Toronto Not Shopping Roy Halladay, but Is Willing to Listen to Offers

The trade deadline is but a few weeks away and, as is normally the case, there are plenty of teams around the majors looking to make a deal, and just about all of them could use some pitching help for the stretch run. During the offseason, the pitcher most teams seemed to be after was San Diego's Jake Peavy, and the thought was that he'd command a pretty penny come the deadline, but of course his ankle injury has derailed those plans.

So if teams are looking for an ace-quality pitcher to add to their staff, they're going to have to look somewhere outside San Diego. Of course, it's not like these guys grow on trees, but after reading Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi's latest comments, any general manager worth his salt should be giving the Blue Jays a call or 30 in the next few days. They're listening to offers on Roy Halladay.

"We have to see what's out there," Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi says. "I'm not saying we're going to shop him. But if something makes sense, we at least have to listen. We're (leaning) more toward listening than we've ever been."

In the article FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal then goes on to say that Halladay is "as good as gone" in Toronto, but I'm not so sure that's the case myself. Rosenthal says that any time you start this kind of talk, it's impossible to stop, and eventually Halladay will get moved.

Well, he may be moved one day, but as for whether or not this is impossible to stop, I'll just say that this isn't the first time Ricciardi has made such comments. In fact, this time last year Ricciardi basically said the same exact thing and he repeated it again to FanHouse's Ed Price this spring. He was willing to listen to offers on Halladay, and guess what, 12 months later he's still in Toronto.

Now there was talk before the season started that the Jays may move Halladay this year if they fell out of contention early, but it's July 7 and they're only seven games back in the AL East, and six behind the Yankees for the wild card. Sure it won't be easy to make up that ground in such a strong division, but stranger things have happened, and all four teams in the hunt will be beating up on each other.

Personally, I think that if the Blue Jays are ever going to trade Halladay, they'll do so during the winter or at the deadline next season when he's in the final year of his contract. Of course, if some team calls up and offers the world, that could change. I don't see that happening with only one year remaining on his contract and his recent injury woes.