David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Link of the week: Transaction trees

I love transactions tree. Last week, I tweeted a link from our Indians blog that traced Cy Young winner Corey Kluber back to former Indians infielder Jerry Dybzinski through a series of transactions.

Ben Lindbergh of Grantland wrestled up the "oldest" roster spot for each team. Awesome idea and execution. For two teams, that was merely a draft pick: Matt Cain for the Giants in 2002 and Jimmy Rollins for the Phillies in 1996. For other teams, you had go back to the 1990s and 1980s.

In some ways, this shows the constant and ongoing fluidity of baseball, especially compared to the other sports where you don't see as many trades and draft picks. Moves that go back several generations of general managers can still affect a team's fortunes years and years later.

As it turns out, the "oldest" roster is, indeed, Corey Kluber. Dybzinski was originally drafted in 1977 and traded to the White Sox for Pat Tabler in 1983. Six players later, Tabler had become Jake Westbrook, who was traded to St. Louis as part of a three-way trade that saw the Padres send Kluber, then a minor leaguer, to the Indians on July 31, 2010.

Anyway, check out Ben's piece for the cool graphical representation of the oldest trees for all 30 teams.

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