Twitter is exploding right now. Honestly, go to Twitter; it’s on fire. The whole Internet will soon be engulfed in flames.
Apparently the Red Sox have closed on a five-year, $85 million deal with John Lackey and the Phillies, Blue Jays and Mariners have agreed on a deal that will send Roy Halladay to the Phillies, Cliff Lee to the Mariners and to-be-determined prospects to the Mariners.
OK, Mets fans, here it is:
Don’t panic.
It’s probably best to wait until the dust settles to figure out exactly what happened today, but on the very surface, well, I dunno. On multiple occasions I wrote why the Mets shouldn’t trade for Roy Halladay, because one year of Roy Halladay and the opportunity to sign a 33-year-old pitcher to a longterm extension at market rate did not seem worth the cost in prospects.
We don’t know yet what exactly the cost in prospects will be for the Phillies — it should be mitigated by the inclusion of Lee — nor what deal Halladay will get, but it’s safe to assume they’ll still be committing a huge sum of money to an aging pitcher. Granted, Halladay’s been something of a horse, but no one is impervious to Father Time.
Look: I know the idea of Roy Halladay on the Phillies seems terrifying. I’m scared myself. That lineup, with Halladay and Cole Hamels at the front of the rotation in 2010? Yeah, that’s not going to be easy to compete with.
But how much better is Halladay, for 2010 alone, than Lee? I don’t know. And how much better will the Phillies be for the deal if it means they sign Halladay to a contract that could ultimately be crippling?
As for Lackey: Many Mets fans, myself included, way preferred Matt Holliday to Lackey at the offseason’s outset. I still do, for that matter. The movement for Lackey mostly developed, it seems, when news surfaced last week that the Mets had made an offer to Jason Bay.
But the Mets haven’t actually signed Bay yet, and no one has signed Holliday. So there’s more waiting to be done there. Let’s see what happens before we kill the team. Remember that they don’t play games in December.
Would I have committed five years and $85 million to Lackey? Probably not. Of course, as a sabermetrically inclined baseball fan I’m contractually obligated to assume what Theo Epstein does is correct, so maybe he knows something I don’t.
And since the market for pitchers was set by the three-year, $30 million contract Randy Wolf got from the Brewers, maybe Epstein saw Lackey as something of a bargain.
Still, it seems like an awful lot of cash to commit to a pitcher who hasn’t thrown over 200 innings since 2007, however minor his injuries were. And I don’t buy the argument that he deserves A.J. Burnett money simply by being better than A.J. Burnett; Burnett is wildly overpaid.
Again, and for the millionth time: I know you’re starting to feel impatient. I feel that way too. And, as pessimistic as I am about this front office’s ability to build a perennial contender, I’m certainly not saying, “just wait and see, the Mets will be fine.”
I don’t know that’s the case. But I also don’t know that they screwed anything up by not acquiring Lackey or Halladay.
Tedquarters 
Nice post. If indeed Lee-to-Seattle is part of the Halladay deal, it doesn’t seem like the death knell for the Mets. Halladay may be a couple of games more valuable than Lee over the course of a season, but then a halfway decent Oliver Perez would be that much of an improvement over the 2000 Oliver Perez.
The Phils’ rotation still isn’t all that imposing. Hamels is not the stud at this point that he was supposed to be. It’s not that the Phils aren’t better than the Mets; they are. But this deal doesn’t send them miles further ahead.
On the other hand, if Lee is not part of the deal . . . then I’m pretty worried.
I’m not actually even convinced that Lackey is that much better than Burnett.
Honestly, this seems like a lateral move for the Phils, especially if they’re trading any of their good prospects along with Lee.
It seems like one of the best parts of the deal, from the Phillies’ perspective, must be that there’ll be a good chance that neither Halladay nor Lee will hit free agency (and potentially wind up with the Mets or the Braves) next winter; if they simply signed Lee to an extension, Halladay’s situation might be out of their hands, and he could potentially get traded to the Mets or even not traded at all if the Jays didn’t get any good offers.
I agree, Lee to Halladay is a marginal upgrade. Though the word on the street is that Halladay will sign a 3 year extension, which seems like something of a discount (which baffles me – why would he give up the extra year or two? Hm). So while the Phillies might be paying a lot of money ($20+ mil apparently) for a 36 year old year old starter, it sounds like they’ll avoid paying him when he’s 37-38. Which is annoying. But I agree, in the short term, this does not make me panic.
What am I most afraid of? What Omar will do in response. Like increasing his offer to Bay, in panic, to something like 5/85.
Bingo. I was joking with some friends last night that you almost wonder if the Phillies just did it to force Minaya’s hand.
Halladay clearly just wants to win a ring. He’ll definately be giving 100+% every time he’s up there. I’d easily put him above Santana, seeing as though he’s not coming off season ending surgery and pitching in front of a pathetic defense. I’d say that the Phils rotation is imposing enough, especially compared to one where Ollie Perez is a number 2.
Mets offseason: I keep picturing raggedy Gollum wearing a Mets cap, squatting on the ground and sifting through a barrel of rotten fish heads.
“What do we do now boss”? (Omar minaya) “I dunno maybe I’ll ask daddy to come hold my hand and teach me how to be a real owner” (Jeff wilpon) “Don’t worry Omar consideriding you didn’t do nothing to improve the team at all so far your job is still safe” (Jeff wilpon) “Yay! let’s all go get ice cream” (Omar minaya).
As other teams are getting better, making trades, signing legit free agents, I’m almost certain that something like above was going on in conversation. Thanks for recreating the mets into the Expos/nationals.
Hey, Omar you tool, if you don’t do something soon, you won’t have to worry about going out to get bagels, Mets fans will be throwing them at you after they have been toasted. Ted, pass that along for me please thanks.