Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Who Would You Trade For Roy Halladay?

Keep in mind that Roy is signed through next year, not just this year.

I think Roy Halladay is on the short list of the best pitchers in baseball. On top of that, being traded from the strongest division in the stronger league to the relatively putrid NL central would make Halladay that much better.

If I ran the Brewers and we were a serious player for Halladay, the only players I would not trade are as follows:

1. Ryan Braun
2. Prince Fielder
3. Yovanni Gallardo
4. Brett Lawrie
5. Mat Gamel, I think.

And that's it. I think I'd be willing to part with anyone else in some combination, or alone. Here are some offers I might make, that I think might be enough:

1. Hardy/Escobar, Lucroy/Salome, Parra

I'd prefer to deal Hardy as he will soon get expensive and while I like Hardy and think he's a very valuable player, there is no point in having Escobar in the system if Hardy sticks around forever. We also have two decent catching prospects, and I'd be willing to part with one of them, and Parra, I suspect, will have problems as long as he's in Milwaukee

2. Hart, Parra.

Hart is overvalued by some. I'm not sure if the Jays are part of that group, but they very well might be. Hart has some (sort of) gaudy counting stats, awards, and blazing speed, all of which make him look better on paper than he is in real life. Right field is quite possibly the eventual landing place of Mat Gamel anyway, and with Casey McGehee's recent greatness, it would allow the rookie to stick. And yes, I'm fine with just sticking him in the outfield with no practice.

3. McGehee, and some combination of the above.

It probably makes sense to sell high on Casey if it comes down to that. This is not meant as a knock on the guy; he's been fantastic. I just don't think he'll remain fantastic.

Players I would try hard to include:

Bill Hall
Jody Gerut
Jason Kendall (He's gritty!)
Jeff Suppan (if his payroll goes with him)

I'm not sure if you're allowed to trade players on the DL or on the suspension list, but I also have no problem with moving Weeks or Jeffress.

Roy Halladay is every bit as good as CC Sabathia, with the bonus that you probably get him for another year (or failing that, prospects from trading him after this year). The Brewers have enough pieces to land him, that's for sure. As for finances, my rough estimate puts Halladay at about $7 million for the rest of 2009, with another $15.75 million due next year. He's certainly not cheap, and I don't know if the club has the stomach to add that much payroll given current economic conditions, but the hit this year isn't too bad, and given what they offered Sabathia in the offseason, it seems like they should be able to afford him.

There is another reason to try to make this deal happen as well. It is very possible that the Cardinals will be pursuing this deal too. (And perhaps the Cubs, but who knows with their ownership and farm system in the respective states that they are in). If the Cardinals were to land Halladay, and could throw out a rotation of:

Wainwright - ERA+ - 135
Carpenter - 180
Pineiro - 123
Lohse - 104
Halladay - 154

That would not be good.

So what do you think? And what would you give up?

4 comments:

E.S.K. said...

Braun, Fielder and Gallardo are my only no-go's. I don't think the Brewers have an extremely long window to play winning baseball, they need to make a move. Having Halladay for this year and next would be massive.

E.S.K. said...

Oh, and I finally have internet down here in my new homeland!

PaulNoonan said...

Congratulations. Welcome back to 2009! I agree. There's another reason that I didn't put above too. I was reading some of Chuckie Hack's commenters on the subject and many thought that we needed to keep prospects to continue to contend in a few years. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but I also think that a few of our top prospects in the lower levels (specifically Lawrie) are better than our current top level prospects. As such, I'm more inclined to turn our top level prospects into Roy Halladay than I would be, looking two years down the road, to trade Lawrie for someone then.

I'm not a scout and could be wrong about my prospect evaluation, but I don't think there's a Ryan Braun amongst Gamel and Escobar.

ahren said...

you can trade players on the dl. i don't know about the suspension list...

the blue jays need a shortstop, a catcher, and an outfielder basically, and i think they're unlikely to trade for more pitching, given that they have 5 young starters on the DL-- mcgowan, marcum, litsch, janssen, and ray.

i think the jays want to save money on the deal too, so they probably don't want both of hardy and hart, so i say the package has to be:

escobar, salome, hart.

i'd make that trade if i were the brewers. i'm not sure i would make it if i was the jays.

i would also have no problem playing gamel in rf with no practice.