Today marks the 39th anniversary of the St. Louis Cardinals acquiring Ozzie Smith from the San Diego Padres... sort of. The deal was established at the Winter Meetings in December 1981, but it took a few more months for the trade to be completed. This was primarily because of Smith’s contract. Imagine if the recently completed Nolan Arenado deal had originally been pieced together and made public in early December... and the deal wasn’t official until February. That’s how the Ozzie Smith deal shook down. There are a lot of echoes of the Ozzie trade in the Arenado deal.
The Ozzie Smith Trade through the Prism of Modern Analysis
