Blue Jays Decline Phillies Offer
You didn’t read this wrong. This is different from yesterday at this time. Ahh, now the shoe is on the other foot for the Blue Jays. The latest trade offer was to send Halladay to the NL East leading Phillies, and for the Jays to recieve in return: starting pitcher J.A. Happ from the original offer, outfielder Michael Taylor, shortstop Jason Donald and pitcher Carlos Carrasco. The last three are all minor league prospects playing for AAA Lehigh Valley, and were once regarded to be on their untouchable-prospect list. When the Jays rejected this offer, they said that they would be “very comfortable” about not giving up Halladay.
Also, Toronto’s GM J.P. Ricciardi told all teams (such as: Anaheim, LA Dodgers, Philly) that he would not deal the ace unless he was “wowed” by an offer. The other end of the spectrum is that the Phillies wouldn’t be all opposed to going after someone else, like Cliff Lee (6-9, 3.17). The numbers are a bad representation for Lee, who in 10 of 21 games this year has gotten 2 or less runs per start. The last option for the Phils would be the Pirates’ Zach Duke and Seattle’s Jarrod Washburn.
