Roy Halladay

Let me start off by asking a simple yes or no question. Do the Red Sox need Roy Halladay? The correct answer no matter what you may be thinking is no, the Red Sox do not need Roy Halladay. Would he be nice to have? Of course, there are only a handful of pitchers in this league I rather have than Mr. Halladay and they are all very comparable. Halladay is arguably the best pitcher in the American League and would no doubt be an excellent addition, but at what cost?

Early rumors indicate that J.P. Riccardi is asking for the moon and why not? Roy Halladay is a workhorse and a stud. Riccardi's price is so high right now that the St.Louis Cardinals were told that it would take 5 prospects of his own choosing for them to get a deal done. 5 Prospects? Are you kidding me? Now anyone who is familiar with baseball rumors knows that the price tends to come down after the first few weeks because the teams who are not really interested will be scared off by the preliminary talks and the teams who really want the player hang around and talk some sense into the other GM, in this case Riccardi. While the Red Sox interest may be bleak, lets just as an example show you what it might cost. The Blue Jays are said to be looking for pitching prospects in addition to a short stop prospect in order to complete a deal for the Ace. Let me put this in Red Sox terms, our best short stop prospect is Casey Kelly, a first round selection from a year ago, who also could potentially be a pitching prospect as well. Moving on to the other parts of the deal, the headliner of this deal coming from the Sox would most certainly have to be Clay Buchholz, we all know Clay's story and how he is stuck in the minors biding his tie until he gets another opportunity at the big league level. He is widely regarded as the best pitching prospect in the majors and no doubt the Red Sox best prospect. Along with Clay and Casey the Red Sox would also have to include either Michael Bowden regarded as the second best pitching prospect, or one of the only power hitting prospects in the Sox system Lars Anderson who is considered David Ortiz' replacement in the next few years. Is this worth it? To recap, you would’ve to include your top two pitching prospects, one of your only power hitting prospects and your only short stop prospect.

So Kelly, Buchholz, Bowden and Anderson, would these players rated 1-4 on Soxprospects.com get the deal done? We would assume so but that should not be the question that comes to a Red Sox fans mind. The questions should be whether giving up your best prospects is worth it for a year and a half of Roy Halladay? Now there are some of those people who think that the Red Sox should have an agreement in place with Halladay about an extension if a deal were ever to ensue. What these people fail to realize is that any money you give him, you can not give to Josh Beckett who will be a free agent at the same point as Halladay. The other thing people forget is that when this extension kicks in Halladay will be 34 years old and the Red Sox have a very strong track record for not wanting to extend pitchers past a certain age and I would imagine for a guy who has thrown over 2,000 innings this policy would come into play. In addition to all that the weakening economy has to come into effect at some point as to whether or not the Red Sox will be able to afford signing Jason Bay this offseason, then Josh Beckett the year after and so on.

The deal that Red Sox fans should be thinking about is a Clay Buchholz or Michael Bowden for Victor Martinez. The reason this deal makes more sense is simply because of the health of your everyday third basemen Mike Lowell. Martinez would be a good fit for a lot of reasons. He could spell Jason Varitek; He could play first base and allow Kevin Youkilis to take more of a permanent role at third base. Even when Lowell does come back there is talk about him only being able to play 3-4 times a week effectively. That allows time for Martinez, Lowell, Youkilis, and Varitek to move around and get the necessary rest they would need.

In conclusion I think that Red Sox fans everywhere need to come to terms with the fact that Roy Halladay is more than likely not coming to Boston. Instead Sox fans should look more into a Victor Martinez type deal. However if there was one person to trust to make this decision it would be Mr. Epstein.