Mayo: Roy Halladay's New Home?

In our inaugural week at Zeus of Sport, we have introduced a lot of people to our readers who are very capable sports writers. We brought Carlos and Stein on staff and have read a lot of other e-mails. However, we are going to stick to our "Apollo of the Week" award from now on by only posting one outsider article per week. Our last writer of our first week online will be Eric Mayo, enjoy:

It’s the third week of July, which means that Buster Olney and Peter Gammons begin their work trying to figure out what new team will land a disgruntled superstar. Two years ago, it was Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne pre-breakdown. Last year, Manny Ramirez and CC Sabathia both found new homes. This year, let the rumor mill start spinning with Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay.

In theory, there’s no reason why the 20 or so teams still in contention wouldn’t be interested in Halladay. He’s pitched 200+ innings the past three years, with 15+ wins each of those years. He’s been in the top 5 in ERA in the American League five times while the AL East has been the toughest division in baseball. And while the Blue Jays have never pulled over 90 wins.

Roy Halladay will be the king of an otherwise weak group of assets. Cliff Lee will bring a decent sized haul of prospects to Cleveland because of his Cy Young performance last year (he’s 5-9 now due in large part to poor run support). Jake Peavy would have likely been traded if he didn’t have a no-trade clause wasn’t injured. Erik Beddard and Jarod Washburn would be the next best pitchers, and Seattle won’t move them unless they drop out of the AL West race fast. If a team wants a front-end starter, Roy Halladay is their only hope.

Any conversation with the Blue Jays would have to start with a similar prospect group that the Indians received for CC Sabathia last year, and any team wanting Halladay would probably have to give up more as Halladay’s contract does not expire until 2010. The problem in the Halladay market right now is that no one feels forced to outbid another. The suitors who are coming up most often are the Phillies, White Sox and Dodgers. Let’s say, for argument sake, that the Dodgers were willing to include Clayton Kershaw in a deal for Halladay. Could the Phillies be convinced to start the bidding at two of their top four prospects? I think the Phillies would take their chances that Cole Hamels could beat Roy Halladay in a potential NLCS matchup.

The only condition under which Roy Halladay gets traded in the next two weeks is if JP Ricardi can spark a bidding war between the Yankees and Red Sox. Clearly, his first choice would be to move Halladay far away from the AL East. However, the only way Ricardi finds a buyer willing to overpay is if he can get one of the two clubs interested. The Yankees can’t afford to face Beckett and Halladay, especially when they can’t beat the Red Sox to begin with. Similarly, if the Yankees acquired Halladay, could the Red Sox take the AL East with the 3-4-5 starters of Wakefield, Penny, and Smoltz? JP Ricardi is waiting for one team to blink.