Phillies Acquire Roy Oswalt
Why do the Phillies get all the Roys?
The Phils sent JA Happ, Anthony Gose, and Jonathan Villar to Houston in exchange for Roy Oswalt and a considerable amount of cash — the Astros will be picking up about half of the $22M left on Oswalt’s contract.
This gives the Phillies a starting rotation that starts with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels — not too shabby.
Meanwhile, the Mets did nothing — and why would they? After a full day of meetings on Monday, they came to the conclusion that the team is just fine the way it is, with enough talent to get into the playoffs. They proved that beyond a measure of doubt by taking two of three from the Cardinals in their first series after the pow-wow.
Everyone criticizing the Phillies for this deal claims that Oswalt is old and stinks. Let’s hope that’s the case. And let’s hope he’s not one of the top ten pitchers in the NL (WHIP and Ks aren’t really indicative of a pitcher’s value, right?). Though, pitching isn’t everything in baseball — you still have to score runs. And we know the Phillies struggle mightily offensively.
If nothing else, this trade sort of fulfills at least one of my predictions from this year — though, it does appear Jayson Werth is still in Philadelphia. One out of three ain’t bad, right?
In other news, the Marlins jettisoned Met-killer Jorge Cantu to Texas, the Orioles sent Miguel Tejada to San Diego, and the Nationals traded Matt Capps to Minnesota for young catcher Wilson Ramos.
I wonder if the Mets considered acquiring Tejada to play 2B? That’s really the only position where the Mets had an opportunity to upgrade. He was playing third in Baltimore, and likely will do the same for the Padres, moving Chase Headley to the outfield.
