The Phillies are not the Yankees

This offseason may be remembered not as the one in which the Phillies traded away their recently acquired Cy Young award winner for a potential Hall of Famer, but more as the time in which the Phillies officially left the National League to join the Red Sox and Yankees in some ridiculously higher level of baseball maneuvering.

The big trade is still not completed, but a little clearer. Yes, Kyle Drabek will be dealt, but the Phillies will keep the three prospects from the Mariners they will get for Cliff Lee. I've warmed to the idea of trading Drabek for Halladay, especially because the Phillies are keeping top outfield prospect Domonic Brown and getting salary relief this year from the Blue Jays.

What I don't understand is jettisoning Lee for lesser prospects than those going to Toronto:

The Cliff Lee to Seattle portion of this trade just seems very light in return for the Phillies. They're getting two power arms with a lot of questions marks and a speedy center fielder without a lot of power. None of these guys are top tier prospects. This is the best Philadelphia could have gotten for Lee? Really? A pu-pu platter of interesting, high-risk guys not really close to the majors for a Cy Young-quality pitcher who is already well on his way to Type A free agency?

And, even if that's true, why clear $8 million from the books by trading Lee? Surely, you could have moved Joe Blanton without eating any of his salary, even if you didn't love the deals being offered. Or, how about this – don't sign J.C. Romero, Brian Schneider, and Ross Gload, whose 2010 salaries are about equal to Lee's. Replace those three reserves with league minimum guys and you've saved enough money to keep Lee around.

I think that's where I'm at with this one. Why not have the uber rotation of Halladay, Lee and Hamels, even if you know it's just for one year. If he walks after 2010, then the Phillies would get two high draft picks to restock the farm.

Of course, if they had done that, they would have gone from being the Yankees' peer to being the Yankees. It's fun to think about, but during the year, would we feel guilty, or even hypocritical, for encouraging one of our teams to embody what we hate about the Empire?

It'll just give me greater satisfaction after John Lackey wins the clincher in the ALCS and then is matched up against Doc in Game 7 of the World Series.

Amen: Sometimes I'm a stathead stuck in a traditionalist's body. I've had an innate dislike of Mike Cameron as a player. Rob Neyer, in a post nicely titled, "Red Sox spend less, win more," points out why we should love the decision to use him as Jason Bay's replacement:

He certainly isn't as expensive. As for productive ... Well, that depends on how you define "productive."

Over the last two seasons, Cameron produced 8.4 wins above replacement.

Over those same two seasons, Bay produced 6.4 wins above replacement.

The Red Sox are going to pay Cameron roughly half of what someone's going to pay Jason Bay. We try to make these things so complicated. But they're not, really. The Red Sox have figured out how to simplify everything. And I just can't wait to read all the columns in the Boston newspapers questioning Theo Epstein's intelligence and ownership's commitment to winning ...

So, J-Bay, thanks for the memories, and I hope you enjoy the millions the Empire is about to heap on you.