And aren't 2 of them in the top 25 (or 50) of ranked prospects in baseball...
None of them were in last years top 100 prospects by baseball america. Domonic Brown was the top rated Phillie at #48.
A lot of people are 'dismissing' the value of the trade because they're just 'prospects'
Ryan Howard was a prospect - he was a 5th round pick that no one thought could do well in baseball cause of the hole in his swing
Utley
Rollins
Hamels
Ruiz
So were Marlon Byrd, Baisley, Marlon Anderson, and Bobby Estalella, all of whom cracked BA's top 100 at some point.
Taylor was clearly the lesser of the two outfielders, and they kept Brown. Drabek was pitching well, but he wasn't even on the Phillies radar before last year, and he's still a player who's never pitched above AA and has had major arm surgery.
I hated the Blanton trade, and I ended up being wrong. I hate trading away top prospects for middling players. But this isn't a middle reliever was just acquired. This is Roy Halladay. He's legitimately one of the top 2-3 best pitchers in baseball. If he's effective for the duration of his contract, i have no doubt he'll provide more value to the Phillies than Drabek and Taylor.
This isn't a trade that makes the phillies 'better' next year - not appreciably - i mean cliff lee was 5-0 in the playoffs - how much better will halladay do in the playoffs, regular season maybe an extra win or two but i'm sure lee pitching for contract would have been fine - so i see no 'vast' improvement in the phillies next year like some heads on ESPN are spinning.
Yes, this does improve the Phillies better. Drastically. You can look at pretty much any metric (ERA+, WHIP, oba, gb rate, k rate, so/bb), and Halladay is consistently better every year than Cliff Lee. Might he pitch better than Lee did in last years playoffs? That's certainly not a given. But it's also no given that Cliff Lee repeats last years performance. It really has no relevance on whether the Phillies are better prepared for next year than they were a week ago.
The Blue Jays had leverage. They had another team, the Angels, in serious pursuit of Halladay. That's all it takes. If the Phillies wanted Halladay, they HAD to make a better deal than the Angels. That puts the Blue Jays in the drivers seat.
I agree with you on the Lee trade being bad.
They would have had to have given up on one of their outfielders next year to re-sign Lee as well. They're in the same boat. I think locking up one of them long term is key to the team contending in the next 3-4 years. If the price of that is Jayson Werth (who's likely to be overpaid and 32 after next year), that's the price.
