Today in Blue Jays history: The Roy Halladay trade

I think I’m going to take a day away from the world, so let’s have a bit of history. With any luck, since I’m going to be away, the Jays will make a big trade.

Eleven years ago today (time flies), Alex Anthopoulos traded Roy Halladay to the Phillies for Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d’Arnaud.

It was a long day with a ton of rumors.

At first, we thought it was a 3-way deal, with Doc going to Philadelphia, Cliff Lee going to Seattle, and the Jays getting Phillippe Aumont and Dominic Brown (remember how much we wanted him?).

Soon after, more rumors, J.A. Happ, was among the players coming to Toronto (I wonder whatever happened to him?). Also, Michael Saunders was mentioned. Somewhere in there, I say that I didn’t want Happ.

Finally, around 2 in the morning Eastern time, we had the trade down. It turned out that instead of a 3-way exchange, the Phillies were involved in two trades. Picking up Doc, and sending Cliff Lee to Seattle for Aumont, Tyson Gillies and Juan Ramirez. I liked the idea:

If it goes as it stands now, it’s a really good job by Alex Anthopoulos. Without a lot of teams seriously bidding, he seems to have gotten more than you could really expect for a player entering the last year of his contract.

The next day, the trade still wasn’t official. Still, we did learn that the Jays would flip Michael Taylor to the A’s for Brett Wallace. (Brett would be our ‘first baseman of the future, for about 7 months, until we traded him to the Astros for Anthony Gose. Gose would be our center fielder of the future until we traded him to the Tigers for Devon Travis, who was our second baseman of the ‘if he ever could stay healthy’).

Another day later, the trade still wasn’t official, rumors were that someone failed his physical, but we were sure the transaction was going through. Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor.

Hugo had a run down of various opinions, and most seemed to think the Jays did pretty well. Keith Law said:

(he) doubts Drabek can be a true ace because of the lack of a great third pitch, but likes him as a number two or, at worst, a number three. He thinks Wallace will be a great hitter, albeit as a first baseman. And he projects d’Arnaud as a solid everyday catcher. Sounds like a plan to me.

I had a Goodbye Doc post, when it was all said and done. I love how the comment thread turned into a discussion on pie.

And we took a look at Baseball Prospectus view of the trade. They liked it a lot:

It’s too easy to say that Drabek could grow into a Halladay replacement, but he has that kind of ability. Remember that the Blue Jays have shown a facility for turning lesser pitchers into league-average starters. Drabek has more talent than any pitcher in their system. D’Arnaud is a polished hitter with a strong enough arm to remain behind the plate, and while he doesn’t have the star potential Drabek has, he projects as an inexpensive, good player at a key position.

We were all wrong on Drabek. He couldn’t find that delivery that could give him the command of the strike zone that a pitcher needs in the MLB.

In the comment thread, we got into a discussion about whether the Taylor/Wallace trade was a good move or not. It morphed into a debate about if a player as big as Taylor could stay a ‘5-tool’ player for long. As it turned out, he was more a no-tool player in the majors. He played 37 MLB games, spread out over 4 seasons, for the A’s and the White Sox. He was last seen, in the MLB, in 2014.

Wallace has played 6 seasons in the majors, hitting .238/.316/.389 in 494 split between the Astros and the Padres. He last played in the majors in 2016.

Taylor was traded for Wallace who was traded for Gose who was traded for Devon Travis. When healthy he was good, but he wasn’t healthy enough.

And Travis d’Arnaud was part of the trade that got us R.A. Dickey, not a great trade, but Dickey pitched 824.1 innings for us, putting up a 7.3 bWAR. d’Arnaud has bounced around from team to team over the past few years. Career he’s played in 544 games, hitting .253/.314/.423 with 72 home runs. He had a great season with the Braves, this year, hitting .321/.386/.533 in 44 games.

And Doc, well, you know. He played 4 seasons with the Phillies (and he never looked right in that red Phillies jersey). He won another Cy Young and finished second the next season. And he finally made it to the playoffs, where he pitched a no-hitter. Injuries shortened his career. He signed a one-day contract with the Jays so he could retire a Blue Jay.

I’ve seen this picked as the worst in Blue Jays’ history. I’m not sure if that is fair, but it didn’t turn out the way we would have liked. I would have preferred to have had the pleasure of watching Doc play out his career as a Blue Jay, but that wasn’t in the cards. I wonder what it would have been like to have him and Jose Bautista together, both at the top of their game.