007 and his two-year stint in Chicago (the only team for which he's played more than one season since leaving Oakland following the 2005 campaign).  The Tigers will also be his 12th team over the past nine seasons and sixth team since the beginning of 2010.

Dotel has played for at least two teams in every division in the majors except the American League West (Oakland is the only AL West city he's called home).  However, that might be due to the fact that the AL West is the only division in baseball that has fewer than five teams.  Don't worry.  Give him time.  He'll be in Texas, Anaheim (I refuse to call it Los Angeles) or Seattle soon enough.

Most players celebrate winning their first World Series by going to Disneyworld.  Octavio Dotel is celebrating his first title by going to his 13th team in Detroit.  Something tells me he shouldn't unpack his belongings upon arriving there.