Joe McDonald
McDonald
Joe McDonald


Non-playing roles with Mets
  • Director of Scouting 1967
  • Director of Minor League Operations 1968 - 1971
  • Director of Player Development Operations 1972
  • Director of Minor League Operations 1973 - 1974
  • General Manager 1975 - 1979
  • Vice President 1979

Share your memories of Joe McDonald

HERE IS WHAT OTHER METS FANS HAVE TO SAY:

blue and orange 4 ever
June 3, 2005
 This guy was a clerk in the Brooklyn Dodgers front office. He also was the GM of the Mets when they traded Tom Seaver in June of 1977. There have been stories that he could have traded Seaver to Los Angeles some time before for Don Sutton and Pedro Guerrero, but he turned it down. His son, when he was on WFAN, denied that story in defense of his father. I think he went on to work for Detroit after he left the Mets.

Jonathan Stern
June 16, 2005
 In his memoirs, Tug McGraw referred to his trade to Philadelphia as a "Jack Daniels" trade. Two GMs get together over drinks and OOPS! a deal is made. I don't know if that's true, but it's never smart to trade a quality guy to a team in your own division. Much though we like John "Awesome Name" Stearns, the Phillies got the better of that deal.

Steve Rogers
July 9, 2005
 Joseph Anthony Alyolisus McDonald Senior. Baseball lifer, still scouting down in Florida for the Rockies I believe right now. Course his son Jody worked at WFAN in New York and WIP in Philly for a lot of years, now on Sirrus Satilite radio. Here's to the man who was "forced" to make many a bad deal thanks to M. Donald Grant.

Dan Mancilian
December 23, 2005
 Funny thing is that despite Joe Jr.'s effort to rehab his dad's reputation, you can't say anything but Joe McDonald was a horrible GM. Bad trades and horrible drafts are his legacy.

Junior tells of cheap ownership, maybe, but the Seaver trade was awful, and the Dodger trade was a real offer.

Junior likes to build up his dad's record by suggesting that he was with the Tigers in '84 and later with the Cards in the late 80's. Those teams won with Senior on the payroll, but thankfully for those fans, Joe Sr. was not making deals.

Want to get Junior riled up, call him on any radio show he does and throw his dad under the bus and thank him for ruining the Mets for years. Very funny stuff, I've done on at least 3 occasions.

Gary G.
October 1, 2008
 Joe McDonald scouted and assembled a miracle team that won the World Series in 69 and had them winning in the early 70s. Compared to where they were early on before he got there he did an outstanding job. Some of the later year trades were forced by the owner. Nothing happens without owner approval....don't forget that.

andy from chicago
August 9, 2010
 While McDonald rightly or wrongly gets the blame for having to carry out the Midnight Massacre trades of Tom Seaver and Dave Kingman in 1977, he should get some credit for leading an organization that produced Mike Scott, Jeff Reardon, Neil Allen, Jesse Orosco, Wally Backman and Hubie Brooks, all of whom were drafted while he was GM.

Michael K
September 27, 2010
 Andy from Chicago - As a correction, Jesse Orosco was not drafted by the GM. He was acquired from the Minnesota Twins in the Jerry Koosman deal.

sadmetsfan
October 17, 2015
 I still have a Mets bullpen jacket that Joe McDonald gave to my father in 1970. My dad had a shop in Manhattan's meat-packing district and McDonald was a customer, at least that's the story my dad told me. My guess is that they both used the same back-door bookie. McDonald developed a lot of great players and was set up as a scapegoat during his GM tenure. He deserves to be remembered for the more successful parts of his legacy.

Larry’s Mets Memories
December 28, 2021
 M. Donald Grant’s right-hand man. Grant is responsible for the personnel decisions that ruined the franchise, but as GM McDonald negotiated the trades. Grant wanted Tug, Rusty & Tom out; it was Joe’s job to get the “best deal.” Hence, while I liked John Stearns -not for Tug McGraw! Then perhaps the most illogical trade in team history: Rusty for Mickey Lolich.

Then the culmination of the “Seaver4.” The decision to trade Tom was Grant’s; both, to where/for whom. The backstory goes that Joe had the Dodger option: Lee Lacy, Rick Rhoden & Pedro Guerrero, but Cincy was willing to toss in a 4th principal. Yes, if you’re asking that Dan Norman was the deal maker/breaker! On the advice of Jody, Papa Joe recommended this coup to MDG as his best deal - a 4-for-1.

Of course, the preferred option would’ve been to reject all the proposals as inadequate, but the LA deal was the best. This means that if Dan was in the Dodger system we’d be joking, wistfully, how the Mets almost settled for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn & Steve Henderson from the Reds, but thanks to the perseverance of wise man Joe & his boy-genius son, a 3-for-1 was unacceptable!

Then, MDG & McD engineered the “Jon-John” trade (Matlack & Milner) in a complex 4-team swap that landed a declining Willie Montanez. Finally, Joe acquired that elusive slugger the team was so desperate for: Richie Hebner (for Nino Espinosa, who had a fine year in 1979 for the Phillies.)

Well, there you have it: Trader/Traitor Joe, Joe the Genius, the father of the kid who discovered Dan Norman, who’s walking the streets murmuring to himself not only “I was traded for Tom Seaver”, but was the linchpin. We Mets fans are one lucky bunch; we should be eternally grateful!

Mets Know-It-All
December 1, 2022
 As Mets' general manager, Joe took his share of the blame for the Tom Seaver trade in 1977. The team made a much better deal for Keith Hernandez on the sixth anniversary of that not-so-popular transaction. Joe just happened to be the Cardinals' GM who, with some help from Whitey Herzog, sent Hernandez to New York. I guess he did something to redeem himself.








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