Roy Oswalt has waived his no trade clause and has agreed to go to the Phillies. The prospects have been agreed upon. The money has been too. This deal is done. The Phillies just got much, much better. The Astros basically dumped salary.
The Phillies won’t be giving up much in this deal: starting pitcher J.A. Happ and prospects Jonathan Villar and Anthony Gose. The Astros are sending Philly Oswalt and $11 million cash. The Phillies will not be guaranteeing Oswalt’s 2012 option. Instead, the Phillies have agreed to raise the buyout of that option from $1 million to $2 million.
Villar is a 19 year-old shortstop prospect currently hitting .272/.332/.358 in the Sally League. Unless there’s a misprint on his Baseball-Reference.com page, he has [gulp] 42 errors this season. Gose, an outfielder, turns 20 on August 10th. He’s currently hitting .263/.325/.385 in high-A ball. Which is basically what he did over the last two years in Rookie and low-A. He’s apparently fast -- he stole over 70 bases last season -- but this year he’s been caught 27 times against 36 steals. That’s not good. Though they could each bloom later, at present, neither Villar nor Gose project to be fabulous major leaguers.
This deal is a coup for the Phillies. They got a starter who would slot in as a number one on a great many teams and they got him for very little, both in terms of money and in terms of talent. Happ is a decent pitcher, but he’s certainly not a special talent. He’s a fly ball-prone lefty who, in Houston, will give up an awful lot of home runs into the Crawford Boxes. Gose and Villar are not special talents.
The Phillies have dug themselves a bit of a hole in the NL East, but they’ve been climbing out of it slowly but surely over the past week. Getting Roy Oswalt just gave them a big boost. If they make the postseason, the 1-2-3 of Roy Halladay, Oswalt and Cole Hamels will be the toughest in the National League.