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A week before Christmas, baseball fans received an early present in the form of an incredible seven days of transactions.\u00c2\u00a0 The top free agent starter, John Lackey, found a new home in Boston; however he was the third-best starting pitcher to be involved in a deal this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee moved to Philadelphia and Seattle respectively in a four-team trade, while several other transactions were completed as well.<\/p>\n
Twitter has become the Marmite of social networking sites over the past year: some love it, some hate it.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usefulness is dependent on the way people use it so Twitter can be a beacon of banality at times, but Monday evening (British time) showed why it can also be an immensely enjoyable medium.\u00c2\u00a0 I logged on and discovered that John Lackey reportedly was in Boston undergoing a medical and Roy Halladay had just landed in Philadelphia.\u00c2\u00a0 The next hour or so passed in a blur as tweets flied from all over the globe about the potential deals that were about to be agreed.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, the majority of it was rumour-mongering and gossip rather than reliable information, but that was part of the fun.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Genuine news did start to filter through.\u00c2\u00a0 First it was the news that Roy Halladay was potentially going to the Phillies, then the shock that Cliff Lee would be making way for him by moving to an unknown team, then the claim that the Mariners were the third team involved.\u00c2\u00a0 Details of the exact deal (which prospects were going where etc) emerged slowly, including the development that the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had got in on the deal (a typical Billy Beane move) and turned the trade into a four-way agreement.\u00c2\u00a0 Official confirmation of the whole series of transactions finally came on Wednesday, by which time the initial rush of excitement had almost passed.<\/p>\n
Almost, but not quite.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a fascinating deal that will have a significant impact on at least three of the teams involved, not to mention their division rivals.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Losing Lee is a blow, but the result is that a very good pitcher has been replaced by an outstanding one for the 2010 season.\u00c2\u00a0 That outstanding pitcher will also be a part of the Phillies for at least another three years as part of a very favourable contract for the team, whereas the Phillies believed that Lee would end up beyond their reach once he hit the free agent market.\u00c2\u00a0 Halladay made it clear that he wanted to go to a genuine World Series contender and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s left a significant amount of money on the table (he surely would have got at least $100m guaranteed as a free agent at the end of 2010 as a free agent) to make that happen.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ideal situation would have been trading for Halladay and keeping Lee, but that would have made their farm system even thinner and was possibly not an option financially.\u00c2\u00a0 Lee was due to be paid $9m in 2010 before becoming a free agent, while Halladay will earn $15.75m.\u00c2\u00a0 The $6.75m difference was largely taken care of by the Blue Jays in the final deal and you can understand how that agreement was made: the Phillies stating that they needed to move Lee to make the deal happen and that they needed the Blue Jays to fund the difference in salary.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a logical sequence of events and without it (i.e. if Lee isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t traded) I doubt the Blue Jays would have coughed up the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Without having access to complete data on their projected income and expenditure, whether the Phillies could have just added the money to the payroll themselves is something only they can answer.\u00c2\u00a0 You would think if it was possible, they would have done it.<\/p>\n
The first major project for the Blue Jays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 new GM Alex Anthopoulos was to do something his predecessor J.P. Ricciardi had failed to do in the summer: trade Roy Halladay.\u00c2\u00a0 Trading the face of a franchise is a thankless task and the best a GM can do is to acquire some prospects that will offer the team a brighter future.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite being in a difficult bargaining position (Halladay having only one-year left on his contract and holding a no-trade clause), the consensus opinion is that Anthopoulos has done well out of the deal.\u00c2\u00a0 Drabek is seen as a potential future ace, d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Arnaud is an impressive catching prospect and Taylor was immediately turned into Brett Wallace to put in place a potentially destructive heart of the batting order for years to come in Adam Lind, Travis Snyder and Wallace.<\/p>\n
Blue Jays fans will be sad to see Halladay leave, yet they can understand why he has gone and should be pleased with the prospect haul received in return.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly it looks a much better deal than the one completed by the Twins two years ago when Johan Santana left for the Mets in very similar circumstances.<\/p>\n
Anthopoulos also completed another deal this week, signing free agent catcher John Buck on a one year\/$2m contract.<\/p>\n
It was a bit of a surprise to find that the Mariners were the third team in the equation, but I guess it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been.\u00c2\u00a0 General Manager Jack Zduriencik pulled off an absolute masterstroke of a deal here and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming clear that we should expect him to do such things.\u00c2\u00a0 Joe, our resident M\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fan, stated in an e-mail that all his team needed to do now was to get Carlos Silva off the books and then they would be looking in top shape.\u00c2\u00a0 He wrote that on Thursday and the very next day the news broke that the M\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had traded Silva to the Cubs for Milton Bradley in a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcyou take my problem away, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take yours\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 trade.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Great Jack Z had struck again.<\/p>\n
A 1-2 punch of Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee matches up favourably with anyone in the Majors and certainly makes this A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fan groan at the thought of potentially facing them back-to-back in a best-of-three series.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s likely that this is just a one-year deal as if the Mariners are going to agree a big deal with any pitcher, it would be with Hernandez.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing wrong with that though: the current AL West champions, the L.A. Angels, look like they will be weaker next year having lost two of the cornerstone players (one, Chone Figgins, to the Mariners) and the M\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given up any cast iron superstars of the future to make the deal happen.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a low risk, high reward deal that could well make Seattle favourites in the AL West.<\/p>\n
Billy Beane always tries to elbow his way into a deal, as shown in Moneyball, and in this case he saw an opportunity to swap prospects with the Blue Jays.\u00c2\u00a0 Brett Wallace was the key piece acquired from the Cardinals in the mid-season Matt Holliday trade.\u00c2\u00a0 There seems little doubt that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to hit in the Majors, but his fielding position is very much in question.\u00c2\u00a0 During his short stay in the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s organization, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve clearly decided he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t handle his favourite position at third base in the Big Leagues and the Blue Jays agree as they reportedly see him as a future first baseman.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fine for Toronto, but the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already have several prospects covering the first base\/DH slot and it made sense for them to flip him for a prospect at another position. Taylor fits the bill and it looks like a win-win deal for both teams.<\/p>\n
Outside of the four-team trade, the Red Sox were the team making waves this week.\u00c2\u00a0 John Lackey became the first of the three major free agents to sign with a team this offseason as he agreed a five-year deal with the Red Sox worth $82.5m, matching the contract signed by A.J. Burnett last year with the Yankees.\u00c2\u00a0 Boston then announced that they had signed Mike Cameron on a two-year deal worth $15.5m.\u00c2\u00a0 Those are two solid pick-ups by the Red Sox and it will be interesting to see what the knock-on effects are.<\/p>\n
Boston now has a surplus of pitching, while adding another outfielder to the roster suggests that Jason Bay is unlikely to return.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike Lowell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trade to the Rangers is being held up by concerns over his injured thumb, but it seems like that deal will eventually go through and that will place further emphasis on the need for some offensive help.\u00c2\u00a0 The Red Sox could now trade someone like Clay Buchholz, possibly Josh Beckett, in a package to add a player or two.\u00c2\u00a0 The Padres\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Adrian Gonzalez has been linked with Boston since the offseason began and a deal involving Buchholz would appeal to them, but if the Red Sox want to move Beckett then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be looking at another three-way trade.<\/p>\n
The L.A. Angels could also end up in a deal involving multiple teams.\u00c2\u00a0 Losing Lackey is a real blow and there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much left on the free agent market that could come close to replacing him.\u00c2\u00a0 The main pitcher being touted for a potential trade is Derek Lowe, as the Braves have a surplus of pitching and need to turn that into a Major League bat or two.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no obvious deal between the Angels and Braves alone to meet that need, so another team would be needed.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Angels have at least added one player this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Free agent Hideki Matsui signed a one year\/$6m deal with L.A. after his World Series heroics with the Yankees.<\/p>\n
A week before Christmas, baseball fans received an early present in the form of an incredible seven days of transactions in MLB. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-6320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6320"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7233,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions\/7233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}