So, the Phillies got Roy and lost Cliff and some good prospects – most notably Kyle Drabek.  Is it a wash?  Hard to know.  I was sad to see Lee go.  But Halliday is a great catch.  Here’s crashburnalley on the deal:

So the Phillies may have Halladay, one of the best pitchers in baseball, until 2014. Of course, he’ll be 33 in May, so the Phillies aren’t paying for his prime years. However, he has shown no signs of slowing down with four consecutive seasons in which he’s thrown at least 220 innings and made 31 starts, and he’s finished in the top-five in AL Cy Young voting as well.

Aside from gaining Halladay and $6 million and relinquishing Cliff Lee, the Phillies have essentially swapped prospects. Destined for Toronto’s Minor League system are C Travis D’Arnaud, P Kyle Drabek, and OF Michael Taylor. In are P Phillippe Aumont, OF Tyson Gillies, and P Juan Ramirez from Seattle.

Meanwhile the Red Sox have signed John Lackey – adding to their already-strong rotation.

What is fascinating about the Halliday deal – and endears him to me TOTALLY – is that he apparaently gave up a LOT to be with the Phillies.  I would do the same … but it’s so NOT what you usually see, it boggles the mind:

Roy Halladay signed a contract extension today that will guarantee him $60 million over three years, with a vesting option that would pay him another $20 million if he pitches enough innings in the first three years of the deal.

That’s the story here: Not the first trade, not the second trade, and not the third trade. The story here is that one of the best players in baseball took somewhere between 35-50 percent of his market value to facilitate a trade, leaving somewhere between $60 and $100 million in guaranteed money on the table. This is a staggering upset, one for which there is virtually no comparison in baseball history.

It’s in the single digits outside and I’m thinking baseball … gotta be a connection there somewhere!

Other news?  Nothing grabs me.  Too much Tiger … although I do kind of enjoy seeing that his wife is probably filing for divorce AND also close to signing a deal with Puma (rival of Tiger’s Nike).   I predict an interesting Super Bowl ad … whaddya think?

Obama’s approval ratings are falling … mostly because people in this country don’t have the perspective to see that we are in a deep, deep hole … or the patience to realize that it takes time to dig out. Good grief, it hasn’t even been a year!

But no – we pound our little fists on the table, chanting that we want our Maypo NOW … and if the President can’t deliver NOW we are going to get testy and say we don’t like him.  We are such immature idiots.  (And, if course newspapers like the Wall Street Journal publish our silly opinions as if they carried meaning.)  What would we do without the latest polls?  How would we know what to think?

Very discouraging.