Bautista to Phillies Trade Rumor (and Impact on the Mets)

Edit: Hosing the Fire. If you read this earlier you could probably sniff out my deep undertones of not believing the one source. A more reliable Jon Heyman has weighed in.

Dumbest radio request of day: to come on to talk about false rumor of bautista for brown trade. It’s false! How’s that?

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) November 13, 2013

Original Post:

I woke up this morning twitter on fire a rumor that the Phillies are in serious talks to get Bautista from the Blue Jays.  A deal would include Dom. Brown and others.

#phillies GM Ruben Amaro deep in serious talks w #bluejays to acquire OF Jose Batista. Can also play 3rd. Phils would deal OF Dom Brown plus — Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) November 13, 2013

This rumor from a Phillies reporter spread quickly. All articles about this possible trade, at least of 5:30 AM, are rooted from here. For example Bleacher Report, Canoe and theScore, all with different opinions on the weight of the rumor are based soley off of Eskin’s work.

Personally I will be a little surprised if Brown is the main centerpiece of the deal because it seems like the Blue Jays really need pitching (unless if the Blue Jays feel they can trade another piece of their team for pitching). Brown fits the profile of an MLB ready player, but I seriously doubt a deal can get done without a pitcher moving as well (and I’ll admit, I don’t know the Phillies system well enough to figure out who that young pitcher is).

To some degree, when it comes to the Blue Jays, my gut disagrees that pitching is what they are really looking for in a trade. My gut says that they are looking for a move that is going to retool their farm system that was demolished last season to give the team multiple ways to move this off season and some depth for next year. While that gut prediction works well for the Phillies and the trade rumor from last night, it also still holds well for the Mets that could put together a Duda/Davis with Montero and someone else deal for Bautista.

I’m curious to see how this shakes out today.