Juan Samuel: Player Who Came Over in a Bad Trade for Len Dykstra & Roger McDowell (1989)

Juan Milton Samuel was born on November 10, 1960, in the Dominican Republic. The five-foot eleven right hand hitting Samuel, was originally signed as an undrafted free agent in 1980 by the Philadelphia Phillies.

The free swinging second baseman swung at anything in his direction & struck out quite often. He once said about getting out of his native country & getting into the majors "You don't walk off the Island, you hit."

After hitting .320 at A ball in 1982 he went through the minors in 1983 batting .330 with 15 HRs at AAA ball, playing in 65 games. 

MLB Career: Samuel got a September call up playing in 18 games. He saw action in the post season as a pinch runner & got one at bat in the World Series loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

In 1984, Samuel was penciled in as the Phillies second baseman & came flying out of the gate. He became the first player in history to reach double figures in HRs, doubles, triples & stolen bases in his first four seasons.

But Samuel would also lead the league in strike outs in those four seasons, striking out over 100 times for six straight years. In his career Juan struck out over 100 times eight seasons.

In his rookie year he led the NL in triples with 19, hit 36 doubles, stole 72 bases (2nd in the NL) & hit .272 with 15 HRs. Samuel made the All-Star team & even got some votes for the MVP Award. He also led the NL in at bats (701) plate appearances (737) & errors made at second base (33). He was never a great infielder making quite a bit of errors at second base and eventually moved to the outfield.

Samuel spent six years in Philadelphia, in 1987 he hit a career high of 28 HRs with 100 RBIs & a leagues leading 15 triples. He was also tops in at bats, plate appearances, strike outs & errors at second base. 

By 1988 his numbers had dropped off to 12 HRs, 67 RBIs & a .243 batting average. The speedy Samuel was still stealing over 30 bases a year. The Phils were ready to move him & got one of the best deals of the eighties.

The Mets on the other hand were getting 

antsy because they had good teams but had not reached the World Series since their 1986 championships. They were breaking up the talents that made up that team & now they made one of their worst trades of that era. In June of 1989 the Mets traded away Lenny Dykstra & Rodger McDowell for Mr. Samuel.

The Bad Trade: Samuel came to New York to become the Mets centerfielder. That July the team would also trade away the popular Mookie Wilson. This trade had failure written all over it then & now. Dykstra who certainly was trouble off the field, but on the field, he went on to win an NL MVP Award in Philadelphia going to a World Series. Samuel was gone at the end of the season moving on to Los Angeles the next season.

Samuel made his Mets debut at Shea Stadium on June 19th against the Montreal Expos; he went hitless but drew a walk & stole a base. He hit his first Mets HR right before the All-Star break & was batting .250 in the leadoff spot at the break. 

Juan began August with four straight multiple hit games, scoring five runs in that time.

It seemed he'd only drive in runs when the Mets were having big games, 

Walk Off Hit: On September 5th, Juan came to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning, of a 2-2 tied game. Samuel singled off Chicago's Mitch Williams bringing in Lou Thorton for a walk off win. The Mets were 3.5 games out of first in a four-team race.

Samuel struggled going just 8-48 with six runs driven in, in the final two weeks of the season, as the Mets fell out of the race.

Since coming to the Mets, he batted .228 with 3 HRs 13 doubles a triple 28 RBIs & 37 runs scored. He recorded 75 strikeouts in 86 games. Samuel had speed & his best stat was his 31 stolen bases in 40 attempts. That was a very good number considering his on base % was only .299%.

As for centerfield he only made three errors out there, posting a .986 fielding% with four assists.  Right before Christmas he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Mike Marshall & Alejandro Pena.

Post Mets Career: Samuel was never the top player he was in his early days, in Los Angeles he
hit .271 with 12 HRs 58 RBIs & 23 steals in 1991 his best year in the two seasons he spent there. He became more of a utility player going to Kansas City, Detroit, Cincinnati & Toronto where he spent his last four seasons.

He retired in 1998 after 16 seasons with 1578 hits 287 doubles 12 triples 161 HRs 396 stolen bases 703 RBIs a .315 on base % & a .259 batting average.

Retirement- Coaching Career: After baseball Samuel became a coach with the Detroit Tigers from 1999-2006, that year he returned to the Mets organization as manager of the Binghamton Mets. 

He went to the Baltimore Orioles as their third base coach from October 2006 – 2010 serving as interim manager after Dave Trembley's dismissal in 2010.

From 2011 to 2017 he was the Philadelphia Phillies third base coach after former Met coach Sam Perlozzo moved over to first base. The new regime of Phillies coaches did not retain Samuel. 

At age 57 he found himself not involved with baseball for the first time in four decades.

Honors: In 2008 he was inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame at Citizens Bank Park.