Roy may be wearing a new red cap
Is anyone else not all that worried if the Red Sox get Roy Halladay?
To be clear, I don’t think it will happen with them for the same reason it won’t happen with us. Despite their recent statements to the contrary, the Blue Jays really don’t want to deal him in division if at all possible. They’ll use both teams to drive the price up and then trade him for the next best package that comes from out of their division. They don’t want to see him in the visitors dugout 19 games next year, possibly pitching 4-5 games against them. The fact that he’s so popular in Toronto makes it an even tougher pill for fans up there to swallow. For most of the past few seasons, having the best pitcher on either team was all that Blue Jays fans had to hang their hat on when facing the Yanks or Sox. Trading him is bad enough, trading him to their rival would really be rubbing it in.
But I just can’t get all worked up if the Sox unload their farm system AND give a 100+ mil extension for a 33 year old (next season) pitcher. I think it’s bad move, if you look at the entire deal and not just the first few seasons. It’s the kind of move bad, desperate teams make and moves like this are a big part of why some teams are bad more often than not. Halladay makes sense for the Phillies, and where they are on the win curve. He’s that one piece that can put them over the top. For the Yanks or the Sox, trading away a Joba/Hughes/Buccholtz plus another top bat to get him, you’re trading away more productivity than you will receive in all likelihood. You’re worse off as a franchise long term, and tomorrow does come around sooner than you think.
Yes, he’s one of the best pitchers around right now. But that’s past performance. The team that signs him will be paying him for what he did with the Blue Jays, and the overwhelming likelihood is that he will not be the same pitcher over the course of his next contract. He’s already been banged up a bit in recent years, and the guys who continue dominate in their late 30’s (especially in the tough AL East) are few and far between. The one guy who we all thought was the exception to the rule was Randy Johnson and he went from dominating the NL West at age 40 (ERA+ 177) to becoming a very ordinary pitcher the very next season in the AL East with the Yankees (ERA+ 112) and even worse the following season (ERA+ 90) with the Bombers.
If I’m going to give up a huge package of prospects, I want it to be for someone who is entering their prime years. Someone who I can project should put up his best seasons here, not have already had them elsewhere. The Red Sox deal for Josh Beckett comes to mind. A trade for King Felix or Josh Johnson would fit the bill. Those I guys I’d break the bank for. For Halladay, I’d only give up one of our young studs. A package of Joba+ a B-prospect? Fine. A Hughes+ filler deal? I’ll live w/it. But not multiple studs who I’ll be watching enter their prime as I watch Roy age. The ‘trade in your division’ stuff cuts both ways for me. Watching Montero hit 40 HR’s while a 36 year old Halladay spends 2 months on the DL will drive me batty,and I’m sure many other Yankee fans as well.
So while a 2010 BoSox rotation of Halladay/Beckett/Lester would be scary, and undoubtedly the best in Baseball on paper, I’ll still take my chances with the young guns we have now. Let Boston have 23 mil per year of dead weight on their books in the out years of the deal, it will affect them more than the Yanks. The Yanks are just exiting a period when they had old, unproductive dead weight on their books year after year and I don’t want to go back there anytime soon. I don’t make this deal for the same reason we didn’t make the Santana deal. I don’t want to pay twice for a pitcher who’s already showing signs of slipping (health-wise) and I think we’re better off in the long run if we stand pat.
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18 Responses to The Sox want Halladay? Fine.
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TIQ IQ
True this.
I agree let them trade for Halladay, if they want to let them sign Lackey all they are doing is putting a band-aid over a broken arm. They already have the problem of being an old team getting too old rapidly so the answer is get more 31+ year olds while trading young talent?
Beckett is turning 30 next season and has already shown signs both early in his career with the Marlins and with the Boston of not always being the healthiest so who knows how rapidly he will start to age and he is due a contract extension next year the same as Halladay.
Dice K hasn’t shown still that he can consistently get to the 6th inning let alone the 7th+ and as of last year he had no “savings left” so who knows how his mind frame is and how well his body will hold up.
Wakefield broke down last year and the only thing that can derail a knuckle baller is a back problem and he may not be able to just go on now, I think this is going to be a re-occurring problem for Tim for the rest of his career.
So they have 3 pitchers in the rotation who have injury concerns and while Halladay has been reliable he has also shown the tendency to get injured, and you have to wonder how well he will hold up when he is 37-40 years old when he has shown problems of injury in his career anyway.
From what I can tell the best years of Halladay’s career have been from age 27-32… Whoever gets him doesn’t get that Halladay, they get Halladay from 33-40 and I really don’t think he is going to age like wine.
Halladay has 3 peak seasons left.Their Owner, MAnager and gM have a serious hatred for the Yankees.If they got those 3 great years form him, they’d be happy.
3 years? That is a little generous, you are giving him through 36 to be a 2 ERA guy? I highly doubt that I would think at max he has 2 great years left and then a steady decline is to follow.
Sign Lackey, and that might push the Sox into an unwise deal for Halliday.
So we make an unwise deal to make the Sox make an unwise deal?
We have AJ Burnett (33) who is basically a glorified number 2 starter with an electric fastball and deadly knuckle curve who we are paying 16.5 million dollars per year and you want to sign Lackey (31) a glorified number 2 starter to a contract where he is making 16 million per year? It doesn’t make sense.
The only way you should add Lackey is if Pettitte retires and no trades are available, I think Lackey is over rated and shouldn’t be paid more than 12-14 million and I don’t think AJ should have got more than that so why should we have 2 way over paid 31+ year olds with long term contracts on the team?
With Lackey, it’s just money. If the Red Sox get Halliday, they will have to lose prospects. I, too, would ordinarily prefer another year of Andy P., but if getting Lackey pushes Theo Epstein over the edge, why not do that. Or at least bluff an imminent Lackey signing.
Because signing another 31 year old to an overrated 16 million dollar a year contract is ridiculous! Burnett is over paid for what he brings to the team but we were starved for pitching so we gave it to him, now you want to give that same contract or more to another 31 year old but this time with worse overall stuff?
Huzzah! The Commoner’s Sense hath been found in Yankeeland!
is it me or with all this talk of detroit’s supposed/potential “fire sale” shouldn’t the yanks look for a verlander deal? he’s one of a few guys (along with josh johnson and king felix) that in my mind seems worthy of giving up great young talent for since he would still have many good to great years left so even if montero becomes great (he will which is why i dont want to give him up for anyone really) it would still be a balanced trade. verlander is very young and very good obviously, so if you had to give up a lot for him, i think most people would be ok with that where as a deal for halladay including those same prospects wouldnt seem as smart. cc, verlander, aj, andy and whoever else sounds pretty good to me. i’m not sure whether nyy would consider taking a big contract along with verlander (ordonez, willis, etc) to make the deal better for detroit at least financially but we’ll see! comments?
There isn’t much out there to be had, that I would part with Montero for…maybe; Johnson, Verlander or Felix. Even then, I like having a big bat sitting behind Tex and A-Rod, if the kid can hit in the bigs like he did this year…he would up Tex/A-Rods run+ by more then enough to forgo the need for a trade.
That is basically my scare from trading Montero, why trade a guy who’s worst case scenario is a 5th hitting full time DH who is under 28… Worked pretty well for Adam Lind and they found a position for him this year in LF.
I hope Brian Cashman has similar thoughts. Based on what he did NOT do re Santana my guess would be that his thoughts lie in this direction.
“Let Boston have 23 mil per year of dead weight on their books in the out years of the deal, it will affect them more than the Yanks.”
Agree that it might not be in the best interests of the Yankees to invest in the “‘Doc” for the reasons stated but disagree with the characterization that he would be “dead weight” at the end of a multi-year extension asuming that it is no longer than 5 years( ages 34- 38). Specifically, take a look at those years for another righthander the Red Sox brought in when the Yankees were ascendent- Curt Schilling.For that five year period- split between Arizona and Boston- Schilling had three Cy Young calibre years and was a primary piece for two world championshions.Halliday’s recent health has been better than Curt’s prior to these years and I think because of that Theo will correctly have no hesitation in pulling the trigger on this long-term investment.
I agree. I think Halladay will be very good for a long time. I just don’t think it would be prudent for the Yankees to make that bet when they have so much money tied up in 4-5 guys and would need to give up many prospects for him. But I agree that he is as good a bet for a 33 year old pitcher as you can get.
I disagree. If you saw him pitch when he came off the DL this year, the Yanks destroyed him and he described himself as being just a bit off, not as sharp as usual. He depends on late movement on his Cut fastball and Sinker at velocity that keeps hitters honest. If he’s a little off, he can get hammered. The pitcher we saw fresh off the DL might very well be the guy who he is past 35. And of course the older he is, the more likely he is to get hurt, so even if he maintains his stuff he’ll be banged up more often.
The guy is the best pitcher in the AL and has no serious injury issues. I think looking at 3-4 rough starts and surmising that he will pitch like that in his decline phase is shortsighted. I’m not saying he will definitely be great until 38, but he is guy who is rarely “off” and seems to do alright even when he is off. I think he is as good a bet at that age as you will find.
I agree with Moshe that you can’t judge him on a small sample of starts after he came off the DL. Unlike the scouting reports surrouding Johan Santana in the the winter he was traded — everyone said Johan stopped throwing his slider, his velocity was down and that his stuff wasn’t as sharp — I haven’t heard the same things about Halladay.
If the injury was indeed the start of his decline phase, it was oddly manifested in July/September ERA’s of 3.00 and 1.47 (vs. an August ERA of 4.71). It would stand to reason that his stats would be impacted immediately after he came off the DL (June 29) andn ot a month later.
Also, I don’t think I agree that older pitchers are any more likely to get hurt than younger pitchers. I think pitchers, regardless of age, are succeptible to injury given the stress put on their arms and legs. Halladay has proven to be incredibly durable, logging in no less than 220 IP per year since 2006 and finishing fourth, third, first and second in innings pitched over the past four seasons.
Finally, having said all that, I don’t advocate any trade for Roy Hallday given the incredible expense in prospects that it would take to get a deal done. I estimate the Yanks to be about 2-3 successful Rule 4 drafts away from having a deep enough farm system that they can dip into for blockbuster trades. I don’t think we’re there yet.