It's a sad day. Turns out that after all the "Screw You, Roy" posts and the wildly popular #RoyDemands series on Twitter, I'm a little beaten up that it actually happened.
First, this was an avoidable process. But the avoidance needed to start three or four years ago. That's another post for another time.
The Astros have traded Roy Oswalt, he of the "appropriately one win short of the franchise record for wins" fame for J.A. Happ, Anthony Gose, and Jonathan Villar. And $11 million.
It's hard to believe that the Astros had to get to the point of trading him. If you recall a long time ago (and it was 5+ years, so I'm not even going to start looking for a link), Drayton said he wanted Berkman, Oswalt, and Lidge to retire as Astros. It looks as though none of them will actually do so.
While it's early, we'll immediately start looking at the players the Astros received, but essentially they paid $11 million to send Roy Oswalt to Philadelphia. Just need a few minutes to collect some thoughts.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
