The competitive portion of the Phillies season seems to be over, so there has been a lot of chatter about them selling now. That Hunter Pence thing that was shot down is some of it. Joe Blanton is some other stuff. And now the Cliff Lee trade watch is getting into swing:
Buster Olney adds that Lee is “in play in trade talks.”
Spoke to exec who said Lee traded by 4pm tomorrow or in offseason because #Phillies need youth back plus dollars saved. #Rangers frontrunner
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 30, 2012
Buster Olney adds that Lee is “in play in trade talks.”
Lee has three years and $87.5 million left on his contract. If they traded him without eating oodles of dough, they’d get little in exchange. If they ate up oodles of dough, they’d defeat a large part of the purpose of trading Cliff Lee.
I dunno. It sounds like a sexy deal and all, but the Rangers have had Cliff Lee in their Worlds Series rotation and he didn’t make the difference then, so I’m skeptical that they’d give up big prospects or eat big salary to try it again.