| Christopher Reina. 24th November, 2009 - 11:58 am
 Amongst pitchers with at least 1,000 innings since 2002, Roy Halladay is second in ERA+ behind just Johan Sanana. He also won't turn 33 until the middle of May. When Halladay does reach 33, he still will realistically have another five to seven quality seasons left in him if we use sturdier pitchers like Roger Clemens, Kevin Brown, Curt Schilling, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver as models.
Halladay has made at least 31 starts in each of the past four seasons after being plagued by injuries in 2004 and 2005, which were due to a combination of shoulder issues and a broken leg. It was on the eve of the 2006 season that Toronto signed Halladay to his current deal, which expires following the 2010 season.
After J.P. Riccardi was unable to find a satisfactory deal ahead of the 2009 Trade Deadline, Halladay has become an inherited ticking time bomb for new GM Alex Anthopoulos. We saw the kind of difference Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett made for their new teams during the World Series and though Halladay was unable to impact this year's Fall Classic, he is almost assured to end up in a place where he makes starts in future editions.
Any Jays fan intimately knows the kind of pitcher they have had the luxury to send out to the mound every fifth day, a pitcher that has an incredible cutter and curve, but what will the team that trades for Halladay be receiving?
The absolute first thing that has always stood out about Halladay is his control and the infrequency of his walks allowed. Over his career, he has allowed just two walks per nine innings, which is fourth amongst active players. During the 2009 season, Halladay walked just 1.3 batters per nine innings, which approaches his 2003 Cy Young season.
He has never been a strikeout king, fanning just 6.9 per nine innings in 2003, but it has begun to surge back upwards beginning in 2008 when it jumped nearly two full strikeouts per nine innings from 5.6 to 7.5. It improved again last season to 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings.
Despite having electric stuff, Halladay outlasts any workhorse in the MLB right now. At 6'6", he has 46 complete games since 2002, way head of Livan Hernandez at 29 and Sabathia at 28. Like we saw from Sabathia in the postseason, Halladay has the physical makeup to pitch on three days rest in no small part due to that large frame.
Since we came out of the 90s, there have only been eight seasons on record in which a pitcher has at least nine complete games; Halladay owns three of those seasons.
The absolute closest comparison to this potential Halladay trade must be when Philadelphia sent Curt Schilling (at age 33 just like Halladay) to Arizona for Vicente Padilla, Travis Lee, Nelson Figueroa and Omar Daal.
Though Halladay doesn't compare to Schilling in terms of strikeouts, he is superior to the 2000 Schilling in terms of control, ERA+ and durability. Schilling of course went on to win three World Series titles and win ten of his final 15 postseason starts during that timeframe.
The premium on proven, elite starting pitchers has never been higher, both in terms of what is available in free agency and given the way the Yankees were able to win the World Series on three arms. Toronto is sitting on the most reliably excellent pitcher in the game, who should fall in line with the mid to late 30s of Schilling. When Anthopoulos begins to hear hesitation on the other end of the line from Brian Cashman or Theo Epstein or Ned Colletti, he can simply ask whether the D-Backs or Red Sox regretted yielding no future All-Stars for their World Series wins. |
