DownSwinging.com

Two weeks before the trade deadline, it was a foregone conclusion that Roy Halladay was going to be dealt. By the time we got to July 31, it was pretty expected that Roy Halladay was staying-put in Toronto. I still thought he was going though. So when I heard that the Angels might have gotten him at the last second, I wasn’t surprised. When I found out that even after getting Victor Martinez (and after a failed attempt at landing Seattle’s Felix Hernandez) the Red Sox made a last-second play for Halladay, but ultimately balked at giving up Clay Buchholz and Daniel Bard I thought it made sense. But what I couldn’t figure out at around 4:30 was what the Blue Jays were thinking. I get that GM J.P. Ricciardi needed to be “wowed” in order to deal Halladay and that he wasn’t.

I guess you can credit the Blue Jays with sticking to their plan. But now it’s going to cost them. When it was announced that Halladay was on the trading block, it all added up. The Blue Jays had fallen short yet again and realized that their current team wasn’t going to crack the top three, let alone top two in the AL East this season or next. They didn’t have to rebuild completely, but they could have traded Halladay for some young talent and in several years hope to contend.