The Cleveland Indians: Practically Giving it Away for Free!

Victor Martinez for Justin Masterson and Nick Hagadone? Holy crap! How are the Jays going to get anything for Halladay or any of their guys when the Indians are just leaving everybody at the curb?

And now it begins

So the Indians blinked and sent Lee and Francisco, a top tier starting pitcher and established productive outfielder to the Phillies, for nobody that is probably going to make an impact next year. Seriously if you were the Phillies how do you not do this deal over any Halladay one. They just added two mlb players without giving up anybody that hurt. And they didn't have to give up Happ to do it. They now have 4 plus starting pitchers instead of 3.

So much for tough talk from the Indians, Lee wasn't even going to make much money next year. You would think that would be worth at least one of Drabek, Taylor or Brown over one of the guys they did get.

So the question now is how does this affect the Jays chances of trading Halladay for a decent package of prospects now and in the future, or if they trade him at all.

1) This really puts the pressure on the other teams that look to be facing Philly in the playoffs. Why? Well the Phillies now have 3 top starters to throw against you plus 2 decent or better options. If you're the Dodgers, Red Sox or Yankees expecting to meet the Phillies on the way to your World Series Championship destiny do you really feel like it's not a good idea to add the best pitcher in baseball while he's still available. The Phillies have played their hand, what are you going to do?

2) Does this reduce what a team like the Jays can expect to receive for a top starter after November? Who knows? It's still 4 top prospects the Phillies gave up, even though it wasn't any of their 3 best, or anybody contributing at the mlb level at the time. Still you can't clearly see the future and something unforeseen may happen to really drive up the market for Halladay despite this. Or Lee might blow the doors off in Philly and people might think it's normal to not have to give up a lot for the best starting pitcher in baseball (the opposite of how the Bedard deal seems to have affected things).

3) What Riccardi really needs to do is pick up on my previous point and start a rumor at the opportune time that the Phillies are still planning on trading for Halladay, and really drive up the market. Not only would teams need Halladay to compete this year, they would need to keep him from the Phillies so they don't dominate this season and the next.

4) So do the Jays trade Halladay now? I think because of number 1 above the chances are still the same as before this deal. This has to increase the pressure a little on at least one of the other contenders who are interested, and I think it lowers Riccardi's sights just a little. This is especially true if his plan is to bluster as best as he can until the last minute and then take whatever the best offer is.

Here is a crazy thought

The Phillies, with the prospects they have left from trading for Lee, could still trade for Halladay according to the rumored deals.

Just imagine a pitching rotation of Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Haren + your grandmother even for the next 2 seasons. Imagine.

Hmmmm...Halladay doesn't go to the Phillies

So IMHO chalk one up for me, I think this trade definitely improves the Phillies more than trading Happ + anybody for Halladay does. And it keeps all the current best prospects on the Phillies (except maybe Knapp). Should the Jays have taken this collection for Halladay? About 3 years at least will tell us that.

Now if nobody else steps up and gives the Jays equal for Halladay than this before the current deadline, they better trade him for a lot after November or put a contending team around him next year. Because the Roy Halladay Toronto farewell tour sideshow next year doesn't look very palatable as a reason to be a fan.

Crazed blogger trade theory

What if the jays traded halladay to the phillies and then made a deal with the indians for lee or martinez and then signed him to an extension? How about that? Is your mind blown?

Not trading Roy Halladay watch

Haven't had much time to blog this week, or today, but I thought this recent turn in the Halladay trade epic is weird. Apparently the hold up is between whether to include Carrasco or Drabek with Happ. This honestly makes no sense to me. As good as Roy is how do they figure to get so much better substituting him for Happ instead of adding Roy to what they already have? If your goal is to do as much damage as possible with Roy over the next season and a half, why not collect the best players NOW around him.

The Ignorant Jays Fan's Ranked List of Halladay Trade Outcomes

I thought I should put together a little more of an explanation on my thoughts about the potential Halladay trade than that everybody should remember he will be 34 at the beginning of his next contract.

So I give you one of my favorite ways to work out in my head the best possible outcome, the ranked list with explanations!

Please note, these are all reasonable outcomes, we aren't including things like "trade him for lousy players or consensus top prospects who all end up injured" - those would be stupid things to do or things out of the actors control.

Least best to best:

6. Hold onto Halladay, make no attempt to build a contender next season and let him walk for draft picks.

5. Hold onto Halladay, make no attempt to build a contender next season and then sign him to a long term contract and gut the team for the length of the contract to be able to afford him

4. Trade him for top prospects this season and then make no reasonable attempt in future seasons to build a contender.

3. Hold onto him for next season sign him long term and continue making 1/2 assed attempts at competing.

2. Trade him right now for the best possible deal, and start making a serious attempt at contending in future seasons

1. Hold onto him, make a real attempt at contending next season, trade him if you don`t, and figure out what to do after the season if they do actually contend.

Tallet to the pen

It looks like two of my "hopes" for the second half are coming true already, Tallet is going to get some rest and they are going to get more starts for Cecil and Rzewhatever.

This is good news. IMHO Tallet has proven he can be a good 4 or 5 starter, his recent struggles are just overuse related. I was looking it up and about 1/3 of all the innings he has pitched in mlb came in the first 1/2 of this season. If you go back over his whole pro career its something like 10%. That's at the age of 32 over 9-1/2 seasons. No point in blowing up his arm when he could be a valuable part of the rotation next season.

DH

As you will notice I have not included a name for this particular player. The reason for this is that the Jays do not have a DH - again.

Don't be fooled by the multi headed creatures that inhabit the DH and LF spots, the jays have no DH. They have a guy who should be left fielder all the time named Lind. And a bunch of guys who sometimes play left field and sometimes get to hit without having to play the field. No DH.

Just let me take this moment to bitch about the fact that this is the case again. And mention that it was fine to release Frank Thomas last year as long as the plan was to replace him, preferably with Barry Bonds. If you were actually trying to win anyways.

Scott Rolen - Meh

Although I am told he's having a great year, why do I keep feeling underwhelmed? I guess because I was thinking great year = 30hr in my mind, and he probably won't get 15? He's racking up the 2b's though and the SLG is looking good, it could go to .500 with a hot 2nd half. The defence is stellar.

But I just can't help feeling that if they traded him for prospects I just wouldn't notice. Maybe it's a case of don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.

Replacing JP

I don't really care for JP either way, I honestly think he's done a pretty good job in the balance and the real problems are at a level above him. At the same time if the organization wants to get rid of him and bring in somebody they think is better, it's their ball.

My hesitancy is with the "someone better" part. People don't seem to realize the jays ended up with JP because he was the first guy they found who was willing to be sent off to the gun fight that is the AL east armed with plastic forks and spoons, while reporting to a man who didn't know what he was doing.

Why anybody thinks that the top prospective GM candidates from across the league are suddenly going to find the Jays job to be awesome this time around, especially when Paul Beeston doesn't want to be their boss, and can't find anybody who does, is beyond me.

Adam Lind is one ugly Hillbilly

So maybe you have noticed the pattern here. After this one anyways they'll be a little more critical.

And Adam Lind is. The 1st time I saw this dude I thought I hope he makes it in baseball or likes being a sheriff, because male model ain't a viable fallback.

Anyways great break out 1st full season, he's showing the talent that was there at every level of the minors he played at. Previous years stats would indicate there may be only 6-10 more hr's in the bat but as long as he remains a 2b machine who cares?

2nd Half Wish List

Preview didn't seem right - Things I would like to see in the second 1/2 (actually they are already 9 games into the second 1/2 but anyways)

• Stay around .500, because i would have thought .500 would be awesome for this year before the season began
• Halladay win 20
• Romero continue to be the worst pick in the history of the draft
• Wells and Rios prove they were only fluke bad 1/2 seasons
• Get Tallet some rest, and Richmond keep proving me wrong
• Continue to give young starters lots of starts, without using 12 more different starters
• Find a closer

This would make me happy

Obligatory Aaron Hill Felatio Post

What can you say this season but awseome - as long as he doesn't have a horrible patch like he has in previous seasons, and the 2b's are a little low, and the OBP could use some improvement for a 2 hitter and even Wells and Rios have taken more walks - but anyways I am as confident as ever he is developing into at least the competent every day 2B I thought he would be, and he still doesn't look like he's getting everything out of his god-given talents. Offensively anyways - Defensively Robbie/O-dog who?

Marco Scutaro is the answer to a different question

I like Marco Scutaro, he plays great D at a number of positions, has proven that he can hit respectably, and is having a pretty awesome "breakout season" right now. If the jays can resign him for a couple of years at a reasonable number to be the short stop and expect him to be a good 8 or 9 hitter, great. If they are going to go all out to sign him expecting him to be the lead off man of a division winner, not so great.

Consistency in Baseball or I Don't think that Word Means what you Think it Means

One thing that binds most baseball fans and commenters together is their belief that their favorite player/team/most hated player/secret gay crush/whatever just is not "consistent" enough. I will happily tell you, there just is no such thing as consistency in baseball.

Lets do some simple math to prove this shall we.

I think everybody can agree that a team with a .600 record in baseball is pretty damn good (if you cannot agree to this you need to do some more reading and/or stick to football)

Basic math tells us that a .600 record means a team wins 6 and loses 4 of every 10 games it plays. Now if your team were to consistently win 6 and lose 4 of 10 games that would look something like this:

W-L-W-L-W-W-L-W-L-W

If your team were consistent they would do exactly this 16 times over and over through the whole season. They would win 97 or 98 games, and their division like 98 out of 100 seasons.

You would go insane.

They would never win more than 2 in a row, they could never sweep a series, unless it was 2 games and fell on the right part of the pattern

They just wouldn't be CONSISTENT.

Or they would.

Trading Roy Halliday

So the jays claim they are listening to offers for Roy Halladay. I'm sure that this is causing all kinds of consternation in all quarters, it seemed to be one of the hot topics of the all star coverage I caught, and there's stories about it at bluejays.com and other places.

I hope Roy stays and is successful as much as the next fan. The issue that keeps coming up for me though is he'll turn 34 in May of the first year of his new 2011 contract. I'm seriously doubting that contract is going to be for 3 years with some kind of team option for more. Do you really want to be the team that owes a pitcher $20+ million a year for a couple more years when he's pushing 40, or older than 40?

I'm sure if any guy is going to be making 34 starts a year at 38 and winning 18+ games with a sub 3.00 ERA it would be Roy, but how likely is it even he's going to be doing that? How likely is he to be struggling to make 25 starts with an ERA somewhere between 4 and 5.

I think I know which is more likely.

And I don't think the Jays are a team that can afford to find out.

1st half review

Obligatory 1st half review:

If somebody had asked me before the season for the Jays to be 44-46 at the all-star break, then i would have said everything would have to go as well as could be expected. That injuries must have been kept to a minimum. That key players were performing up to or above expectations and that above all the pitching was miraculously healthy and effective.

Given the way things have actually unfolded I would say my conclusion for the first half is that things look really good for 2010 if upper management will just make it possible to get those last few pieces, and they make the commitment to hold onto Halladay through the season unless they have no chance.

I'm sure I'll be getting to what i think the Jays need to do for 2010 at some point.

About The ignorant Jays Fan

Basically the jays were supposed to suck this year. That's pretty much why I decided to start this blog.

Because of said predicted suckiness I just didn't really pay attention in the pre-season. No prediction magazines, or websites, no listening to the fan 590, no message boards. And it was great. When the season started I could just watch the games, maybe get some news off bluejays.com or mlb.com. Generally just be a fan un-encumbered by the media. Enjoy the games where I could and find some other non-Jays stuff to enjoy my summer with.

Early in the season a friend turned me onto drunkjaysfans.com, and i thought their stuff was pretty well written and funny, and I mostly agreed with it. Sometimes I felt like commenting, but then i would think, that's just getting too involved, not something I want to do.

Then of course the stupid media commentary started popping up and some of it I just could not ignore. Raul Ibanez is accused of taking steroids by a blogger who didn't actually accuse him of anything, and the whole righteous indignation of the sports journalism community that followed. The whole manufactured "Oh my god Roy Halladay is GOING TO BE TRADED" because JP answers his phone and talks to people mess that started about a week ago. Probably anything written about the Jays recent slide.

These things made me want to say something, but djf seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it, and really I didn't want to take the time to just do what they were doing, but less funny. Then I started to think, what if someone did a blog where you just ignored as much news and commentary as possible except what you considered basic fact. Just commentary about sports as un-influenced by others as possible. Probably it would suck, because all other commentary in the world seems to require the context of other commentary, just because. Well why not try. If there is any other venue in the world where you could try to do this, I couldn't think of a better one.

Now I'm sure if I ever get a commenter, they will point me to 15 other sites trying to do the same thing way better than here, but oh well. I'm hoping to keep my posts short and concise so they are a pain to no one. They will mostly be about the Jays, but I'll try and put some general baseball stuff out there as well a couple of times a week, and maybe other commentary. Hopefully it will be entertaining for somebody.

Oh and if anybody does comment please don't make it about Griffin says this or Elliot wrote that. It kind of defeats the point.