According to Jayson Stark, there's a major sticking point in the proposed trade for Roy Oswalt. Oswalt, who has a $16 million option for 2012, won't waive his no-trade clause unless the Phillies (or any team he goes to) pick up the option. Right now, the Phillies are balking at that request.
The article also mentions that the Phils are still pursuing Dan Haren and Ben sheets. And they wouldn't be opposed to trading J.A. Happ either.
From the looks of it, Oswalt is the hold up in the trade. Ryan Lawrence of the Delco Times says that it could be another pre-deadline staring contest.
By pursuing a front line starter, the Phillies are essentially admitting their mistake in letting Cliff Lee go. If this trade is completed in some shape or form, Werth and Lee would basically be swapped for Oswalt and Domonic Brown on the 2010 roster. Not exactly an upgrade. But in 2011 and beyond, the Phils would retain Oswalt and perhaps some prospects, where they likely would have lost Lee and Werth. If it shakes out that way, this would be an overall win for Rube.
I don't believe that this is necessarily admitting a mistake. The starting pitchers the Phillies have right now have been abysmal of late, with a few notable stand-out individual performances here and there. What's happened to Blanton? Halladay's been struggling. Moyer? Forget it. If these guys were performing as expected, and the team was getting some consistent performance at the plate,everybody would be overjoyed that another qualitiy starting pitcher was being added, instead of all the finger-pointing. Sure, everybody would have loved to have seen Cliff Lee stick around, but who actually could have predicted the lack of offense and slew of injuries at the time? And...if
Oswalt is playing hardball, go after one of the other prospects. Any one of of them would be an upgrade to the current starting line-up.
Posted by: Joe Scarpatti | July 21, 2010 at 05:18 PM
Its not that Halladay has necessarily been struggling, besides his last start in Chicago he has been unreal, it has been the run support they are giving him. He completely shut down the Braves a couple starts ago dont forget that. He also has a couple losses (Florida and Pittsburgh) where he was dealing and got 0 runs to back him up..
Posted by: Jake | July 21, 2010 at 05:51 PM
It's not really admitting a mistake with Lee because the point of trading for Oswalt is that they have him under contract beyond this year whereas Lee woulda been out of here. Still a stupid fucking move to get rid of Lee, but I understand that.
What I DON'T understand is why they feel it necessary to make sure they get a pitcher who's gonna be here past this year...but don't want to commit to him being here past next year. Makes no fucking sense.
Posted by: Chris | July 21, 2010 at 10:57 PM
Last year phils fans would spend $50+ for weekend tickets in the cheap seats. Everyone and their mothers owns the Sunday plan and as a result you can pick Sunday games on stubhub for the price of a mcdonalds lunch.
The phils need a big bat and big pitcher and a closer. The hole is getting deeper and the phils may want to consider being sellers before the deadline. Swapping oswalt for werth just takes a bat away from an already depleted lineup and will make oswalt a continued victim of poor run support.
Posted by: Jim | July 22, 2010 at 12:08 AM