Cliff Lee Trade Which Leads To More Halladay Talk

Wednesday is supposed to be a wild card day, but with the trading deadline looming, trades will take up most of the space here.

With that said the Indians and Phillies reached an agreement on Cliff Lee. The Phillies obviously get Cliff Lee and also Ben Francisco. In return the Indians get four minor leaguers- pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp, catcher Lou Marson, and shortstop Jason Donald. The Phillies get to keep top prospects Kyle Drabek and Dominic Brown and still get Lee, have to say that's a great move for them. That doesn't mean the players the Indians got aren't good, it's just that they aren't top flight prospects and Cliff Lee is basically a top flight pitcher. They are a rebuilding team and they got 4 quality players, but the difference from Halladay to Lee, while factoring how Lee is more affordable, shouldn't be the difference between top prospects and quantity of prospects. I said before that "the deal the Phillies want to give is more quantity than quality, and that's not something you want for Roy Halladay", I should have also said that about Cliff Lee or something similar.

What's interesting is Lou Marson, or at least the position he plays, catcher. Could Victor Martinez be traded before the deadline? Hard to say, there isn't much time left and the Red Sox are closer to a deal with Halladay than with V-Mart. Kelly Shoppach has been a major disappointment and V-Mart's future in the long term is likely at 1b, so the Indians needed a solution for catcher in the future anyways. Of course they could turn around tomorrow and trade V-Mart to the Sox or Rays and I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think that will happen.

Now what about that Halladay trade? The only team bidding for Halladay besides the Red Sox were the Phillies, and now they just got Cliff Lee. The Jays have said they are waiting to be wowed but I don't see the Red Sox wowing the Jays when they are bidding against themselves. If the Jays wait until the offseason or during the season next year they won't get the value for Halladay that they'll get now, even the proposed Sox deal. Part of the appeal for Halladay was that you get him for a playoff run, another full season, and likely a good chance to resign him. A lot of that luster is gone next year.

The Yankees have steered clear of the Halladay rumors recently but if the Red Sox try playing their card to get him for cheaper, maybe the Yankees can sneak in and get him for a deal they feel is more reasonable. The Jays wanted Hughes and Joba and the Yankees passed will they re-enter if they can get Halladay for just one of them? I doubt it, but it's something I think the Yankees should try to do. Pre-season the Yankees relied on Wang to be in the rotation and now he's out for the year. Would it be so wrong of the Yankees to replace Wang with Halladay? People aren't going to like the Yankees no matter what they do, if they aren't entering or re-entering the Halladay talks because they don't want to look bad then that's just bad business.

At this point it would also be bad business for the Jays not to trade Halladay. In a bubble the rumored Red Sox Deal of Buchholz, Bowden, and x isn't bad. Given the circumstances it's actually a really good deal. I'll hold to my prediction last night that the Sox will get Halladay because it doesn't make sense for the Jays to hold on to him, and as a Yankee fan I'll hope that I'm wrong.

In case you don't want to read that rambling, here is the post-post recap:

• Indians got a dece deal for Lee, great deal for the Phillies
  
• V-Mart is probably staying in Cleveland
  
• Jays lose leverage for Halladay trade
  
• Yankees should enter the discussion
• Have a feeling the Red Sox get the Jays to pull the trigger
• I hope I'm wrong

UPDATE: Sorry, I'm an idiot. I forgot that the Indians have a top catching prospect already in Carlos Santana. So, Marson isn't a future catcher on the Indians which makes this deal more puzzling for the Indians. Unless of course it means a V-Mart trade is near, in which case Marson is major league ready to contribute. If that's not the case, why did the Indians take Marson? They couldn't have asked for OF Michael Taylor? It's one thing to acquire a nice group of young players, it's another to get ones that you can't use. Right now the Indians have 4 catchers (V-Mart, Shoppach, Marson, and Santana), if V-Mart isn't traded now or in the offseason the Indians acquired a player they could hardly use this year or in the future. Very questionable.