I hadn't thought of Moret in years, maybe more than 40 of them. Back in the day, pretty sure his baseball card was "Roger" Moret. Yikes, he's still Roger Moret at b-r. He was a good pitcher, much more of a swingman than I realized. That 14-3 season was 36 games, just 16 starts, 145 innings. Moret declined upon arrival in Atl and House on arrival in Boston. I had no idea about the mental illness.

He went back to Rogelio after Moonraker.

Interesting to look back at his numbers. 25 years old, coming off dominant W/L numbers two of the past three years and the Red Sox traded him for a random relief pitcher best known for catching a famous home run. Looking at his peripherals, it's easy to see that the W/L numbers were unsustainable, but were the Red Sox really wise to those numbers in 1975? I remember, as a kid, being unhappy with the trade, thinking Moret and Lee were two lefties who would be keys to beating the hated Yankees going forward. Can't argue with it now, though. Just about zero WAR for the rest of his short career.

looks like he's only "Roger" on his rookie card with Wayne Twitchell and Hal Haydel. all Rogelio after that.

my 1970 to 1975 Topps cards - yes, I still have all of them - have shifted grimly in the "alive or dead" category.

as kids, you shuffled through a pal's clump of cards: "Got em, got em, got em, need em, got em, got em, got em, need em, need got em...."

now it would be "alive, alive, alive, dead, alive, alive, alive, dead, dead...."

Charles - there were rumors of "off the field incidents" that led to the trade. I seem to remember in his book Bill Lee told a story of Moret getting in a serious car accident during spring training but he was saved because he was asleep at the wheel so he had slumped down and was below where the tree he hit ripped off the roof of the car. It's always a bit dicey to accept "off the field incidents" for players of his skin color in the 70s (or the 2020s for that matter) but in Moret's case it seems a bit more legit. His SABR bio is worth a quick read. Looks like the incident Lee described was Moret hitting a truck in August (and maybe my recollection of what Lee wrote is off) and of course given the hospitalization it is not unreasonable to think that his behavior was off in a way that the 1970s Red Sox were not going to handle well.

He seemed extremely fast when I saw him on TV at some pt. in the early 70s. Like you could barely see the ball.

#3: My initial reaction to seeing that trade at b-r was the same ... but House was coming off 2 seasons, 182 innings in relief with a 153 ERA+, 13-9, 22 saves. Moret's 2 years were 318 IP but just a 109 ERA+. Neither was good after the trade, House just 1 WAR but not a lopsided trade.

#6: Probably the lo-D video of our day. Just 5.3 K/9 over those 3 years. Sure that's a lot better in that era and there's more to K'ing guys than velocity but for comparison, House's career K/9 was 5.2 at the time of the trade.