HOFFARTH: Thanks for everything, Kershaw, but Dodgers now need a Halladay
By Tom Hoffarth, Columnist
Updated: 07/27/2009 11:06:56 PM PDT
Clayton Kershaw, thanks for all the weeks you've put in as a member of the Dodgers. We admire your tiresome efforts to get past the sixth inning start after start after start. We appreciate the fact you've not used any of the shaving cream we've provided in the team shower facility.
But now you have a higher calling. You've become our sacrificial left-hander in our quest to make the city of LosAngeles temporarily misremember that the Lakers' 2009-10 season will start in just three months.
The Toronto Blue Jays have made it known they would like to have you on their roster. We will oblige them - in turn, by taking Harry Leroy "Doc" Halladay off their payroll.
We consider this a win-win situation. We'll win more games. You'll win more opportunities to endorse snow tires in eastern Canada.
Grab your warmest windbreaker and we'll see you come free agency 2014. Unless you flame out and are panhandling somewhere in the Texas panhandle by the time you reach your 27th birthday.
Now was that so hard?
Despite all this noise with Philadelphia, the Blue Jays have yet to secure a suitable trading partner for their former Cy Young and All-Star starting pitcher, but it's not for the lack of trying.
Last ESPN-induced rumor we checked, the Dodgers and Angels still have the opportunity to pull something off to obtain someone who ranks in the Top One of those able to overpower an opponent just by taking the mound and working the corners.
But don't delay. Act now. Supplies, and patience, are running out.
Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi has set the artificial deadline of today for his team to unload, or reluctantly keep, the coveted thrower scheduled to pitch Wednesday in Seattle against the Mariners - the same day Kershaw faces the Cardinals in St. Louis.
Still, if the Blue Jays are set on Kershaw, plus a couple of other needy-ocre prospects, this transaction should have been completed a week ago so the Dodgers could have penciled in Halladay to throw twice on this current road trip and send a shiver up and down the National League Central and East, as well as the American League.
Since when did Kershaw's potential become the equivalent to a hostage situation and keep the major-league leading Dodgers from an even clearer path to the NL postseason and beyond?
Someday, sure, he might throw a complete-game shutout, strike out 15 and walk just eight. But for now, he's unremarkably become the No. 2 bullet in an L.A. five-shooter that lacks anything to put fear into a playoff opponent. And don't even get us started on the bullpen.
In Kershaw, you relent on the chance he'll develop into an elite hurler.
In Halladay, you get it, guaranteed.
In Kershaw, you dispatch someone away who may never adjust to life in the Great White North, unable to avoid another Tim Horton's donut-stuffing break from his flat on the way to the stadium.
In Halladay, you get someone due $5 million for the rest of this season, $15million more for next season (or a bit less than what the Dodgers are giving to Jason Schmidt for his painful efforts this season), and the inside track to signing him up until he's finished with some Hall of Fame-worthy numbers.
The Dodgers' unwillingness to make a stronger play for Halladay - especially as the Phillies, the team that pitched them into the ground last October, keep their talks open with Toronto - demonstrates a weakness we must not be fully privy to. If Halladay's salary were too economically unsound, we might understand, if that were explained to us. If Halladay's medical history has some red flags, again, we'd be willing to listen.
But all we hear on this end isn't anything like that. It's that Kershaw is too valuable to surrender.
You've seen the exchange rate lately between things bought and sold across the Canadian border. We can't afford not to make the deal right now.
"What's the price tag?" Dodgers manager Joe Torre asked the other day when asked about whether the team can afford to swap out Kershaw for Halladay. "Is it gonna spring a leak somewhere else?"
It'll spring a leak in the Dodgers' playoff plans if the deal isn't done. A leak all the way to spring training, 2010.
What's the worst thing that could happen if Kershaw shipped off, turns into a four-time Cy Young Award winner and Halladay breaks his leg in three places trying to lay down a sacrifice bunt in his first NL at-bat?
In four years, when Kershaw is up for free agency, strike another deal with Toronto. We'll take Kershaw back, you can have another one of our talented, unproven prospects. Like, say, James McDonald.
Somewhere down the line, it'll all even out. Just like Chad Billingsley winning his 11th game of the season before August, Randy Wolf's curveball breaking a paper plate, Hiroki Kuroda pulling his career mark to the .500 level and Schmidt showing up to start at the next Dodgers' Old-Timers game