UPDATED: R.A. Dickey Trade Rumours: Entering Day 3

We are entering into the Day 3 of Tradewatch of the rumour that R.A. Dickey would be sent from the New York Mets to the Toronto Blue Jays, and it seems that we have been holding at the status quo for the past 15 or 20 hours, with no significant developments coming out from any of the reporters. Early Saturday afternoon, Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan said that the trade was "imminent," but late last night we heard from New York Post's Joel Sherman saying that he feels that nothing will happen today either:

Sense got is that all parties do not sign off on this tonite, maybe not even tomorrow. My best GUESS is Monday. #Mets #Bluejays

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) December 16, 2012

Just to remind you, the rumoured trades as it stands right now consists of:

We've known from the beginning that the principal players in this trade are Dickey and d'Arnaud. Dickey is a true elite pitcher and not a one-year wonder, as Fangraphs' Dave Cameron showed in his Saturday piece, comparing him to David Price. d'Arnaud is a blue-chip catching prospect who has a good bat and athletic skills. Noah Syndergaard is known to many Blue Jays fans as one of the "Lansing Three," and with the departure of Justin Nicolino became the Jays' top pitching prospect, just inching past Aaron Sanchez. d'Arnaud and Syndergaard were #1 and #2 on Minor League Ball's John Sickels' list of the Blue Jays' top 20 prospects, the only ones receiving an "A" grade.

If you were Alex Anthopoulos and the Mets gave you the choice of trading Anthony Gose, Aaron Sanchez, or Noah Syndergaard, who would you rather let go?

John Buck, who was recently acquired from the Miami Marlins, is also said to be involved in the trade. He was set to be the Jays' backup catcher behind J.P. Arencibia in 2013, making $6 million. It would be interesting to see if any cash is sent to the Mets to cover his salary.

Without knowing the "non-elite prospects" involved in this trade, I would say that it is a major coup for the Mets to get both d'Arnaud and Syndergaard from the Jays without having to send back any significant piece along with Dickey. It is a great trade for New York because they are selling Dickey at the peak of his value.

Over on Fangraphs, the Right Honourable Dave Cameron compares this to the Royals' widely-panned trade for James Shields. Both involve a huge cost in terms of prospects, but Cameron believes that the Blue Jays can actually justify going all-in because of their already strong roster and the projected weakness of the American League East next season. This could prove to be the pivotal trade for Toronto as well if R.A. Dickey is really the piece that would put them over the top and into the playoffs and perhaps into the World Series.

Right now, how far do you feel the Blue Jays have to go in 2013 in order to make this trade "worth it"? Contention? Wild Card? ALDS? ALCS? World Series? Winning the World Series?

Of course, I think the entire trade depends on Dickey and the Jays agreeing to an appropriate extension--and that may be one of the reasons why the trade has been held up. This seems like a good opportunity for Dickey to ask for more than $26 million over two years as he has the leverage of destroying this deal.

In any case, if the Blue Jays do acquire R.A. Dickey, this team would be better than any Toronto team in the past two decades. Like many other Torontonians as well as Blue Jays fans across the nation, I have been pining for this day for a very long time, and I am ready for some playoff baseball. Forget about April--let it be October right now.

UPDATE

FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal reports that the two teams have agreed to the deal in principle, and that the Blue Jays have until 2 pm Eastern this coming Tuesday to negotiate an extension with R.A. Dickey. No news on the identity of the non-elite prospects yet.