Toronto Blue Jays Should Trade Roy Halladay For Future Building Blocks

For the first time in about three years, the Toronto Blue Jays didn't make any headlines in the offseason. They made no free agent signings to note, they made no acquisitions worth mentioning, and they made very few positive changes to a team that finished fourth in the American League East.

The sportsbook odds have the Jays projected to win 80.5 games, which seems completely preposterous at this point.

Playing in the toughest division in all of baseball, the Jays will send Jesse Litsch, Scott Richmond, David Purcey, and Brad Mills to the mound on a regular basis behind Roy Halladay.

And that bullpen that allowed the sportsbook to at least put some faith in the Jays has sprung a bit of a leak. B.J. Ryan has lost about six miles per hour of his velocity, which could a pretty big problem for a bullpen that might have to chew up a lot of innings.

In the batting lineup, the Jays are counting on $18 million man Vernon Wells to carry the team, which he's proven to be incapable of. Furthermore, there are pipe dreams that Alex Rios will be a 30 home run man and that Aaron Hill will start playing near All-Star level. There's also the lofty hope that rookie Travis Snider can be an everyday fielder and that Scott Rolen regains some power.

Good luck with that thinking.

The reality is that the Jays are among the worst teams in all of baseball and their strange mix of random parts doesn't really boast too much of a future. Besides Halladay, there probably aren't many players that would command a lot of interest among any of the contending Major League teams, which in short means that the Jays don't really have much of a foundation.

Wells has become an unmovable player given his enormous contract, and while Rios might be a good piece of the puzzle, he's nothing to build around.

And that's exactly the problem. The Jays don't really have anyone to build their team around.

Halladay is the guy, but at this point, the Jays need much more than just him. More importantly, the Jays are not going anywhere with him, which means it is time to trade him and get as many building blocks as possible.

The New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs will all come calling, and if the Jays are out of contention as everyone expects them to be, they should trade Halladay this year and start rebuilding.

If they can get at least one or two marquee prospects and team them with Shaun Marcum, Dustin McGowan and Alex Rios in a year, then there is at least a future. Otherwise, Halladay will walk at the end of next season and the Jays will be back to being that irrelevant team up north of the border.