It unfolded like a classic "Seinfeld" episode. After all the frantic head fakes, no comments, cloaked secrecy and tsunami of leaks that eventually nailed every piece of the puzzle, here's what happened in the context of the 2010 season:
Next to nothing. It was the equivalent of fewer than 30 minutes of dialogue between George and Kramer and Elaine and Newman and the latest girlfriends about to be dumpers or dumpees. Then fade to the quirky music and you're saying to yourself, "I don't know what that was, but it was pretty funny."
Whatever it was that Ruben Amaro just did, I don't know what it was, but it kept everybody hopping for the past 3 days or so.
And now, Great Oz, looking suspiciously like Pat Gillick, has stepped from behind the curtain and vanished, off, one assumes, to look for more prospects with high ceilings to meld into the next gambit. Which could be a Big Piece-keeping operation due to launch in summer of 2012.
What Ruben did was keep his payroll almost exactly where it was last season at about $140 million while swapping No. 1 starter Cliff Lee, Mr. Postseason 4-0, for enormously gifted righthander Roy Halladay.
Nothing else is different for 2010 than it was when Amaro acquired free agent Placido Polanco to replace jettisoned Pedro Feliz and signed free-agent catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder/first baseman Ross Gload. Nothing has changed at the back end of the rotation or in the next round of bullpen auditions.
Net gain or loss? Plus or minus a couple of victories, which hang only on Halladay's and Lee's seasons. We'll be running graphics all year on Lee vs. Halladay, I'm sure.
