It’s Official: Roy Halladay Now A Member Of The Philadelphia Phillies

Cliff Lee is a tad perplexed.

Lee, who was traded to the Mariners earlier this week, thought everything was cool with him and his former team the Phillies. He was talking about signing a contract extension. He was thinking about staying with them for the long haul. He was thinking about the future. Then out of nowhere, buh-bye Philly:

It doesn’t get more official than this: the Philadelphia Phillies introduced Roy Halladay as their new pitcher Wednesday evening, completing the much discussed trade involving the Blue Jays and Mariners (and A’s, ultimately). After putting on the Philly red for the first time, Halladay thanked everyone in Toronto for his time there, but said Philadelphia “is where [he] wanted to be.”

For more reaction (read: excitement), visit SB Nation’s The Good Phight.

Over the past few days, while everyone focused on the Phillies and Mariners both getting Cy Young award winning pitchers, which prospects were going where and who failed his physical, the fact that Toronto was losing one of the best pitchers in baseball went somewhat under reported. Roy Halladay joining Philadelphia was huge news, and rightfully so. But one of the few bright spots for Canada’s baseball team is now gone, surely dropping them deeper into the A.L. East basement (at least for the foreseeable future).

Well over at SB Nation’s Bluebird Banter, the departure of Halladay was not lost on them, and certainly not ignored, and today they penned their goodbye to Doc.

The identity of the mystery player who failed his physical and delayed the three-team super mega blockbuster of a deal from going through is now known: it was Michael Taylor, a Phillies minor league outfielder (the same one who was set to be flipped by Toronto to Oakland).

But it has apparently all been worked out, because the deal is official to the point that Philadelphia schedule a press conference in introduce Roy Halladay Tuesday at 5 p.m.

A tweet from Toronto beat writer Bob Elliott set off the internet alarms today with concerns that the Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee deal may be in trouble. Elliot tweeted that a player involved in the deal failed his physical. Given that there are nine players in the four-team trade, this bit of news left much to the imagination.

Could Cliff Lee have failed the physical, thus potentially putting the whole thing on ice? Well, no, that doesn’t seem to be the case. And it wasn’t Halladay who failed it either. Which means it was one of the prospects involved in the deal.

According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, the deal to bring Roy Halladay to Philadelphia is official, assuming everyone passes their physicals, now that the former Blue Jay has finalized his extension with the Phillies.

The rationale for the Mega-Blockbuster-(Insert Any Other Hyperbolic Descriptor Here) three-way trade involving two former Cy young award winners and a bevy of much discussed prospects, is becoming less and less clear. The agent for soon-to-be Seattle Mariners’ pitcher Cliff Lee, Darek Braunecker, has answered reports that the trade was spurred by the Phillies’ inability to make progress in contract negotiations with Lee:

He goes on to say that Lee enjoyed his time in Philadelphia and wanted to be there long term. In other words, Lee and Braunecker are as confused as we are.

We already know the big names involved in this proposed deal, which would send Cliff Lee from Philly to Seattle and Roy Halladay from Toronto from Philly. But what about the prospects? There are apparently five involved in the deal.

First, SB Nation’s Bluebird Banter has a breakdown of the three young players Toronto will reportedly receive from Philly if this deal becomes official. It’s a very impressive haul for a player they were never going to be able to keep long-term anyway:

Early Monday afternoon, it was reported that Roy Halladay and his agent were spotted checking-in to a Philadelphia area hotel. Now we know that it wasn’t just to spend a few days in the City of Brotherly Love. According to the AP, Halladay was in town to take a physical with the Phillies.

Just another step in making this deal official.

Plenty more on this deal here in this StoryStream and at SB Nation’s team blogs:

Blue Jays: Blue Bird Banter

Mariners: Lookout Landing

Phillies: The Good Phight