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MLB News | March 21, 2010
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Life after Halliday is filled with uncertainty
By Tim Brown
March 21, 2010
Dunedin, FL — Life on the other side of the Doc was administered by text message, Shaun Marcum’s cell phone to Roy Halladay’s, wishing him well in Philadelphia and thanking him for setting the example, for showing him the way.
“But,” Marcum said with a smile Thursday, “not in so many words.”
When they were Toronto Blue Jays together, Marcum and Halladay shared this byplay and still do. Halladay was – is – the best pitcher in baseball. Marcum, who missed last season because of Tommy John surgery, has all of 24 victories.
This, however, has to do with the changeup, God’s gift to the 90-mph fastball. Halladay’s changeup is good enough. Marcum’s is exceptional.
“I’d always tell him,” Marcum said, “if he needed work on his changeup I’d take him to the bullpen and teach him.”
Halladay would be on his way to winning 18 or 20 games, melting AL East lineups with his cutter/sinker/curveball thing. Marcum would be finding his way, studying Halladay, probing him for what he threw and why, stealing the rest, winning when and where he could.
They’d grin at the joke, at the incidental bit of imperfection in Halladay that happened to be Marcum’s hallmark. So, in his farewell to Halladay, who set standards of ingenuity and doggedness in his 12 seasons in Toronto, the last four with Marcum nearby, Marcum saved a few characters to remind him lessons in the changeup were only a phone call away.
At that, Marcum and the Blue Jays were on their own. Life on the other side of the Doc is a clubhouse in Dunedin, in it Marcum ready to resume his career with a whole elbow, Dustin McGowan returning from shoulder (and knee) surgery, Ricky Romero, a 13-game winner as a rookie, on the eve of his second season, Marc Rzepczynski and Brandon Morrow carrying 26 major league starts between them, Brian Tallet still transitioning into the rotation, and Brett Cecil and David Purcey lurking.
“There’s no more living – I don’t want to say ‘around’ – Doc,” Rzepczynski said, “but he was here for so many years.”
From a staff that ranked 10th in the American League in ERA and ninth in starters’ ERA, rookie general manager Alex Anthopoulos lopped Halladay, his annual Cy Young candidacies, his automatic 16 wins, his 64-35 record in the AL East (18-6 against the Yankees, 20-4 against the Orioles) and his dignified place in their clubhouse.
What’s left looks for the moment like a last-place club. Marcum says his elbow is sound. The last big league pitch he threw was 18 months ago. McGowan hopes he can be ready on opening day, or at worst when the club needs a fifth starter in mid-April. He hasn’t pitched in 20 months.
The Jays have options. But before they were lost to injury and surgery, Marcum had showed he could feel his way through a game as well as any young pitcher in baseball and McGowan’s stuff was hard and unyielding. An awful lot of the season rides on them, especially considering three of the better staffs in the game are in New York, Boston and Tampa, and Baltimore’s is coming.
“I’m slowly but surely getting there,” McGowan said with a subtle shrug. “I try to keep my optimism high all the time. It’s been good.”
Anthopoulos did score young right-hander Kyle Drabek from the Phillies (along with corner infielder Brett Wallace through the A’s and catcher Travis d’Arnaud), but he’s not ready yet. What is left is what the young GM calls a build, because “rebuild” would suggest there was something to get back to. Playing in a division where 90 wins probably won’t be good enough, the Jays haven’t played a postseason game since Joe Carter hit that home run going on 17 years ago.
“You’re never happy trading Roy Halladay,” Anthopoulos said. “You miss the player. You miss the guy in the clubhouse. That said, you have to move on. You have to move forward. We’re certainly not the first organization to have to go forward. Our direction is very clear. … I understood what the alternatives were.”
They would trade Halladay before his time was up or they would lose him to free agency and take their shot in the draft. Their choice came in prospects from the Phillies (and, indirectly, the A’s) and now in their starting rotation’s depth chart. There are good arms and once-good arms that could be again. There are young arms – again, Marcum, Romero, Rzepczynski, McGowan, Morrow – that together don’t have half of Halladay’s 148 wins.
After all those years attending Doc U., now it’s their time. Consider A.J. Burnett, formerly of the Blue Jays and now of the Yankees, a graduate.
“Quiet as Roy is,” Burnett said, “he got his point across in the weight room and the video room and on the field. When anybody ever asked me anything, I told them, ‘You need to go watch Roy Halladay.’–”
So it was almost three months later, Halladay in nearby Clearwater had made his spring debut for the Phillies and Marcum in Dunedin had watched with interest on television.
Against the Yankees, Halladay pitched two hitless, scoreless innings. He struck out three.
Marcum picked up his cell phone.
“Cutter looking good to that side of the plate,” he tapped.
Brrrringggg.
“Changeup still sucks,” was the reply.
Marcum laughed.
“Keep your head up,” he wrote, sticking with the joke. “It’ll come.”
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