One would have to think, as Nightingale suggested and others have already assumed, that Chad Billingsley would have to be part of any Halladay deal. The intriguing part of all this is the Dodgers would get a legitimate "ace" out of it despite the fact they have a two possible "aces" in the making as it is.
Clayton Kershaw is well on his way to greatness, there's no arguments there. We've seen flashes of it already. But one has to wonder if Billingsley's minor inconsistencies over the past two seasons has the Dodgers growing weary of waiting for him to put it all together into a full, consistent season. Billingsley is only 24, so if he were to be included in any possible Halladay trade, you would have to wonder why the Dodgers would give up on him so quickly. There's still a lot of room for improvement and growth here with him.
I, for one, think the Dodgers would be doing themselves more harm than not by including Billingsley in any deal, even for Halladay. While we already know Halladay is indeed a great pitcher, Billingsley has shown through the number of quality starts he's made over the past two seasons, in particular through the first three and a half months of 2009, his ability to give the Dodgers effective and quality starts and innings. It was really only in the last two plus months, in large part likely due to a minor hamstring injury in early August, that some of his starts were getting away from him earlier in games. (And while I haven't gone out of my way to look up all of the actual numbers, if I'm not mistaken, from memory, as far as quality starts go, Halladay wasn't much better over the last two months of the season as Billingsley.)
So are those six, seven, or eight "bad" starts going to be the standard by which the Dodgers, the media, and fans alike, feel they should move Billingsley for Halladay? It seems to me that too many people are focusing too much on Billingsley's negatives, including his two horrid starts in the 2008 NLCS against Philly, rather than the positives of the second half of 2008 and the bulk of 2009, which far outweigh the negatives during that time.
On the flip side, Halladay is 32. If anything, you know what you're getting and what you'll get from him in his starts. But let's take this one step further. Adding Halladay while subtracting Billingsley doesn't really help their cause if you really dig into it and think about it. You still have an issue of depth at the back end of the rotation, and does Halladay going on 33 really make you that much better than Billingsley going on 25? Sure, the idea of Halladay anchoring the rotation next season sounds juicy, but at what cost?
In any case, the Dodgers would probably want a window of opportunity to ink Halladay to an extension before completing any trade. If they're able to do that, two or three years should be the max as he'd be in his mid-30s by then, with really, no room for improvement. And let's hope if they do get a deal done, that it doesn't involve Billingsley, or any other starting pitcher.
Bottom line, when it comes to any possible trade that might include the pitchers, this is all just pure speculation on my part at this point. But the facts do speak for themselves.
