Roy Halladay has a no-trade clause in his contract, but if the Yankees were willing to sacrifice the necessary pieces in order to get the Blue Jays’ ace, he would be hard pressed to balk at a deal sending him to The Bronx.
“My goals have always been the same,” Halladay told MLB.com. “I love Toronto. I want to stay here, but I want to win as well.”
Say what you want about the Yankees, but winning has always taken precedence.
But the question for GM Brian Cashman, who declinded comment yesterday, is if they are willing to sign Halladay to an extension, which likely be one of the righties prerequisites for agreeing to a trade. Halladay is making $14.25 million this year and is scheduled to receive another $15.75 next season. The Yankees already invested $240 million in CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, Halladay’s former teammate, this past offseason.
“(Winning is) becoming more and more of a goal for me,” Halladay said. “Obviously, my first choice would be to do it here. Like I’ve said in the past, whether or not our organization and my goals line up, it’s never always going to be that way. Sometimes teams have to take steps back, and I understand that.”
After flying out of the gate at 27-14 and on top of the AL East, the Blue Jays have dropped to 43-42 and in fourth place in the competitive division — eight games back of the first-place Red Sox.
With the team plummeting in the standings, Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi announced that Toronto would start listening to offers for the 32-year-old.
Halladay, asked if he was more open to a trade now then in the past, said, “That’s tough. That’s a tough question to answer, honestly.
“I want to stay here, but I think when an organization is kind of thinking that maybe we kind of want to go this direction, and it’s a situation that suits the team and yourself, then you have to evaluate that and say, ‘Maybe this is the best thing.’ I’m really not in that situation yet.”
With the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline approaching, “For me, the best I can do is try to avoid letting it become a distraction and go from there,” said Halladay, who is 10-2 with a 2.79 ERA this season.
“I understand, obviously, the economics of the game and how the game works. It’s a situation where I think if it’s best for the team, if it’s best for me, then you go from there. At this point, it’s too hard to tell. Basically, he’s just saying this is an option we have and maybe we’ll look at it. That’s really the extent of it at this point.”
