The Roy Halladay Dilemma: Part 2

Apologies for the tardiness of this post. I had fully intended to write this column as a response to whatever trade that the Blue Jays had foolishly rushed into, but J.P Riccardi seems to have held off. Normally I'm not a huge Richard Griffin fan, but here he is essentially making the same case that I made in my post on Friday. It's like he's reading my blog or something!

Where does all of this leave the Blue Jays? Are they going to trade Roy Halladay? Who knows! Anyone who says they know is lying to you. It's really impossible to tell at this point. The better question has become, what kind of state are the Blue Jays in? In my opinion, they're a .500 team with their current roster. Trading Roy Halladay would make them substantially worse in the short run, and probably won't even improve them in the long run. What SHOULD the Jays do?


1. Build around their young core:

The Jays do have some promising young talent. On the pitchings side, I like Ricky Romero, though his K/BB and WHIP are a little high for my liking. I think he slots in as a good number 3 starter. Scott Richmond, if healthy, is even better and I think he has the potential to be a good number 2 starter.

From a hitting perspective, I love Adam Lind. Really,you can't complain about a guy who in his first full season with the big club has an OPS over .900. I also like Aaron Hill. I know as a Blue Jay fan that it's blasphemy to say a bad word about Hill, but the man absoblutely refuses to walk. I know, he's hit 24 homers. I know. But let's be real about Mr. Hill for a second here. Until this season, he had never hit more than 17 home runs in a season. He'll probably end up with about 30 or so this year, but I would bet my life he averages about 20 or so, at the most, for the rest of his career. Thus, his cripplingly low OBP is almost certainly going to be a problem. His careers OPS, over 574 games, is a measly .764. That, my friends, is not that good at all. So yes, I like Hill's defense and his new found power-stroke, but no, he is not nearly the player Roberto Alomar was. Stop making that comparison, it is insane.

Overbay and Scutaro are both good, but not great, offensive players. They are worth keeping around at a reasonable cost. Scott Rolen is having a great season too, but the man is 34 and not getting any younger. If J.P can find the fountain of youth, and hook Rolen up, keep him around.


2. Deal with the dead weight:

Oh boy do the Jays have a lot of that. Vernon Wells and Alex Rios pretty well simultaneously pulled fast ones on Blue Jays management. Everyone that's calling for them to be traded should remember that at the time they were signed to their big contracts, every Blue Jays fan applauded the moves. Wells was supposed to be the Jays' franchise player and Rios would be his side-kick in vaulting the team up the A.L East standings. Most fans were staunchly opposed to trading Rios for Tim Lincecum. Keeping Wells in Toronto was a coup for what some considered to be a small market team. Keeping homegrown talent was supposed to be a major step.

In hindsight, those two have got to go, and in a hurry. I think the problem is that it will be extremely difficult to convince some team, any team, to even take a flyer on either of the two. They have both looked awful. The only way that a Halladay trade might benefit the Jays would involve dumping one of these two.


3. Pray they are relocated to another division:

I kid. Seriously, though, the Blue Jays are going to have a real hard go of it for the foreseeable future. The Yankees and Red Sox will always be competitive, and the Rays look set for the next couple of years at least. Even Baltimore is getting better. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't see how the Blue Jays can contend. They are at least two big bats away from being close.


Halladay the symbol:

In the end, any potential Roy Halladay trade. or lack of trade, alone probably won't make the Blue Jays either big winners or losers in the A.L East. The sad truth is that unless they undergo a fairly radical overhaul, the Jays can't hope to compete in a division with two of baseball's richest teams. The competitive disadvantage is simply too great. Roy Halladay is a symbol of the problems with baseball. All the big boys have all the toys. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers of the world may not win every year, but they'll always have a chance to win. The Blue Jays are not even a small-market team, yet they are considering giving up their best asset because they have no hope of competing. They can't hope to win. And yet, for some reason, I'll keep watching.

I promise the next post won't end on such a low note.