The Trade -- it's all in the details
Written by Mike Mariano   
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 15:26

Now that the deal is finalized (barring Roy Halladay passes his physical) we can sit down and decide what to make of it all.  The moving and shaking can be read in the table on the right of the post (I stole it from ESPN).

 

PHILLIES GET …
RHP Roy Halladay (from Toronto)
*RHP Phillippe Aumont (from Seattle)
*OF Tyson Gillies (from Seattle)
*RHP Juan Ramirez (from Seattle)
$6 million cash (from Toronto)
MARINERS GET …
LHP Cliff Lee (from Philadelphia)
BLUE JAYS GET …
*C Travis d'Arnaud (from Philadelphia)
*RHP Kyle Drabek (from Philadelphia)
*1B/3B Brett Wallace (from Oakland)
A'S GET …
*OF Michael Taylor (from Philadelphia via Toronto)

As discussed yesterday there are a lot more levels to this deal than moving players.  The main reason the deal was made boils down to the fact that Roy offered the Phillies a much more desirable long-term salary than Cliff Lee did.  Cliff wants a market-value, long-years, long-money deal and that doesn't fit into the Phillies organizational or monetary plans.  Roy on the other hand settled for 3-4 years of $20 million a year which is at least 1-2 years short of what he could have gotten in the open market next year.

On the surface, Lee for Halladay looks fine.  Halladay > Lee -- if only it was that simple.  The Phillies had to part with a lot of quality minor league talent to make this deal work.  Kyle Drabek is the Phillies top pitching prospect, Michael Taylor is right behind Domenick Brown on the hitting side and Travis d'Arnaud is the organization's top catching prospect.  The prospects received in return are of a much lower caliber.  Phillippe Aumont is a good prospect -- tall, lanky pitcher with good heat, but unpolished -- but no where near major league ready.  The other two prospects are lesser guys facing a long road to potentially make it with the big club.

Is the money saved long-term with Halladay worth what it cost to attain?  I don't think so.  I understand Ruben Amaro's thought process during all of this and that he had a tough decision to make.  However, the appeal of Roy Halladay this offseason was in adding him to our current duo of Lee/Hamels, not swapping Lee and Roy.  If the Phillies moved Blanton, signed someone cheaper than Polanco and brought in Roy, the top of the rotation would be a juggernaut and make the Phillies the overwhelming favorite to return to the World Series in '10.  I guess Ruben doesn't believe the world is going to end December, 2010, or else he'd have definitely made that move.



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