Just Say No To Roy

Columns — By Tom K on November 22, 2009 8:59 pm

As the rumors begin to heat up surrounding superstar pitcher Roy Halladay, I have one piece of advice for the Yankees:

Don’t do it.

Say what?    Take one of the best starters in the game, pair him up with one of the other best starters in the game, give him a rich extension..and viola!  You have a contender for as long as the two pitchers stay healthy & on top of their games.

Yet, I still say they shouldn’t do it.

There are the obvious reasons why I think they shouldn’t; for one, the cost in young players is going to be extreme.  You can start with Joba Chamberlain (and it does surprise me how easily some Yankees fans are now willing to just dump him into a trade) or Phil Hughes (less people want to dump him now based on his bullpen performance…meanwhile, it was Joba’s initial bullpen performance in 2007 that had fans crying foul at the mere mention he be included in any trade for anybody.  Isn’t it interesting how throwing a young flamethrower into the bullpen will make fans drool over that pitcher?  And they say building a bullpen is hard.)      This is not to say that I think either pitcher should be untouchable – although they’ve been around for a little while now, they are still prospects…especially as starting pitchers.    But remember, I said the package starts here – it doesn’t end here.    Next, Toronto will be looking at position players; sending them a few pitchers won’t be enough.  It would be a start to team up Hughes or Chamberlain with a guy like Zach McAllister, but Toronto wants to start rebuilding their entire team with a Halladay trade; and a few pitchers won’t do that.     To accomplish that, they’ll start looking at the Yankees’ best prospects on the playing field – guys like Austin Jackson, Jesus Montero, and Austin Romine.     The Yankees have some intriguing positional prospects, but they don’t have a whole lot of them in the upper parts of their system.      You may see where I am going with this:  Pretty much, to get Roy Halladay, the Yankees will have to gut their upper system of positional prospects.  If they are lucky, they’d be leftover with Jesus Montero or Austin Romine after the damage is done.  (and let’s not forget that no matter how nice of a prospect Romine is, he still hasn’t been tested in AA ball).

Before the 2008 season, Brian Cashman made it pretty clear that the Yankees did not want to part with prospects & money in the same trade when it came to acquiring Johan Santana, arguably the best pitcher in baseball at the time.   The Yankees had an obvious need in the rotation and were coming off several seasons of postseason frustration.  The Santana talks came after ace Chien-Ming Wang posted a 19.26 ERA in two postseason starts.   Yet, Cashman would not budge.   Right now, the Yankees are defending champions – a team with an established ace backed by a solid power pitcher in AJ Burnett.   Eventually, Andy Pettitte will also likely be in the fold.    A rotation (and pitching staff) that pitched well in the postseason.     Yet, now there is talk that the Yankees will do for Halladay what they wouldn’t do for Santana:  Gut some of their farm and hand out a nice check that would, at the very least, put him in the same tax bracket as Santana & Sabathia.   It doesn’t make much sense, unless the Yankees  believe that Hughes and/or Chamberlain won’t be the pitchers they projected them to be.

I don’t have a particular fondness towards John Lackey, who has suffered some arm issues in recent seasons – but if the Yankees want to add a guy to put in the upper part of their rotation, they could easily shell out what would be a smaller contract than what Halladay would get for Lackey – costing them nothing but money & a draft pick.    They could try to do what the Red Sox tried (and failed at) before the 2009 season – signing pitchers off of the scrap heap, in the hopes that one would get back to previous form.   Pitchers in that category include Ben Sheets, a pitcher I have always loved but who is coming off of a lost season.  If Sheets can get himself back on the hill, I have little doubt that he’ll be an effective pitcher.

But Roy Halladay?    Any contender he goes to would weaken the Yankees’ chances at repeating in 2010 – but it wouldn’t destroy those chances.  Just like any contender who acquired Cliff Lee would hurt the Yankees chances during the 2009 season.      Halladay would give the Yankees a good shot at repeating, though it would be far from a guarantee.   And yes, there is a part of me that wonders if the Yankees should just, you know, see if they have a Roy Halladay in their hands already.  This is not to say that Hughes can become a 250-inning horse; but there are indications that he is starting to blossom a bit; especially if his cutter continues to develop into a plus pitch.

This is not like 2008, when the Yankees were trying to break Hughes/Kennedy/Joba into the rotation at the same time – the Yankees now have established pitchers at the top & bottom of their rotation (again, assuming Pettitte comes back).   This should make it easier to break Hughes into the rotation this time around.

So, save your money & your prospects.   If a need for a veteran starter comes up during the season, maybe the 2010 version of Cliff Lee will make his way onto the market.   Or perhaps younger studs like Felix Hernandez or Josh Johnson will be made available at some point.   Trading unestablished youth for established  youth should never be discouraged.   But Halladay will be 10 years or so older than the players you are dealing for him; yes, he is one great pitcher.  But I think that the Yankees need to stay away from this one and let someone else reel in this particular big fish.  I think they’ll end up better off in the long run.