And within Solomon's piece on why it's taking so damn long to trade Roy, Ed Wade drops some math on us:
Not trading occurs more often than trading.
This is not earth-shattering news.
Wade:
"Everyone wants to set their hair on fire when they hear a player wants to be moved or a club wants to move a player. It's not that easy. And more trades are NOT made than are made...
...If you've got a player with a no-trade clause in his contract, you got to find a club that has a need for that player. Then the club has to have an interest in your player and the wherewithal to pay your player. Then the player has to be interested in that club, and it has to be a club you even want to trade with in the first place. And finally, can or will the club satisfy your need in a fair deal? After all that, you can get near the finish line and change your mind thinking: 'Do you really want to trade this player?' We run fire drills all the time. There are so many factors involved in making a trade happen. These things just don't come together overnight."
I get it. It's tough to trade a player, and it's not Ed Wade's fault that Roy's contract is what it is (which seems fair, in the alternate financial universe that is Major League Baseball). There is just a confluence of big contracts handed out in the mid-2000s that are just now looking unmanageable. If Carlos Lee was hitting .300 with 20 HRs, we wouldn't be punching ourselves in the genitals. As much.
Still, though, Cliff Lee has been rumored on the block for about the same amount of time, and while his salary is much lower, he's still wearing a Mariners jersey. Every day that goes by before the trade deadline is a day that the player's current team pays their salary. I do think Roy will get traded within a few days of the July 31 deadline, but if he doesn't, the Astros still have the off-season to deal him and the recipient club will get a full year of Roy O.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
