Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Halladay trade deadline date set by Riccardi

I don't normally paste links to websites, but for this I will.

If you ask me, Halladay is not going to be traded this year.

“If you ask me today if we’re going to trade Roy Halladay, I’d say no,” Ricciardi, the Toronto Blue Jays’ general manager, said Tuesday morning. “Something could happen between now and the trade deadline, but this isn’t something that’s suddenly going to happen with someone on the 30th.

”While the non-waiver trading deadline is July 31, Ricciardi said that the Jays would most likely enforce an internal deadline of July 28 to make a deal. Since Ricciardi said the Jays “have to be knocked off our feet” to trade Halladay, he said trade talks with prospective suitors will need to have accelerated several days before the deadline. An 11th-hour deal sounds unlikely.

“There are too many pieces that have to be in play with this,” Ricciardi said.Ricciardi noted that Halladay is scheduled to start on July 29 and added that he did not want Halladay to have to make that start with the possibility of a trade still lingering over the pitcher. By then, Ricciardi hopes that the Jays have traded Halladay for a pile of prospects or have decided to keep him.

source : http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/plenty-of-suitors-for-halladay-but-deal-remains-elusive/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if "off-base" is an official term in the dictionary, but if it is, your picture needs to be beside it for sure.

Prediction: Halladay is gone by the deadline.

Why?

Halladay wants to play for a winner. Sure, he's shown loyalty to the team over the past years by sticking by them when they (Riccardi) has promised time and again that the team would compete next year and that they would reward Halladay's loyalty by fielding a team that could potentially challenge for a playoff spot. Not only has that not happened, but there are no signs anywhere that it will by the time his current contract ends. In short, to not trade him now is basically forcing him to play for less money then he deserves on a mediocre ball club, with the chance that his value could decrease if he gets injured or his numbers actually get worse.

Secondly, this wasn't initiated by Doc (at least not publicly). Riccardi opened this whole can of worms by publicly saying the team was going to listen to offers for him, and he must have known what a storm that would (and did) cause. I don't think he'd have started all this talk without being serious about going through with it. Now he says they're probably not going to trade him, which I din't believe. Knowing J.P., he's only saying that now so that fans and media don't eviscerate him over wanting to trade the franchise player. He was either lying about the situation when he opened him mouth about trading him a few weeks ago, or he's lying now when he says it likely won't happen. I believe he's lying now.

It'll take a hell of a deal to make it happen, but I think that some team will come up with something incredible to offer in return for Halladay that will make the deal a reality. Roy Halladay at some point will be traded from the Toronto Blue Jays. Might as well be now while his value is at its peak and start the re-tooling process.