There were three significant trades made Wednesday in Major League Baseball. The biggest was a six-player deal that saw the Indians send reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee (pictured) to the Philadelphia Phillies.
It will be interesting to see whether the Los Angeles Dodgers make a countermove, as the acquisition of Lee installs the Phillies as the favorites to repeat as National League champions, if not World Series champions.
Philadelphia now has three solid starting pitchers in Lee, Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton. Spring Valley product J.A. Happ (7-1, 2.97 ERA), who played collegiately at Northwestern, is having a strong season for himself. The Phillies also have veteran Jamie Moyer and future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez waiting in the wings.
Of course, Philadelphia also has six All-Stars in its everyday lineup. The only big question for the Phillies is closer Brad Lidge (0-4, 7.11 ERA), who is struggling to regain the dominant form he displayed last year.
Lee's move also has implications for the tight AL Central race. The Indians just got a lot easier to beat. The Twins still have 12 games left against Cleveland. Detroit has nine left and the White Sox six. All those games left against the Tribe figure to give Minnesota a bit of a scheduling edge. Cleveland might also deal All-Star catcher Victor Martinez before Friday's trading deadline.
In other moves, the Pirates continued their firesale, sending Jack Wilson and Ian Snell to the Mariners and Freddy Sanchez to the Giants for assorted prospects. The Pittsburgh fans have to be loving every minute of this season. That team has been gutted.
Who stands to benefit most from the Pirates firesale? The Cubs, who still have nine games left with Pittsburgh.
Cliff Lee is nice, but the Phillies should have gotten Halladay. If they got him, they repeat as World Series Champs.
Right now, I don't trust anyone to beat the Yankees, but if the Phillies had Halladay, they are the only team that I trust. I am not even sure if Cliff Lee is going to be enough to propel them as World Series champs. Lee has been too inconsistent in his career, and I wonder if he is good enough to pitch at the bandbox over at Citizens Bank Park.
The Phillies can be commended to keep their young pitchers in Haap and Drabek, but their farm system is not going to die if those two are traded. Phillies and the Red Sox have the best farm system in the majors. When you have core players at their prime, you go for winning a championship. I bet if Kenny Williams was the GM of the Phils, he would not hesitate trading Happ and Drabek for Halladay.
Lee is a good move, but Roy would have been better.
I am curious to see if Haap can do well in September and October. He has not pitched that many innings, and even if he did, it's going to affect him next year as we already saw with Matt Garza, James Shields and Scott Kazmir.
As for Cleveland, I hope they got something good for Lee. Phils have a good farm system so that helps.
As for the Pirates, yes, they traded a lot of their best players AGAIN. To be fair though, Neal Huntington has done a good job of getting good young players in return. With that said, it's the recycling of trading core players for another core players and trading them again.
I love what the Cardinals did in beefing that lineup, and that to me, makes me feel secure St. Louis will win the division not those cute cuddly Cubs. Right now, it's a push between St. Louis and Philly for the NL pennant. I say that because neither teams have sterling pitching staff.
I want to see Halladay go to the Red Sox this year. I think Boston has to be the favorite, and they have the players to give what Toronto wants. With Beckett and Halladay, the Red Sox can stop the Yankees.