John Mabry-Jeremy Giambi

From Wiki Gonzalez

The John Mabry-Jeremy Giambi thread is a historical landmark in Baseball Primer's history.

When Billy Beane of the Oakland A's traded outfielder/first baseman/DH Jeremy Giambi to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder John Mabry on May 22, 2002, a very long Baseball Primer thread ensued.

At the time it happened, the thread was by far the longest thread in BTF history. Even more amazing than its size was its thread velocity, as some 500 posts were made in the first three or four hours that it existed. Within 2-3 hours, it had set a (long since shattered) record for the longest thread ever.

Reactions to the trade varied. Some posters felt that it was just plain crazy and one-sided. Giambi was a young developing player with an OBP, potential power, and minor league performance to die for (and an attitude and body type to be afraid of). Mabry was pretty close to replacement level and had barely played for the Phillies.

Others felt that since it was Billy Beane who had apparently traded something for nothing, there had to be some hidden reason why it was a good idea. (AKA, it's a trap!). Jeremy's alleged drug use and party-hardy attitude were mentioned; many believed this was a "send a message to the rest of the players" kind of trade. (Later interviews with Beane, as well as the publication of Moneyball, confirmed that this was exactly the reason.)

Derek Zumsteg indicated that there was a major reason, but he failed to expound on the matter.

Some posters responded that even given that reasoning, it was too expensive a price to pay for sending a message. Others mentioned that Primates were giving Beane a pass that they wouldn't give to a Kenny Williams. (i.e., "Beane must know something we don't.")

The thread eventually deteriorated into chasing Hank Aaron's home run record, ending up with 758 posts, 3 better than Aaron's home runs, before being closed.

As a result of the Giambi-Mabry thread, the moderators added an incrementing post number to each post. Previously, posts could only be identified by time and post author.

Jon Daly considers Mabry-Giambi to be Primer's coming-out party.

Also see

• F. regarding John F. Mabry's completely unexpected powerful performance with the A's.

References

• Mabry-Giambi thread (http://web.archive.org/web/20040220175637/http://www.baseballprimer.com/clutch/archives/00003291.shtml) (as originally seen on Primer's "Clutch Hits" section)