Philly Front Office

You might not remember the date, but you remember the day. December 15, 2009 is the day the Phillies traded for Roy Halladay. It was a heist of a trade. No outgoing prospect came back to bite us, and who has anything bad to say about Roy Halladay? A perfect game, a playoff no hitter, and a visit to a zoo later, it was basically nothing but great memories about Doc himself up until his tragic end. None of this is why or how I remember December 15, 2009.

On December 15, 2009, the Phillies traded away Cliff Lee. It still infuriates me. They didn’t have to do it!!! No matter how great Doc was, this day will always be bittersweet to me.

The Phillies had been trying to pry Doc away from Toronto for a few years. The whole thing is chronicled in Todd Zolecki’s book Doc. Fresh off winning the World Series in 2008, and with Cole Hamels struggling to get back to his post season MVP form, the Phillies tried and failed to land Halladay again. Instead of Halladay going to the Phillies on July 30, 2009, Cliff Lee ended up in red pinstripes. The quartet of Jason Knapp, Carlos Carrasco, Lou Marson, and Jason Donald were headed to Cleveland in exchange for their reigning Cy Young winner.

Cliff was awesome down the stretch. His first 5 games with the Phillies were silly: 33 innings, 3 earned runs. He had a few clunkers mixed in but he entered the post season as the fire breathing ace that the 2009 team just didn’t have. He cruised through the first two rounds:

Game 1 NLDS against Colorado: Complete game, 1 earned run. Win.

Game 4 NLDS against Colorado: 7.1 innings, 1 earned run. Win.

Game 3 NLCS against Los Angelas: 8 innings, 0 earned runs, 10 strikeouts. Win.

Running through the National League was one thing, but he was set to face New York in Yankee Stadium for Game 1 of the World Series. I do not exaggerate when I tell you it was one of the greatest performances anyone ever saw. The stats don’t do it justice – though he did throw a complete game with none earned and 10 strikeouts – because it was how he did it. At one point he caught a laser of a grounder behind his back, tossed it to first…and chuckled. The signature play of his career though was the pop up to the mound where he not only didn’t move, but caught it at his belt and yawned like it wasn’t anything at all. We didn’t win, but Cliff Lee was real and he was spectacular.

And then he was gone.

Within a few hours of Roy Halladay becoming a Phillie, word trickled out that Lee was on the block. No way. That was just speculation. They wouldn’t. They did. Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and J.C. Ramirez were headed from Seattle to various ports in the Phillies minor league system.

The reasoning behind the trade was two-fold. First, the prospect cupboard needed to be restocked after sending all the top picks to Toronto. Second, they couldn’t possibly pay both Roy Halladay AND Cliff Lee. Both were stupid reasons then and don’t make any more sense now. I can’t explain it. It was like they assumed they couldn’t keep both instead of figuring out a way.

Cliff Lee’s salary in 2010 was $8.1m. That’s what they were afraid of, 8.1 million dollars. It seems crazy now, but the Phillies used to be considered cheap. They were just coming out of their shell at this point. The 2008 payroll was around $98m (12th highest). 2009 was $113m (7th). 2010 ended up at $142m (4th). They obviously came to terms with the real size of their pockets because the next year, not only does our story have some redemption, but they were up to $173m (2nd).* That last part is all the more reason to be mad. They were simply afraid. They could have made it work.

History has not been kind to the trade. All 3 prospects we received flamed out. Aumont pitched 43 innings over 4 crappy years taxiing between the Phillies bullpen and Lehigh Valley. Ramirez bounced around for a few years without much success. Gillies never saw the majors. Fun fact: Gillies and his 0.00 WAR was the most valuable for the Phillies with the other two producing -0.7 WAR each.

In 2010, Cliff was his usual self. He led the league in complete games (7), FIP (2.58), WHIP (1.003), and strikeout to walk ratio (10.28 (2nd best ever at the time)). Unfortunately for the Mariners, they weren’t very good besides Cliff. They traded him to Texas for another platter of prospects who didn’t pan out (he was traded 3 times in a year for 11 players only 1 of whom did anything worth talking about, Carlos Carrasco). For the Rangers, a pedestrian by his standards regular season was forgotten as he again steamrolled through his first 3 games of the playoffs with 3 wins, 24 innings pitched, 34ks, and 2 earned runs. He pitched Game 1 of the World Series and surprisingly got lit up by Giants even year magic.

It was surreal to watch him that World Series. The Phillies had lost in the NLCS to the Giants despite having the best record in baseball. Roy Halladay won the Cy Young, threw a perfect game in Miami, and, in his playoff debut, threw the second post season no-hitter ever. The Phillies were able to trade for Roy Oswalt despite not using anyone from the ill-fated Seattle trade. Yet, it was Cliff Lee in the World Series playing for the wrong team. Would the Phillies have won game 4 against the Giants with Cliff Lee on the mound instead of Joe Blanton? I don’t want to think about it.

The next year, 2011, is the one everyone talks about. Merry Cliffmas to all! It was assumed Cliff would sign with the Yankees that winter, but there was that pesky mystery team in the mix. The Rangers bid topped out at $161m with defferals and the Yankees had $148m. Instead, late on December 14, the mystery team that had offered him only $120m was where he wanted to be. Almost a year after he was traded, Cliff Lee was back in a Phillies uniform.

That 2011 season was special. It was the best Phillies team of all time even if it didn’t win anything. The playoffs are cruel. That’s why you have to go for it when you have the chance. The 2010 Phillies missed that opportunity. They had the chance and didn’t go for it.

*Thank you http://www.thebaseballcube.com