Before the three Cy Young Awards, before Boston, before Cooperstown — Pedro Martínez was a 21-year-old reliever the Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t trust to start a game. In 1993 he went 10-5 with a 2.61 ERA, struck out 119 batters in 107 innings, and led every National League reliever in wins. At the end of that season, GM Fred Claire shipped him to Montreal for a second baseman. What followed is the most painful chapter in Dodgers franchise history.
What Pedro Did in the LA Bullpen
In 65 appearances during the 1993 season — 63 of them in relief, just 2 as a starter — Martínez did more than enough for any organization to label him untouchable. He allowed only 76 hits in 107 innings, a rate that would translate to an elite WHIP by today’s standards, and finished ninth in NL Rookie of the Year voting.
The Dodgers’ reasoning was simple and, in hindsight, embarrassing: Pedro stood 5’9″ and weighed around 160 pounds. Tommy Lasorda and the front office believed that frame couldn’t hold up to the grind of starting every five days. So he stayed in the bullpen, stacking wins that nobody fully credited to the future immortal already standing right in front of them.
The Trade Los Angeles Can Never Forget
On November 19, 1993, GM Fred Claire pulled the trigger: Pedro Martínez to the Montreal Expos for Delino DeShields. The logic had some surface-level sense at the time — the Dodgers had failed to sign Jody Reed as a free agent and needed a second baseman, and DeShields was young with MVP votes on his résumé — but the outcome was catastrophic.
Salary played a role too. Martínez was earning $119,000 while DeShields was making $1,537,500 — a gap that mattered to a front office watching the payroll more closely than the future.
Montreal made Pedro a starter immediately. The results:
- 1997: First Cy Young Award — 17-8, 1.90 ERA
- 1999 & 2000: Back-to-back Cy Youngs with Boston
- 1997–2003: 118-36 record, 2.20 ERA, 213 ERA+ — the highest mark in history for a starting pitcher, meaning he was 113% better than the league average over that stretch
DeShields, meanwhile, hit .255 over four forgettable seasons in Los Angeles. The trade is universally considered the worst in franchise history.
What the Photo Doesn’t Tell You
A widely circulated V.J. Lovero photo shows a young Pedro mid-windup in a white Dodgers uniform, number 45. It’s a picture of a hinge moment: the best pitcher of his generation, and Los Angeles had no idea what it had.
Martínez was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2015, appearing on 91.1% of ballots in his first year of eligibility, with a career line of 219-100, a 2.93 ERA, and 3,154 strikeouts. He was born on October 25, 1971, in Manoguayabo, Dominican Republic — meaning he turned 22 on virtually the last day of that 1993 season. For almost the entire year, he was 21 years old.
He was already too good to throw away.
