The July 31 trade that saw the Detroit Tigers send Yoenis Cespedes to the New York Mets was agreed on just minutes before the deadline.

A few hours before the deadline Dave Dombrowski, then the top executive in Detroit, called owner Mike Ilitch asking if he could move Cespedes in the right deal.

"If we're going to get the guy we want for [Yoenis] Cespedes," Dombrowski told Ilitch, "this is going to come right down to the wire. Do I have your OK to make this deal? I know we can trade him for sure, but do you want me to trade him even if it isn't a good deal?"

Earlier that morning Dombrowski had received a call from Sandy Alderson expressing interest in Cespedes after the Mets' deal for Carlos Gomez broke down. Dombrowski told Alderson the Tigers wanted Michael Fulmer in a deal for Cespedes and Alderson agreed to be in touch.

Ilitch told Dombrowski to move Cespedes only if he could get the deal he wanted and until the phone rang at 3:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the deadline, the deal was far from certain.

"We were talking with other clubs, but the Mets, we always felt they were the best fit because they had good pitching and we felt they might give up a guy like Fulmer, who we really liked. They had so many starting pitchers, he was the one guy we identified from other clubs we liked the most," Dombrowski said.