Phillies: Most impactful trade made with every team
Pittsburgh Pirates: Dave Cash
"On October 18, 1973, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded Dave Cash to the Philadelphia Phillies for Ken Brett."
The Phillies of the early 70s were a group of young, budding stars who were still finding their way in the league. Greg Luzinski, Larry Christenson, Bob Boone, Dick Ruthven, and Mike Schmidt were all 25 or younger. Christenson was actually just 19 when he came up in 1973.
In 1972 the Phillies had won just 59 games under Frank Lucchesi and GM-turned-manager Paul Owens. The following year under manager Danny Ozark they made the jump up to 71 wins, but they needed a couple more pieces before they were going to win consistently.
Shortly after their season ended in 1973, The Pope got his team a new second baseman from their cross-state rivals in Pittsburgh. Dave Cash was slated to replace Denny Doyle, who would be designated as the “player to be named later” in a deal made with the Angels earlier that year.
Cash came in and was a consistent player out of the gate, leading the league in at-bats in all three of his seasons in Philadelphia. Not only was he available, but he could hit, nabbing over 200 hits with a .300+ batting average in his first two seasons.
Twice, Cash set the Phillies single-season at-bat record and held the title with 699, though Juan Samuel and Jimmy Rollins have since broken that record. Since 1970 Cash has the most, second-most, and third most singles in a season for the Phillies. Ben Revere tied that third place since 1970 record with 162 singles.
He would also be named an All-Star in all three of those seasons and finished in the top-16 in the MVP face each of those years.
In his three seasons with the Phillies Cash would hit .296 with 113 extra-base hits. While he was there the Phillies turned into a championship-caliber team, winning 101 games and reaching the NLCS in 1976.
Cash left the team after the ’76 season and signed with the Expos as a free agent. He spent three years in Montreal before being traded to San Diego, where he played his final season in 1980.
As for Ken Brett, the man the Phillies traded to Pittsburgh to acquire Cash, he was an All-Star in his first year with the Pirates, winning 13 games with a 3.30 ERA, very similar numbers to what he put up in Philadelphia. His career would then go on a journey through six other cities where he never made another All-Star team.