If you were to rank the Yankees’ all-time best in season trades, the deal that brought Bobby Abreu to the Bronx in 2006 would rank up there. For what ended up being basically nothing in terms of prospects sent the other way, the Yankees got two and a half seasons of a very good hitter, who fit like a glove with the rest of their lineup.
With today being Abreu’s 52nd birthday, let’s take a look back at the trade, his stint in pinstripes, and the rest of his baseball career.
Bob Kelly “Bobby” Abreu
Born: March 11, 1974 (Maracay, Venezuela)
Yankees Tenure: 2006-08
The second of six children, Abreu was born in Venezuela in 1974. His love of baseball came from his father, who had played locally. From early on, Abreu showed an aptitude for playing himself, and that got him signed by the Houston Astros in 1990.
Right from making his debut in the Gulf Coast League in 1991, Abreu showed a talent at what would become his greatest skill: getting on base. Even as his other skills needed more time develop, he OBP’ed .358 that season, and he would spend pretty much the rest of his career in that range or higher. By 1994, the rest of his game caught up, and he posted OPS marks of .898, .911, and .847 from ‘94-96. He was already pretty well regarded in the Astros’ system, but that got him truly on the radar and got him a call up in 1996.
Abreu didn’t light the world on fire in his cup of coffee in 1996, but he did get recalled to be Houston’s starting right fielder in ‘97. However, another slow start and then a wrist injury limited him to just 59 games and an 87 OPS+ that year. Following the ‘97 season, Houston left him unprotected for the expansion draft, with the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks set to come into the league, instead opting to protect Richard Hidalgo.
Tampa Bay took advantage of that and selected Abreu in the expansion draft. They then made a pretty bad mistake themselves with the outfielder. The Devil Rays immediately flipped Abreu to the Phillies that day, in exchange for longtime Philadelphia shortstop Kevin Stocker. Those choices proved to be disastrous ones for both the Astros and now Rays.
In Philadelphia, Abreu hit the ground running. In his first real full season in the majors, he hit .312/.409/.497 with 17 home runs and 19 stolen bases. Over the next nine seasons in Philadelphia, Abreu became a consistently excellent player for the Phillies, posting 47.2 fWAR over his career there. However, his on-base skill wasn’t fully appreciated yet, as evidenced by the fact that he didn’t make an All-Star appearance until 2004, having already put up multiple 6+ WAR seasons. He made it back the next year, and proceeded to put on a show in that year’s Home Run Derby in Detroit.
The next year, the Phillies got off to a slow start, and general manager Pat Gillick decided to tear down a little bit. Age-wise, Abreu didn’t quite fit with the Phillies’ up-and-coming young core of Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and others, so Gillick decided to try and send out Abreu. However, the outfielder also had a full no-trade clause, and said he would only waive it for a few teams, one of whom happened to be the Yankees.
Meanwhile in the Bronx, the Yankees were looking for some kind of solution in right field. Gary Sheffield had gone into the year in the spot, but he had injured his wrist earlier in the season, eventually forcing him to undergo surgery. With Sheffield out, the Yankees were really struggling to find someone to play right in what was otherwise a pretty stacked lineup. Eventually, they came to a deal with the Phillies, sending prospects C.J. Henry, Jesus Sanchez, Carlos Monasterios, and Matt Smith to Philadelphia in exchange for Abreu and pitcher Cory Lidle. At the time, Henry was ranked as one of the best prospects in the Yankees’ system, but in Philadelphia, the trade was still bemoaned as “The Great Gillick Giveaway.”
While the season wouldn’t end as hoped, Abreu helped galvanize the Yankees down the stretch in 2006 with a stellar .330/.419/.507 showing in 58 contests, good for a 138 OPS+. He drove in plenty of runs himself (including seven in one game against the D-Rays on September 12th), but Abreu also became a very helpful table-setter in the lineup, leading the league in walks that year, while seeing an average of 4.4 pitches per plate appearance.
The following year, Abreu overcame a bit of a slow start to still end up with a .818 OPS and over 100 RBI, though playoff success continued to elude the mid-2000s Yanks and they went out in another four-game ALDS. He posted a 120 OPS+ in 2008, and was the last person to record a stolen base at old Yankee Stadium. After that season, in which the Yankees missed the playoffs, the team decided to retool and focused their free agent spending elsewhere, eventually letting the likes of Abreu and fellow OBP machine Jason Giambi walk.
Abreu ended up signing with the Angels, and had a couple good years there, although they did fall to his old Yankees’ team in the 2009 ALCS. After a slow start in 2012, the Angels released Abreu, as they had some outfielder named Mike Trout up and coming. Abreu went on to play for the Dodgers later that year, and had a brief run with the Mets in 2014 before retiring.
In recent years, people have begun to make a case that Abreu should be in the Hall of Fame. While he was never quite talked about in that way during his career, the things he was excellent at have been seen in a new light thanks to more advanced analytics and WAR. He reached 30.8 percent in the most recent ballot, which was 11 percentage points higher than 2025. If that trend continues, Abreu might very well end up in Cooperstown in the coming years.
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
