On July 10, 1989, the Mets and Yankees pulled off one of those rare cross-town trades that barely left a footprint. New York sent 23-year-old outfielder Marcus Lawton to the Yankees for 30-year-old pitcher Scott Nielsen, and the deal ended up producing almost nothing at the big league level.
Lawton was a sixth-round Mets pick in 1983 and the brother of Matt Lawton, who would later briefly play for the Mets. After the trade, he got into 10 games for the 1989 Yankees and went 3 for 14, collecting only singles.
That was the extent of his major league impact. He spent the rest of his career in the minors with several organizations, and by then the Mets had already shown little interest in keeping him around.
He had been a 1988 Rule 5 Draft pick by the California Angels before being returned to the Mets, so moving him in a trade fit the direction things were already heading.
Nielsen’s side of the swap wasn’t much more memorable. A fringe major leaguer for most of his career, he spent most of 1989 in the minors and logged just 0.2 innings over 2 games for the Yankees.
His career 5.49 ERA made him an easy arm to part with, and the Yankees were happy to move on. Nielsen appeared in 21 games in 1989 and then 17 more in Triple-A the next season, but the Mets never promoted him.
After the 1990 season, his career was over.
The trade stands out mostly because of who made it. Deals between the Mets and Yankees are so uncommon that even a forgettable one gets remembered.
Neither team really got anything out of this exchange. Lawton was released by the Yankees after one year, and Nielsen spent one more season in the minors before becoming a free agent and retiring.
It wasn’t Robin Ventura for David Justice, and even that trade had its own odd twist, with Justice never playing a game for the Mets. This one was different only in how little it mattered.
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