After the season, he was packaged with Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Eric Plunk and José Rijo to the Oakland Athletics for Rickey Henderson.

[2] Javier spent his first season in the Oakland Athletics' organization with the Huntsville Stars, with whom he won the Southern League baseball championship.

In 1989, Javier saw quite a bit of playing time in right field when Jose Canseco was kept out of the line-up for the first half of the season by an injured left wrist.

[4] Javier played well enough to keep his team within 1.5 games of the first place California Angels in their star slugger's absence, and they stormed to their second straight division crown upon his return.

[6] He was replaced by a platoon of Mike Gallego and Lance Blankenship, but the two managed just a .144 batting average, one home run and ten RBIs through the middle of May.

[7] With Kirk Gibson out due to surgery on his torn left hamstring,[8] Javier was immediately inserted into the starting line-up in center field.

Upon Gibson's return, Javier settled into a pinch hitter and fourth outfielder role, and immediately became one of the hottest bats in the Dodgers' line-up.

On July 2, Javier was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for minor league pitcher Steve Searcy and a player to be named later.

As the Phillies were in Los Angeles facing the Dodgers when the trade was made, Javier merely changed clubhouses, and found himself a uniform.

Batting lead-off, and playing left field against the Chicago White Sox on August 6, Javier enjoyed a career game, going four-for-four with a walk, two RBIs and a run scored.

[24] The Giants put together a six-game winning streak in September to suddenly become contenders in the National League's wild card race after trailing the Chicago Cubs by five games at the start of the month.

[26] The Houston Astros were decimated by injuries, but still holding on to a slim 1.5 game lead in the National League Central division when they acquired Javier from the Giants for pitching prospect Joe Messman just before the waiver deadline of August 31, 1999.

He made a circus catch on June 4, 2000, to rob the San Diego Padres' Phil Nevin of a home run.

[29] Having already announced that he would retire at the end of the season, Javier platooned with Al Martin in left field for a Mariners team that went on to win 116 games in 2001.

He made a leaping catch to rob the New York Yankees' Alfonso Soriano of a home run in the third game of the 2001 American League Championship Series to ignite his team's come from behind victory.