Halladay Sportsnet Interview: Time to Consider Alternatives

I think I read a rumor somewhere that the Cards said they will give Toronto a list of their prospects, the Jays can circle five in exchange for Roy.

I wonder if this is attributable more to their respect for Roy or their disrespect for JP. I don’t have any confidence in JP to pick the right pieces and I wouldn’t be surprised if many rival GMs feel the same.

Alternatively, can the Jays secure an immediate impact player? If so, the Jays should ensure it is a player under a long term contract of at least 4 years or more.

Um, no. Haven’t we learned anything from all the problems we’ve had with Ryan, Wells, Rios, etc. etc.? Long-term contracts are millstones around our necks as a small-market team. We have way too many overpaid guys as it is; we can’t afford to have anyone else chewing up “cap space” (I know there’s no cap in baseball; see below) and not producing (and there’s always a risk of this with any long-term deal). Imagine we end up with another Wells on our hands and then in 2-3 years when we’re ready to make a run and need to acquire the last few pieces, there’s no money in the till.

If anything I would be more inclined to get guys with expiring contracts or at least no more than 3 years. If they earn the money we can re-up them; if not, dump them before they get the chance to affect our long-term future and spend the money elsewhere.

Besides, what’s the point in getting an immediate impact player if we’re no longer competitive over the next few years? If we want to maximize our chances of winning now we should keep Halladay. I can’t think of anyone else who would have as much short-term impact as him, except maybe Pujols and I’m pretty sure he’s not available.

Maybe this should be a separate post, but I think the Jays (and basically every other MLB team apart from the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and maybe Angels) could learn a lot from studying how NBA teams manage the salary cap. At first blush it’s pretty odd to see superstars getting traded for guys who are about to retire, have career-threatening injuries, or simply have lost all effectiveness, but that’s how important cap space is. If Rogers is going to give JP (or, hopefully, his replacement) a hard number and force him to come in under that, I’d rather give Halladay and Wells away for a bag of balls and have the extra $35M/year to spend on free agents.

$35M/year = 1 superstar and 1 very good player, proven commodities acquired through free agency
5 unproven prospects = 1 becomes a very good player (possibly a superstar but no guarantees), 1 other is a John McDonald type, and the other 3 never make the majors

Oh, and if the 1 very good prospect is a pitcher, he probably blows his arm out after a year with Toronto anyway. I have no idea whose fault all these injuries are but they’re pretty clearly systemic. I’d rather buy pitchers who were developed through someone else’s sytem at this point.

I think Halladay’s comments pretty much point to him being gone after next year, and I don’t blame him at all. Realistically I don’t think the Jays can compete with the current iterations of the Yankees and Red Sox, particularly not with all these crappy contracts. I do think that competitive balance can and will change over the next several years but by that time Roy will be way past his prime (I’m sure winning a Series period would make him happy, but given the choice he’d probably rather do it now when he is dominant than when he is 42 and throwing junk up there) and there are no guarantees that the breaks will go our way. So, assuming he is gone, there are three choices:

1) let him go for 2 draft picks (horrible, might as well get nothing);
2) get 4 or 5 prospects with a likely mediocre return as above;
3) ship him off with Wells or Rios, get a ton of cap relief, use this to sign a couple of top-tier free agents in a few years when we are close.

I’m not saying a good farm system isn’t essential—unless you’re the Yankees you obviously can’t stock your team exclusively with free agents (and even the Yankees did develop a few of their best guys, notably Jeter and Rivera). But I do think that if you’re trading a proven commodity you should get a proven commodity in return—in our case and right now given that we’re out of the playoff picture, that proven commodity is money.

Roy also said he wants to win that ring in TORONTO.
He loves it here and doesn’t want to go anywhere. Management knows that, the blockbuster deal isn’t going to come, therefore JP adds something, an arm a bat in the second half and beefs it up a bit. We aren’t out of the race yet.
If we take a wild card, this whole Roy leaving thing is Moot.