As was expected, the Phillies declined to exercise Roy Oswalt's 2012 team option and have allowed him to enter free agency this off season. There's still a good chance Philadelphia will attempt to bring him back to round out their rotation, but they may let him walk in favor of cheaper in-house options like Blanton or Kendrick. With the Yankees on a never ending search for more pitching it's inevitable that he will be brought up as an option. On paper, a potential deal would make sense.
The 34 year old Oswalt would provide an invaluable veteran presence in a rotation that will be relying heavily on young arms like Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova, and potentially Hector Noesi, Manny Banuelos, and Dellin Betances as the season progresses. In his 11 major league seasons, Roy has accrued an excellent 3.21 ERA to accompany his 159-93 career record. Going into the 2011 season, he was touted as one of the Phillies "four aces", a justifiable claim after he posted a 2.76 ERA in 2010. Sounds pretty good right? Who wouldn't want to hire a second ace?
However, he took a back seat to Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and rookie Vance Worley when his season was restricted to 139.0 innings over only 23 starts, over which he recorded a career high 3.69 ERA. The culprit? Back injuries, and that's where we run into trouble when considering Oswalt as a member of the 2012 rotation. For all we know he could throw out his back in Spring Training and never return to full form for us.I don't doubt that even at 34 he still has good enough stuff to be a productive top of the rotation starter, or at very least #3, and assuming no other signings give us a nice CC Sabathia-Oswalt-Nova 1-2-3, a great top 3 with tons of talent and unbeatable mental makeup. However, the injury risk is too great to consider him as a top target. So if he's not a top target, where should he stand on the list of starting pitchers to consider?
Well I've established how I feel about Yu Darvish and believe that he should be the far and away #1 target, (Read WHY I'LL CONVINCE YOU ON YU) and recent reports seem to indicate that the organization likes him more than anyone else on the market, Read that HERE. CJ Wilson has been discussed as an option, but the amount of money and number of years it'd take to pull him away from the Rangers makes him an even greater risk than Oswalt in my opinion. I'd prefer trading for John Danks or making a run at Mark Buehrle no matter how unlikely it is.Oswalt slides in right after those three in my opinion. Make him a 2 year, $20 million deal with a team option for a 3rd year. I'd be much more comfortable with a 1 year deal, but even at his age he's going to find better than that on the market, and frankly the Yankees have the money to absorb a bad short term deal (see Pedro Feliciano, he doesn't seem to be hurting much). If anyone makes him a bigger offer and his agent starts asking for more, don't give in. See if the allure of being on one of the league's best teams is enough to cover the difference, and if it's not, leave it be and either sign Edwin Jackson or just use some prospects to round out the rotation. Oswalt could be a great addition, but the risk associated with him is too great to dedicate anything more than $20 million guaranteed to.
--Grant Cederquist, BYB Staff Writer
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