The Big One

From the looks of things at the moment, here’s how the blockbuster deal involving four teams (if you count the A’s swapping Brett Wallace for Michael Taylor) will play out:

The Phillies get Roy Halladay and $6 million of his $15.25 million 2010 salary from the Blue Jays.  They also obtain prospects RHP Phillippe Aumont, OF Tyson Gillies and RHP Juan Ramirez, all from the Mariners.

The Phillies give up prospects OF Michael Taylor, RHP Kyle Drabek, and catcher Travis D’Arnaud, all of whom are going to the Blue Jays.  The Jays quickly traded Michael Taylor to Oakland for 1B/3B Brett Wallace.

Also, the Phillies have apparently reached agreement with Halladay on a contract extension through 2013 that pays him $60 million over three years, with a fourth year (2014) at $20 million which vests if certain performance incentives are reached.

Meanwhile, the Mariners get lefty ace Cliff Lee for Aumont, Gillies and Ramirez.  Cliff Lee will be paid $8 or $9 million in 2010 and will then become a free agent.  He reportedly wants a big, long-term contract at that point.

I agree with Rob Neyer and Dave Cameron that the Mariners got the best part of this deal.  Cliff Lee should really help them in 2010, and they didn’t have to give up an outrageous amount to get him.  Even if the M’s are out of it by the trade deadline next year, so long as Lee is still healthy and pitching well, they can probably trade him for what they just gave up.

If the M’s keep him until the end of 2010, they can offer him arbitration and get two good draft picks when he signs his long-term deal with the somebody else.  There isn’t any down-side for the Mariners so long as Lee remains healthy throughout 2010.

Aumont is a legitimate prospect.  He was the 11th player selected in the 2007, and at age 20 in 2009, he was already worked his way up to AA ball.  Aumont didn’t pitch particularly well at AA West Tennessee, and he pitched exclusively in relief this year.

I’d rank Aumont a little higher than Kyle Drabek.  Drabek is a year older than Aumont and has already had Tommy John surgery since being drafted with the 18th pick in the 2006 draft.  However, he pitched better as a starter in AA ball last year than Aumont did in relief.

Tyson Gillies came out of nowhere (he was a 25th round draft pick) to have a great year at A+ High Desert in the California League.  He hit .341, stole 44 bases and had a .916 OPS at age 20.  If his 2009 season was for real, he’s got great up-side.

I’d rather have Michael Taylor, however.  Taylor will be 24 in 2010, and he looks ready for a major league job.  He had a .977 OPS at AA Reading, and an .850 OPS at AAA Lehigh Valley in 110 late-season ABs.

Presumably, the A’s gave up Brett Wallace to get Taylor, even though Wallace is a year younger, because Taylor is closer to being major league ready and has more defensive value.  Wallace had an .822 OPS in 2009, mostly in the AAA Pacific Coast League, and is generally regarded as being the better long-term hitting prospect of the two.

Of the last two minor leaguers, catcher Travis D’Arnaud is the better prospect.  He was the 37th player selected in the 2007 draft and had a .738 OPS in the Class A Sally League at age 20 in 2009.  Not great, but not bad for a catcher either.

RHP Juan Ramirez is originally from Nicaragua, and at age 22 in ‘09, he had a 5.12 ERA in 142.2 IP with 53 walks allowed and 111 K’s at A+ High Desert in the California League.  He’s a prospect, but at least a full grade below any of the other prospects involved in the deal.

The Phillies on balance gave up slightly better prospects to turn Cliff Lee into Roy Halladay.  That seems like a push to me — they’d have done pretty well just holding onto Lee for 2010 and getting the two draft picks themselves if he leaves at the end of the year.

The Phillies were able to lock Halladay into an additional three years, but at $20 million per, they’re paying market rate to keep him.  Assuming that Halladay had played out this season and become a free agent, I don’t know that he’d be able to get a much better deal than the Phillies just gave him in the current market that will likely still be in effect next off-season.

The thing is that Halladay will be 34 in 2011 at the start of the extension he just signed or would have been going into free agency, and it’s hard to imagine a pitcher, even one as good as Roy Halladay, getting the kind of long-term deal that Kevin Brown received from the Dodgers back before the 1999 season at the same age (seven years and $105 million).

Brown’s deal was dumb at the time the Dodgers made it, and more importantly everyone in baseball saw that it was dumb, when Brown only gave the Dodgers about three and a half good years on that contract.

I’m also wondering how much Roy Halladay has left in his arm.  In 2002 and 2003, Roy had two great seasons in which he pitched 239.1 and 266 innings.  In 2004 and 2005, he had arm problems that limited him to 133 and 141.2 IP, respectively.

The last four seasons, Halladay was great again, pitching 220, 225.1, 246 and 239 innings.  Looking at the course of his career, it sure looks like he’s due for a return of arm problems in 2010 or 2011.

As for the Blue Jays, it appears they way overplayed their hand.  Around the trade deadline last season, there was all this ridiculous talk about the Jays getting five or six prospects for Halladay.  In spite of the hype, if they had traded him at the deadline last year, they probably could have gotten a fourth prospect as good as the three they got just now and they likely wouldn’t have had to pick up any of his 2009 salary.

At the end of the day, the Jays didn’t do badly in the prospects they just got, but it has to be a let-down to Jays’ fans to get much less for the face of the franchise than all the months of rumors had suggested.