As a baseball fan, I enjoy a good trade rumor. It doesn't matter if the rumor is completely absurd or unsubstantiated. I even devour old stories about proposed deals that fell apart, invoking evoking the "oh what might have been" feeling. Using speculation to imagine players on one team eventually playing for a different team - It's quite fun, and mildly addicting.
For one-stop shopping, I MLBtraderumors.com. It's great for pulling all the rumors from various baseball people and piling them in one spot. It's fun to follow because each piece of information, sometimes seemingly useless and trivial, can affect the free agent or trade market. The ebbs and flows of the market definitely affect the Twins chances of acquiring players. You can bet Billy Smith pays attention to every move every team makes, probably via the same website.
So I wonder what Billy Smith thought when he read this:
That's it. They're just going to leave it at that. Just throw that out there, without explaining it. This little mind-fuck leaves us with the following questions:
A major league executive told Elliott that he doesn't know where Halladay might end up, but knows that he has told the Blue Jays that he would agree to be dealt to the Yanks. Doc has used his no-trade clause before to prevent being shipped to the Twins and Rangers.
1. What the hell are you talking about?
2. Roy Halladay?
3. To the Twins?
4. Was there an accepted deal on the table, and then Halladay just nixed it?
5. Or did he have the Twins his "don't even bother talking to them" list?
6. Even if Halladay had the Twins on his never in a million years, did the Blue Jays and Smith continue to talk, ala Padres-White Sox for Peavey?
7. Or maybe it's something really cool I don't even know about.
Of course, the phrasing is interesting.(italics, capslock and bold are mine)
"....used his NO-TRADE CLAUSE to prevent being shipped to the tWiNs..."
It's almost as if Roy Halladay would be a Minnesota Twin if he had not prevented it with his mysterious no-trade clause.
I don't know why Billy Smith and the Toronto front office would even waste their time. The Phillies offered a sweet package, and got denied. Not by Halladay, but by the Blue Jays top brass. For the Twins to complete a deal, they would have had to send their whole farm system to Toronto.
I seriously doubt Billy Smith ever even had much of a discussion for Halladay. It probably went like this:
Smith: Whataya want for Scuturo?
Riciardi: More than you're willing to give up.
Smith: Come on, you're going to get fired after the season anyway.
Riciardi: Fine, give me Casilla, Valencia, Guerrier and.... Punto.
Smith: c'mon! Gardenhire would kill me if I took Punto from him. Whataya want for Halladay?
At that point, it would be a race between the pitcher and his GM to humiliatingly reject Smith first.
9 comments:
I too was befuddled when I read that. Minnesota and Texas are not ideal places to play, but they seem like odd choices to start your don't-even-bother list.
It seems like there must have been some talks between us and them. A couple of theories on this:
1. There was actually a plausible trade in the works. It's generally been assumed that the Twins don't have the minor league debt to pull off a trade of this caliber. But, the one position where we do have some tallent is catcher, which is a big need for Toronto. So we probably could have offered something like Jose Morales, Perkins/Duensing/Swarzak, Revere, and Tyler Robinson/Deolis Guerra.
2. This was never going to happen. Bill Smith just wanted to show Mauer that he's serious about winning.
HOT STOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
of course id mis-spell a word in the title
fixed it.
I think its funny that every potential move made by this club can be viewed through the "Mauer Lense"
It's kinda like a sociological philosophy, except it's Joe Mauer.
In the 2nd sentence of the opening paragraph, the word should be "evoke," not "invoke."
John Gordon makes the opposite mistake. He will say "Popup to short. The infield fly rule has been evoked." Wrong, Gordo, the infield fly rule has been INvoked.
Still, the Halladay tidbit does make us want to say "Huh?"
"...you're going to get fired after the season anyway." --Comedy gold!
FrontRowSeats
geez. while we're at it, someone wanna rewrite that ugly last sentence of the post?
Halladay as a Twin, now theres a nice thought.
Man, can you imagine that one-two punch at the top of our rotation? First we throw Halladay at you from the right side and before you can recover we counter punch with Glen Perkins the next night. BAM. You just got owned and it was over before you even realized what happened.
I don't think I quite understand the picture that accompanies this post.
It did make me laugh, however.
it was supposed to be alluding to the "which came first, the chicken or the egg" question, except it was, did halladay reject the trade before or after talks of the details. Rough metaphor, at best.
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