Phillies Trade Abreu and Lidle to Yankees for 4 Prospects
On the day before the trade deadline, the Phillies pulled the trigger and shipped Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle to the New York Yankees for SS C.J. Henry, P Matt Smith, P Carlos 
Monasterios, and C Jesus Sanchez who were all prospects in the Yankees’ farm system. Out of the 4, only one was in AAA being Matt Smith who could make the jump up to the Phillies bullpen. The other 3 players all are single A players who need time to develop.
This move is clearly a huge salary dump by the Phillies since Abreu was owed 37 million over the next 2 years. The only way that Pat Gillick can justify this trade is by signing some big name free agents or acquiring some solid players via trades. I hope that these prospects turn into good players for this organization because giving up Abreu means that we should get some impact players in return.
The one problem I could potentially have with this trade ends up to be very similar to the Curt Schilling trade. That deadline deal in 2000 involved Schilling going to the Diamondbacks for P Omar Daal, P Nelson Figueroa, P Vicente Padilla, and 1B Travis Lee. Six years later, none of these players remain on the team and Curt Schilling has made a solid impact for the Dbacks and now the Red Sox. All in all however, I do think that this was a good move by the Phillies in that we needed to drop some salary and that Bobby Abreu needed a change of scenery. I have faith in Pat Gillick that he will use the dropped salary to improve our pitching and other need positions.
Other Phillies notes: On the gamefront, Chase Utley has been on fire and has extended his hitting streak to 33 games. The Phillies won last night 5-3 over St. Louis with Ryan Howard and Chris Coste both hitting home runs.
The Phillies also traded 3B David Bell to the San Diego Padres for a prospect. They also made another move which involved Rheal Cormier going to the Cincinatti Reds for a prospect.
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Posted on August 2, 2006 by Kyle Garis | Filed Under Philadelphia
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