And when Torres comes back next summer with the Mets, I’m going to give him a standing ovation as if he’s Willie Mays carrying Joe Montana on his shoulders after they’ve returned from the first manned mission to Mars.

– Grant Brisbee, McCoveyChronicles.com.

Brisbee writes a love letter to Torres upon the outfielder’s departure from San Francisco. As he writes, his fondness for the man is all mixed up with the Giants’ 2010 world championship, but everything I’ve read and seen in the past couple days makes Torres seem like a decent and interesting dude.

It also got me thinking about the nature of trades in sports. I recognize that it comes with the territory, and that a team’s right to trade players is one of the things it pays for when it shells out millions of dollars to those players to have them play baseball, and something players realize is a possibility when they enter into a life in professional sports.

But it’s still pretty weird on some human level, no? I can’t think of any reasonable analogy in real life. I know people get transferred at work sometimes, but it’s not the same as being traded. You’ve been traded. For whatever reason, your boss thought what you had to offer your company was less worth than what some other guy (or collection of guys) could bring to the table, so now you have to pack up your family and all your stuff and ship out, bro. Wave to that other guy as you pass him in the night, because his whole life has been uprooted too. We’ve swapped the two of you, just like you used to with baseball cards, except unlike baseball cards you’re real human men.

And I will continue to do it, but it’s pretty damn funny that we all throw it around so callously: Trade this guy. Trade for that guy. Traid. Trade him.

You ever wonder what you’d be worth on the trade market? What it’d be like if you could be traded to do your job at some similar company across the country? Maybe I’d be flattered that someone wanted me, or impressed by the package of bloggers I brought back to SNY.tv. Or maybe I’d look at their collective output and be all, “This? I’m worth less than this to you in a trade? You’re making me go through all this nonsense so you can have this?”

Luckily that can’t happen. At least I don’t think so. I don’t remember there being a no-trade clause, but I kind of assume that’s the case in most salaried positions outside of baseball.