Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee Change Teams in the Trade of a Decade

Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan is reporting a pending blockbuster trade that could end up being the biggest trade of the decade in Major League Baseball. It is reported that there is a three-team trade pending that has Cliff Lee going to the Seattle Mariners and Roy Halladay to the Philadelphia Phillies.

The biggest trades of the past decade in Major League Baseball have involved stars like Manny Ramirez, Jason Bay, C.C. Sabathia, Matt Holliday, Miguel Cabrera, and Josh Hamilton, but none of those trades can compete with the magnitude of this one. A few trades have involved one ace getting traded, but two staff aces getting traded in one deal? Now, that is why this is Major League Baseball's biggest trade in over decade. If you were to name the best five pitchers in all of baseball in the past couple seasons, you would have to mention both Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.

The trade of the decade has the Blue Jays getting 3 prospects with all of them coming from the Philadephia Phillies; pitcher Kyle Drabek, outfielder Michael Taylor and catcher Travis D'Arnaud. The Phillies will receive Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays and two prospects from the Seattle Mariners. The two prospects the Phillies got were outfielder Tyson Gillies and pitcher Phillippe Aumont. The Mariners will receive Cliff Lee, and will now have a lethal one-two punch of Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee. Good luck A.L. hitters.

To me, this deal is a bad move by the Philadelphia Phillies and this is coming from somebody that would take Roy Halladay over another pitcher in the league. Essentially, the trade of the decade involves not only this deal, but also the trade that the Phillies did to get Cliff Lee this past season. With what the Phillies traded to the Cleveland Indians to get Cliff Lee and what they traded away in this deal, they lost too much. This means Philadelphia traded away pitchers Kyle Drabek, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, outfielder Michael Taylor, infielder Jason Donald, and catchers Travis D'Arnaud and Lou Marson. That seems like way too much to get Roy Halladay, outfielder Tyson Gillies and pitcher Phillippe Aumont in return. All the Phillies really wanted out of those three is Roy Halladay, and they could've got him this past season for less than what they lost in these two trades. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays got a good deal, and the Mariners made out like bandits.

Sources: Funny Pheeling by Jeff Passan