The Case for Passing on Roy Halladay

C’mon

Regardless of your assessment, which I think was pretty good by the way…How did we not go after Cliff Lee? It gives us a shot this year, appeases the players, and doesn’t destroy our farm system. Would you have brought Cliff Lee in here for the price the Phils paid?

But I don’t think JD would do that trade, anyway, so I’m not sure how much your analysis would change if the deal didn’t include both Feliz and Smoak.

Everything else is manageable

Halladay gets 12-13 starts. Even if he wins 8 or 9, you still don’t make up that much ground on the Angels if they are playing well. He’s worth maybe 1 game in the standings.

What about an offseason trade when 1) the price should be lower and 2) 2010 is the target year anyhow?

As for the fallout in the locker room, that is where Nolan comes in. Being a former player he can see the trade deadline from their perspective. All he would need to do is explain the reasoning why they didn’t make a move and tell them the plan going forward. Is anyone going to question Nolan?

We also don’t have the cash to keep him for years to come. To me even if we made the playoffs but did not win the world series it would be a bad trade.

Best deal that can be made right now is some consistent offense that can replace Hank/Byrd in the future

fyi

http://twitter.com/ed_price/status/2935642349

That’s where I see the Rangers and Roy Halladay right now. The timing is off. If this were 2010, and Halladay were a free agent after 2011, and we were one year farther along in the development of everyone in the system and in the growth process of the young players currently on the team, I’d probably think differently. I’d probably say, go for it.

For fucks sake, lets just run a GD sim game and call the fucking season a done deal. I may never get another subscription to them just because of the way you are twisting their projections to suit your logic, AJM.

and I’m watching the gamecast for the A’s – Red Sox game…..which Oakland just took a 2-1 lead.

Halladay or no Halladay this seasons outcome will be decided by how our offense performs down the stretch. If they continue to suck, we won’t catch the Angels, if a couple hitters (please kinsler or hamilton) can hit a hot streak then we can be serious contenders regardless of halladay.

The 2009 season is on the houses money, and I’d much rather take our chances without Halliday with the fallback of awesomeness in the next 5 years, than gamble it all on a two year window.

If you’re an angels/As/Ms fan don’t you think you are hoping the rangers trade away their future stars for halladay? With our luck he’d probably get injured for half of next season anyway, it’s just too big of a risk with what we have. If you’re going to make a deal though I think you go all in and add a hitter or two on top of doc.

             " You’re either rebuilding for something special, or you’re on the verge of something special. To be in between is foolish."

… THERE IS NEVER GOING TO BE A GUARANTEE that we make the playoffs, I would say with Halladay we have a 25% chance to win the wild card and a 35-40% chance to win the division, those are pretty good odds when you’re talking about 15 teams going for the wild card and 4 teams going for the division. I think it puts us in the top 2-3 in the wild card which means 2 teams have to shit there pants in the toughest division in the AL for us to go which is plausible. It puts in the top 2 in the West which means if the Angels shit there pants we are going to the playoffs if we just play average, with the possibility still there that we play great and edge out the Angels. I am not for giving up two of the top 4 for Halladay but anything less DO IT. what happens next year if MY breaks his leg in ST and Millwood shows up fat again, and Frankie still has sickel cell or whatever it is? then we don’t even get to have these disscusions next year you take your shot when it presents itself as long as you don’t have to put all your gun powder in that one bullet

I predict 10,000 posts in 5 hours between all the people ecstatic to have him and all the people ruing the death of the franchise.

But you overstate Halladay’s real street value. Rumors (and the Lee deal) reflect this.

But also, prospects are so highly valued nowadays. Not just in terms of “The Plan” for whatever team – their cost-control is huge. That’s something Hicks appreciates more than most owners, and he’ll remind JD.

So, if Halladay’s a Ranger it’ll cost less than Smoak/Feliz/Borbon/B arm.

Also – you overstate the problem of finding a decent DH/1B. Seriously, there’s so much cash coming free for this next year.

Here

He evaluates the Mariners trade and the upcoming series

There are examples that we can use to support either side. It all hinges on those prospects actually turning out. You’d love to see a scenario like Boston or Atlanta (of years past) where they build the core at the major league level and then continue to add quality players to it both from the farm system and by trading prospects from their farim system.

I do think it’s funny that AJM can talk about how our great catching prospects are not working out when they are still young and have time to develop (and catching prospects taking longer to develop) and then an hour later talk about how we need to have faith in our (pitching) prospects.

After much thought, I’ve decided that if I were JD for a day, I would try to trade for Halladay using prospects that are as far away as possible. Something like Perez, Font, Kiker and then 2 of Davis/Teagarden/MaxRam/Moscoso/Feldman. I might switch Perez for Holland if they insisted, but then take out one from the grab bag.

My main point is this: I agree that we shouldn’t be trading the ready/near-ready prospects for Halladay. If that’s a requirement for Halladay, then just say you tried as hard as you could, then back out. But we’ll need the players AJM mentions to even make next year worth it (in the best case scenario). And it looks like they should truly be untouchable when you consider how badly we may need good, cheap players if this money situation continues.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

The Angels, according to FOXSports.com’s Jon Paul Morosi, rejected a Blue Jays’ proposal that would have required them to part with three major leaguers — left-hander Joe Saunders, shortstop Erick Aybar and infielder Brandon Wood.

Ken and Jon Paul at Fox

smoak might not ever have a trade value this high? he would have to completely turn around his AAA season the rest of the way to have this value in the offseason, orcome up and not slump for like 2 years or his trade value will be where Davis’s is right now, just an observation. this is a tough job JD has, he has to pick which players will and wont develop, its time for him to earn a little of his money and pull of a good trade

Big Injection hits a three-run homer.

3:19pm: Rosenthal and Morosi say the Dodgers have enough in their system to make a competitive offer for Halladay, even after acquiring George Sherrill. Devaris Gordon isn’t available in any trade, according to ESPN’s Jayson Stark.

Do the Dodgers have enough pitching to get by the Phillies in a 7 game series?

(well, except the lawyerly stuff), and I get that we need a TORP. Do you think Sheets can be that guy when he gets back on the mound, or is he too injury prone (or, will it take too long for him to get back to where he was, since lots of folks, including Jason Jennings, say it takes 2 years to get back to where you were before that injury)?

I want Halladay as much as the next guy, but he’s a guy who can affect the outcome of 1 of every 5 games. There still needs to be other pieces on the field in order for adding Roy to be the final move. If having such a kick ass pitcher solved all of your problems, then why haven’t the Jays done anything big while Halladay is there and why are they unloading him. He’s the the final piece of the puzzle. There’s still a lot to be worked out in Arlington before we can think of adding that final piece.

just hit 100 or higher on 5 of his 8 fastballs in the 8th inning. I think he might have been underestimated here when salty to the red sox was being discussed

http://insidecorner.dmagazine.com/2009/07/30/rangers-roster-move-of-the-day-madrigal-for-moscoso/

if you don’t give up too much…although you’re gonna give up some real value.

I just don’t buy the lack-of-money argument. Halladay games will sell out nearly every time, so revenues instantly improve.
Furthermore, Hicks will more than recoup his money by the significant increase in his sales price given that his team has Halladay, and that the team will automatically be deemed a present and future playoff team.

I also think that there’s a real chance that the owners, especially if Nolan is still here and a part of ownership, will be able to get Halladay locked in for an extra year or two. Halladay should certainly recognize that this team has a real chance to contend for the next few years.

If you have the chance to sign him, and you don’t, you don’t want to win.

Not that it’s bad in this thread, but there’s been a lot of comments along the lines of “Bringing in Roy Halladay won’t make a difference unless he can hit/take a walk.” At first, I nodded my head in agreement because of how frustrating the offense has been over the past couple of months. But, look at the team OBP/OPS/wOBA(rank)

April: .329(23rd)/.826(5th)/.358(5th)
May: .333(15th)/.816(4th)/.352(5th)
June: .288(30th)/.677(27th)/.300(26th)
July: .307(25th)/.740(17th)/.324(16th)
2009: .315(26th)/.765(9th)/.334(9th)

So what does that tell us? The Rangers offense is awful at getting on base, but makes itself a above average (top 10) offense because of it’s slugging. They had an awful June, but had a fantastic April and May. You could even make the argument that their true value is closer to what they’ve shown in July. But the truth is that the offense, despite everyone’s bitching, has been above average despite it’s very low OBP. We’ve just been spoiled by how good the offenses have been in the past.

Now what about the pitching? Starting pitching ERA/FIP by month:

April: 5.70(27th)/5.66(30th)
May: 3.57(4th)/4.36(18th)
June: 4.24(19th)/4.60(22nd)
July: 3.68(10th)/4.02(10th)
2009: 4.22(11th)/4.62(25th)

Interestingly enough, they seem to show an opposite trendline as the offense for the season. However, given the number of injuries, I’m not sure how confident I am that this can be kept up without reinforcements.

Sitting back I get two impressions. They conflict a little bit, as do any view of the upside and downside of executing a change.

One – Halladay improves the chance for 2009 postseason, and the high price for him could possibly be counterbalanced with some luck and progress from farm pitchers over the next 2 to 8 years.

Two – you may have already seen the best of Roy Halladay, vis a vis getting a Pedro Martinez (never know when a pitcher will hit end of the trail), in one or two years. And it may be folly to spend two or three of your five or six best prospects to find out, particularly if you win the AL West this year, then can’t win or make postseason for another four + years. Not to mention Halladay not making a sufficient difference this year to get into postseason play.

Scale: don’t trumps do.

but before I make any deal for Halladay, I at least pick up the phone and see if our offer sparks some interest for any of these guys gms:

Greinke?
Haren?
Lincecum?

I’d rather have those 3 guys than Halladay because of their contract status and youth, so if we decide to send out a huge package, at least see if these teams would even consider moving out their guys.

Best writing I’ve read on LSB, thanks!

Coincidentally, it mirrors my thoughts precisely, regardless of the fact that this proposal you walked through is way more than it would take, imo.

And 3B Josh Harrison. Neither of the pitchers made Sickels’ preseason Cubs Top 20, and Harrison was on the “others include” list, as a C prospect.

Not a whole lot there, from the looks of it. The pitchers seem like relievers, and the 3B doesn’t have normal 3B tools.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4367359

i tend to agree. this isn’t the year to really push. if we only needed a hitter or only needed a pitcher it would be different, but we are in BAD need of both. one or the other probably isn’t going to fix our wagon and put us over the top. over an acceptable package to give up, say Holland, Davis, TT, and some MIF prospect(byebye Lil Lemon), and ask them to pick up the tab on Halladay for the rest of the season. Its prolly not enough, but thats fine. We have some flexibiity this offseason depending on Hicks&Co.

and Blue Jays are in serious discussions. The Phillies are LA’s main challanger for the NL pennant.

5:57pm: Bill Shaikin of the LA Times reports that the Dodgers and Blue Jays spent the afternoon “negotiating extensively” over Roy Halladay. Apparently talks aren’t “dead” after all. The Dodgers would allow the Jays to get a “haul of prospects” but are trying to acquire Halladay without giving up Clayton Kershaw or Chad Billingsley.