Throwback Thursday: Blue Jays trade Roger Clemens to Yankees

Despite being division rivals, the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees have made 20 trades since the Blue Jays joined the league.

While there have been notable trades in the team’s shared history, such as the Blue Jays trading J.A. Happ to the Yankees for Brandon Drury and Billy McKinney, or the Blue Jays acquiring Hall of Famer Fred McGriff from the Yankees, there hasn’t been a more notable trade than the Rogers Clemens trade.

In this edition of Throwback Thursday, we’ll look at how that trade panned out. If you missed last week’s article, we looked at the trades with the Cleveland Guardians in the Ross Atkins/Mark Shapiro era.

Before joining the Blue Jays, Clemens was already a three-time Cy Young Award winner, a one-time MVP winner, and a five-time All-Star with the Boston Red Sox. In the 1996-97 off-season, Clemens signed a four-year deal with the Blue Jays worth $10 million annually.

Clemens only spent two of those four seasons with the Jays, winning back-to-back Cy Young Awards thanks to a 2.05 ERA in 264 innings pitched in 1997 and a 2.65 ERA in 234.2 innings in 1998. The right-handed pitcher led the American League in ERA both seasons.

Shortly after the end of the 1998 season, Clemens asked to be traded, and on the first day of 1999’s Spring Training, the Jays sent him to the Yankees in exchange for Homer Bush, Graeme Lloyd, and David Wells.

The rest of Clemens’ career

The righty spent the next five seasons with the Yankees, pitching 1,004 innings with a 3.99 ERA and 3.77 FIP. He won his sixth Cy Young Award and was named an All-Star twice. Clemens won the World Series with the Yankees in 1999 and 2000.

At 40 years old, Clemens retired… for about three months as he signed with the Houston Astros to begin the 2004 season. He won his seventh and final Cy Young in 2004, his only National League Cy Young. Clemens was also named as an All-Star in 2004 and 2005, the final two times he made an appearance at the Summer Classic. With the Astros, Clement had a 2.40 ERA and 3 FIP in 539 innings pitched.

A few months before his 45th birthday, Clemens returned to the Yankees for the 2007 season, where he had a 4.18 ERA and 4.14 FIP in 99 innings pitched. His final game was in Game 3 of the American League Divisional Series that year, before calling it a career for good after 24 seasons.

Who the Jays got in return

The Blue Jays’ most notable return for Clemens was the return of David Wells. The pitcher spent the start of his career with the Blue Jays, winning a World Series with them in 1992 before being released before the 1993 season.

In between his two stints with the Jays, Wells was named an All-Star in 1995 and in 1998, won a World Series with the Yankees 1998, and pitched a perfect game, also in 1998. Upon returning to the team that drafted him, Wells finished with a 4.47 ERA and 3.93 FIP in 461.1 innings pitched, with a 37-18 record. He also finished third in Cy Young Award voting in 2000 and was named an All-Star.

Wells played another seven seasons in the big leagues, playing with the Chicago White Sox, Yankees, San Diego Padres, Red Sox, San Diego Padres, and Los Angeles Dodgers. Like Clemens, Wells pitched into his mid-40s.

Graeme Lloyd pitched just one season with the Jays, posting a 3.63 ERA in 74 games, or 72 innings pitched. He missed the entirety of the 2000 season, joining the Montréal Expos for the 2001 season. Lloyd played for the Expos and Florida Marlins in 2002, and the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals in 2003, retiring after the season. He won two World Series with the Yankees in 1996 and 1998.

As for Homer Bush, he played parts of four seasons with the Blue Jays, slashing .283/.321/.360 with 10 home runs in 1,222 plate appearances. In 2002, Bush was released and signed with the Marlins for the rest of the season. After missing the 2003 season due to injury, Bush returned to the Yankees in 2004, but had just eight plate appearances before retiring due to injury.