This is what I call "The Great Come & Get It Day" argument: The day when all Phils prospects pan out & we're dominant. Guess what? That day is here and not to do everything possible to maximize it is sheer folly.

Brantt wrote:

phillychuck wrote:

BIGPHILLY wrote:

BassGuiFloyd wrote:Halladay is better than Drabek and probably everyone in our minors will ever be. TRADE

* This is the obvious common sense line of thinking that so many disregard. Prospects rarely live up to the hype. You can get a CY Young type horse for a championship run - you do it.

Halladay was once a prospect. As were Sabathia, Lee, Oswalt, etc. etc.

They often DO live up to the hype. You hope the Phils' talent evaluators have a better idea than we do as to whether Drabek, Taylor, Marson, Carrasco, etc. will be successes or failures in the bigs.

Personally, I think both Drabek (if he remains healthy) and Taylor are going to be good-to-great major leaguers. If they are, including even one of them is too much to pay for 1.5 years of Halladay. Good, cheap talent is the most valuable commodity in the big leagues, and you don't give it away for a rental, even if the rental is Roy Halladay.

How do prospects often live up to the hype? For every one that makes it, there are about 20 who don't........maybe more.

Often enough for the Phils, no? Hamels, Utley, Howard, Rollins, Rolen - all elite players. Even Myers was a very solid ML pitcher. The one "bust" I can remember over the last decade was Floyd, and he has turned himself into a solid pitcher. The Phils tend to hit more often than most teams. I dont know whether that is a testament to their scouting or development system, but it makes me more wary to trade them. That said, I'm on board.

philliesr98 wrote:

The Red Tornado wrote:

philliesr98 wrote:those two first round picks arent always guaranteed depending on who signs halladay and what other free agents they sign...

Unless he gets injured I seriously doubt it will matter who the other team also signs as Halladay is very likely to be in the top of the A list

wait it doesnt go by who is on top of A list, it goes by order of A list agents signed I thought....

It goes by ranking. Teixeira was rated higher than Sabathia, so the Angels got the Yankees' 1st-rd pick instead of Milwaukee. The Brewers ended up with their 2nd instead. And again it assumes that whoever signs him is in the 16-30 range; otherwise you don't get a 1st...

Trent Steele wrote:

Brantt wrote:

phillychuck wrote:

BIGPHILLY wrote:

BassGuiFloyd wrote:Halladay is better than Drabek and probably everyone in our minors will ever be. TRADE

* This is the obvious common sense line of thinking that so many disregard. Prospects rarely live up to the hype. You can get a CY Young type horse for a championship run - you do it.

Halladay was once a prospect. As were Sabathia, Lee, Oswalt, etc. etc.

They often DO live up to the hype. You hope the Phils' talent evaluators have a better idea than we do as to whether Drabek, Taylor, Marson, Carrasco, etc. will be successes or failures in the bigs.

Personally, I think both Drabek (if he remains healthy) and Taylor are going to be good-to-great major leaguers. If they are, including even one of them is too much to pay for 1.5 years of Halladay. Good, cheap talent is the most valuable commodity in the big leagues, and you don't give it away for a rental, even if the rental is Roy Halladay.

How do prospects often live up to the hype? For every one that makes it, there are about 20 who don't........maybe more.

Often enough for the Phils, no? Hamels, Utley, Howard, Rollins, Rolen - all elite players. Even Myers was a very solid ML pitcher. The one "bust" I can remember over the last decade was Floyd, and he has turned himself into a solid pitcher. The Phils tend to hit more often than most teams. I dont know whether that is a testament to their scouting or development system, but it makes me more wary to trade them. That said, I'm on board.

I'm talking more about baseball as a whole though. Look at a lot of the players involved in these huge deals.............tons you never hear from again.

So the only way we wouldn't get two ones is if the team that signed Halladay also signed Utley or Ginnifer Goodwin

or a team like the Nats (top 15) signed him...

LA Times columnist: Dodgers must get Roy

Russell Martin
Devaris Gordon (not a top 50 prospect)
Josh Lindblom (not a top 50 prospect)

for Halladay and Barajas

*click*

F*cking Lou Marson is better than "J. Martin"

but he's Canadian.

I know it's a bit different, but would people have included Hamels 4-5 years ago in a trade like this? Phillies were knocking on the door of the playoffs, Hamels was a high potential minor leaguer with questions about his arm and durability. There are alot of similarities between Drabek and Hamels at the same point in their careers.

Trent Steele wrote:

Brantt wrote:How do prospects often live up to the hype? For every one that makes it, there are about 20 who don't........maybe more.

Often enough for the Phils, no? Hamels, Utley, Howard, Rollins, Rolen - all elite players. Even Myers was a very solid ML pitcher. The one "bust" I can remember over the last decade was Floyd, and he has turned himself into a solid pitcher. The Phils tend to hit more often than most teams. I dont know whether that is a testament to their scouting or development system, but it makes me more wary to trade them. That said, I'm on board.

This is the other thought I've been working through. I have a piece on TGP right now about how we had this wave of prospects 25 years ago--the Stone/Samuel/Russell/James/Carman/Gross/Ruffin group that was supposed to lock in the Phillies as the Team of the '80s--who either flamed out altogether or didn't quite live up to expectations. Compare their trajectory to Burrell/Rollins/Myers/Utley/Howard/Hamels, all of whom have been above-average regulars and some of whom could merit Hall of Fame consideration.

The next wave, Marson/Carrasco/Drabek/Taylor/Brown/Knapp (add in or take out a couple other names as you see fit), comes pretty close on the heels of the last one, to the point where most or all will reach the majors while the current Phillies core, the last wave plus a few additions from outside, are still producing. Drafted and developed by mostly the same crew that got the Rollins-to-Hamels group to the majors, I think they're probably more likely to track that record of success than the Jeff Stone cohort.

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't deal some of them for Halladay. But blithely predicting that they'll all be busts is more reflex-Negadelphian than thoughtful analysis.

Lou Marson is the most Canadian sounding name I've ever heard. And he doesn't have the taint of being a pathetic whiny bitch (a very looked down upon characteristic in the hyper-masculine Canadian culture)

cshort wrote:I know it's a bit different, but would people have included Hamels 4-5 years ago in a trade like this? Phillies were knocking on the door of the playoffs, Hamels was a high potential minor leaguer with questions about his arm and durability. There are alot of similarities between Drabek and Hamels at the same point in their careers.

I would have, because I was *certain* Cole would never stay healthy for a full season. And I would have been dead fucking wrong.

So to me, this is a strong argument not to trade Drabek.

BigEd76 wrote:LA Times columnist: Dodgers must get Roy

Russell Martin
Devaris Gordon (not a top 50 prospect)
Josh Lindblom (not a top 50 prospect)

for Halladay and Barajas

*click*

His trade proposal is wan, but he makes no bones about who their competition is:

If Colletti says there is a deal to be had, just say yes. The Dodgers could pitch Halladay against Cole Hamels and the Philadelphia Phillies in the playoffs, or they could face Halladay and Hamels on consecutive days, perhaps the last two days of what would be a disappointing season.

dajafi wrote:

cshort wrote:I know it's a bit different, but would people have included Hamels 4-5 years ago in a trade like this? Phillies were knocking on the door of the playoffs, Hamels was a high potential minor leaguer with questions about his arm and durability. There are alot of similarities between Drabek and Hamels at the same point in their careers.

I would have, because I was *certain* Cole would never stay healthy for a full season. And I would have been dead $#@! wrong.

So to me, this is a strong argument not to trade Drabek.

I thought so at first glance of his post, but this is different to me in that we know we can win a World Series, especially with someone like Halladay, as opposed to sneaking in to the playoffs in 2005 with serious weaknesses. Also the core of our team is four/five years older now

dajafi wrote:

cshort wrote:I know it's a bit different, but would people have included Hamels 4-5 years ago in a trade like this? Phillies were knocking on the door of the playoffs, Hamels was a high potential minor leaguer with questions about his arm and durability. There are alot of similarities between Drabek and Hamels at the same point in their careers.

I would have, because I was *certain* Cole would never stay healthy for a full season. And I would have been dead $#@! wrong.

So to me, this is a strong argument not to trade Drabek.

Even if the Phillies won the WFC in 2005?

phillychuck wrote:Any four minor leaguers other than Brown, Taylor, Drabek, and Marson is what I'd offer. If it doesn't get it done, fine. You don't win consistently by giving away good, cheap talent for a short stint of a veteran on the downside of his career. Haladay is a top-flight player, but what is 1.5 years of him at age 32/33 worth? Five prospects, two of whom are in the top 25 in all of baseball and the privilege of paying Haladay 20+ million seems wildly excessive to me.

So basically you don't want to do any deal? No way anything gets done w/o giving up at least one of Brown/Taylor/Drabek.

1.5 years is a short stint? Downside of his career? I'm willing to wager he's still a Cy Young candidate 5 years from now.

I think what you are missing out on is that our team's core isn't young anymore. Their collective window of opportunity isn't 5-7 years long, but more likely 3-5 years, and personally, I'm going with the former based on current contracts. Knowing this is a championship core, you've got to exploit that. That doesn't mean saying to hell with the future, but it does mean placing more emphasis on the present. And as much as we rag on Wolever, et al, regarding the draft (and I'm as guilty as anyone here), they have come through for us, even if it means blowing the occasional first round pick. I trust that we can trade some of the top guys in our system now and be restocked by the time that 3-5 year window closes.

Personally, I build the deal around Taylor. I'm reluctant to give up Happ based on the opening it creates in the current rotation, but if Pedro is coming that might be solved for this year. I try to keep Drabek and Brown out of the deal, if push comes to shove I try and get them to bite on Knapp instead of Drabek (or even more preferably CC). Taylor/Happ/Knapp or CC/Donald or Marson might get the deal done.

Seth Everett this morning on WIP: "if you get Halladay, you might double the number of titles in your franchise history"

Exciting and depressing at the same time...

phatj wrote:

dajafi wrote:

cshort wrote:I know it's a bit different, but would people have included Hamels 4-5 years ago in a trade like this? Phillies were knocking on the door of the playoffs, Hamels was a high potential minor leaguer with questions about his arm and durability. There are alot of similarities between Drabek and Hamels at the same point in their careers.

I would have, because I was *certain* Cole would never stay healthy for a full season. And I would have been dead $#@! wrong.

So to me, this is a strong argument not to trade Drabek.

Even if the Phillies won the WFC in 2005?

Knowing what we know now? Yes

BigEd76 wrote:Seth Everett this morning on WIP: "if you get Halladay, you might double the number of titles in your franchise history"

Exciting and depressing at the same time...

Seth Everett strikes me as a poor man's Keith Law, just as much of a jerk, half as much baseball knowledge.