Might Not Be Time To Tamper With Phillies Roster
As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.
With the Phillies bartering a deal for Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay, it reminds me of something my dad said over four years ago when the Phillies made another popular trade.
Back in June of 2005, I was living on the couch at one of my fraternity’s houses while waiting for the lease to start on the place I’d be staying for my senior year. In between summer classes, I kept tabs on a Phillies teams that was in the process of winning 13 of 14 games.
At about that time, former Phils General Manager Ed Wade pulled the trigger on a trade that fans had been waiting for, sending second baseman Placido Polanco to Detroit for setup man Ugueth Urbina. Polanco had been splitting time with a young Chase Utley, who began to come into his own in ‘05, while the Phillies were in desperate need of an 8th inning reliever to bridge the gap to closer Billy Wagner (yes, that guy!).
My dad — in his infinite sports fan wisdom — was the only person I knew of at the time who was strongly against the move. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Urbina or that he loved Polanco, but rather, he felt that shouldn’t you mess with a winning streak.
(Personally, I’d like to remember advocating they trade David Bell, the team’s perennially disappointing third baseman — a position that Polanco played as well.)
Sure enough, the Phillies would fall a game short of the NL Wild Card to the Houston Astros (something we were used to at the time), and Urbina would allegedly attempt to murder five workers at his home in Venezuela.
So you know where I’m going with this Roy Halladay trade. The Phillies currently have won 15 of 17 games and sit comfortably in first place in the NL East. The situation is oddly familiar, and my dad even chimed in with the same opinion he had in ‘05 when I talked with him on the phone a few days ago.
Of course, Urbina wasn’t in the same league as Halladay is, but the point is that you shouldn’t mess with a good thing. Toronto is asking for a king’s ransom, and who can blame them? I just think that the World Champions are in too good of a place right now to mess with their mojo.
While the allure of Halladay is undeniable, I understand what my dad meant. If the Phillies aren’t broke, then I don’t think they should make a trade for Halladay.
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