In this business, we like to give credit to those who gave us anything useful for our articles, blogs, you name it. For example, if I write something and Chris Price has a useful quote from a player that I throw in, I’ll put at the bottom that he contributed to the report. Fascinating, right?  Well for this one, I’ll be crediting two people, only one of which is a writer. The other? One of the WEEI.com faithful.

A reader named Jim wrote this yesterday in regard to a potential trade for Roy Halladay (minor spelling errors have been corrected):

Whether it’s 2, 5, or 10 years from now, Clay Buchholz will never be Roy Halladay. Get the damn deal done. With the exception of Bard, any 4 top 10 prospects including Buchholtz is OK with me. Halladay, Beckett and Lester in the playoffs and World Series spells championship to me.

The last sentence of that comment is completely reasonable. Even with some of the defensive woes of the Red Sox, one would have to think that a potential acquisition of Halladay would substantially boost the odds of Terry Francona seeing his third World Series title since 2004. That being said, it’s the beginning of Jim’s statement that I wouldn’t be so quick to agree with.

Roy's been there, too

WEEI.com’s Alex Speier (the other guy that’s getting credit– I know you were all on the edge of your seats) filled in for Rob Bradford for Sunday’s “Mut & Bradford” show. While he accrued a cult following in the live blog,what stuck out to me was a fascinating point made by Alex to a caller. During a discussion about Buchholz, Alex asked the caller to think about a guy who came up late in the season as a rookie, turned heads in just his second career start, struggled mightily shortly thereafter, and was sent back through the system to rework his approach. He then dropped the bomb on the caller that he was no longer talking about Buchholz, but his potential trade counterpart in Halladay.

(Alex wrote about this last summer at the time of Buchholz’ struggles. Click here for his piece.)

When thinking about it, it’s pretty amazing. Back in ’98, Halladay came just one out away from no-hitting the Detroit Tigers (Bobby Higginson hit a solo shot with two down, Detroit’s only hit of the game). He struck out eight, whereas Buchholtz K’d nine in his no-no. Halladay was fine in ’99, posting a 3.92 ERA in 149.1 innings, but it was the 2000 that was similar to Buchholz’ 2008.

In that season, Halladay looked like a lost boy, posting a 4-7 record to go along with a 10.64 ERA. What once looked like can’t-miss was now missing, and the Blue Jays were missing out on a big talent.

Sound familiar?

For those who declared themselves officially off the Buch-wagon last season, perhaps it might prove beneficial to compare Halladay’s 2000 season to Buchholz’ 2008. With the two seasons stacked against each other, it’s relatively easy to see that Blue Jays fans had it even worse.

Pitcher                  IP        W-L      HR      BB    SO    ERA
‘00 Halladay       67.2      4-7        15      42      44    10.64
‘08 Buchholz      76.0      2-9        11      41      72     6.75

Obviously, this is in no way suggesting that the similarities in early-career success followed by struggles means that Buchholz is guaranteed to end up being the same caliber pitcher as Halladay, but there is no denying the comparison.

Maybe Jim’s right– in all likelihood, he is– but if Halladay has taught us anything, it’s that the baseball world has seen speedbumps in a future-ace’s development before. So while time will certainly need to elapse before the question of whether Buchholz is an ace is answered, maybe it’s best that trade-hungry fans re-adjust their approach. Hell, it worked for Halladay.

Alex Speier and Jim the reader contributed to this report.

The Sox are undefeated in the World Series under Terry Francona, so if they make it this year, they could be celebrating in road uniforms once again

Yes, there was some Major League action yesterday, but around this neck of the woods, life has been utterly meaningless with the lack of Red Sox this week. Yes, they did assure that, if history repeats itself, they could be celebrating a World Series victory on the road once again, but aside from that, there’s been nada.

The Roy Halladay fiasco continues, and while readers and fans continue to mispronounce and misspell his last name at an incredible pace, the flames regarding Red Sox rumors seemed to have died down a bit. They’ll undoubtedly pick back up when Clay Buchholz takes the hill tonight.

While he’s technically not a prospect– he graduated from said status last season– Buchholz is the Crème de la Crème of trade chips. No-hitter aside, he’s taken the time after a dreadful ’08 stint with the Sox to develop into a dominant starter who projects to be a top-of-the-rotation guy down the road.

This isn’t to say everything’s been peachy with the 25 year-old. Buchholz had been itching for this start long before Sunday’s announcement, and his frustrations with being stuck in the minors had been made apparant on multiple occasions earlier on in the season. Now possibly trade bait, Buchholz continues to view Fenway Park as the endgame, however, as he told WEEI.com’s Alex Katz on Sunday.

That does it for this mini-entry, enjoy the return of Boston baseball!

Now that Roy Halladay‘s name has been tossed out there as a possible trade target for the Red Sox, a very common argument is revisited: do you give up the prospects for the veteran?

There are two schools of thought here. The first is that it is safer to trade an unknown commodity for a known commodity. The second is that it is risky to sacrifice a potential career’s worth of stardom for a few years of service.

Plenty of fans were up in arms about shipping Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez to Florida for Josh Beckett, Guillermo Mota and that meaningless throw-in named Mike Lowell. The end result? Pretty amazing for both teams. The Red Sox got a World Series out of the deal, thanks to a dominant postseason performance by Beckett and WS MVP Lowell.

The Marlins? Well, aside from owning property on the DL, Sanchez threw a no-no in ’06. As for Ramirez, who did you take with the first overall pick this year in your fantasy league?

The Marlins/Red Sox trade is truly a rare case because it is such a clear-cut win-win. It is far more common that the result sway in favor of one team. For example, many prospect-obsessed fans were probably hesitant when the Sox shipped Carl Pavano and Tony Armas, Jr. to Montreal in exchange for Pedro Martinez. A good trade for both teams? Hardly. Totally worth the hit Boston’s farm system took.

More recently, the Red Sox were in serious talks with the Twins about Johan Santana. It’s hard to say exactly what the deal would have been, but the consensus was that the Sox were offering Jed Lowrie and Michael Bowden/Justin Masterson in addition to either Jon Lester or Jacoby Ellsbury. The Twins asked for both Lester and Ellsbury. Enter Facebook’s debut as voice of the fans.

As time goes on and Lester cements his status as a top-two starter, it will probably become clearer that the Sox made the right move in holding onto their guys. Nevertheless, the intense banter that took place among fans that offseason was outstanding. I know, where were Slugfests when you needed them?

How about the Coco Crisp trade? Pink hats were drooling at the notion of having a t-shirt that said “Coco” on the back, but anyone with a Baseball America Prospect Handbook was terrified of letting go of Andy Marte. End result? Everyone sucked. Except maybe Kelly Shoppach.

(Don’t call it a comeback– the 25-year-old Marte could finish the season at Columbus hitting .300 in the minors for the first time in his career. He’s currently at .319.)

The reason most fans are hell-bent on holding onto prospects is two-fold. First of all, they’ve seen the success with homegrown guys that could have been traded at one point (I do recall Ted Sarandis telling a young caller named DJ Bean that he was “disappointed” in people like him for not wanting to trade a shortstop prospect named Dustin Pedroia for Jason Schmidt). Secondly, they are aware of the great careers that Boston missed out on in the past.

Eh, they'll never pan out

Flashback to 1988. The Red Sox trade a couple of prospects for Mike Boddicker. The Sox got some great production (39 wins in two and a half seasons) out of Boddicker, so it all worked out for Boston, right? Sure, except the prospects were Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling.

If that wasn’t bad enough, you know what’s coming next. That’s right: Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen. This trade, along with perhaps Schilling, Pete Harnisch, and Steve Finley for Glenn Davis, is the worst-case scenario when general managers consider giving up young players. It’s a deal that gave the Red Sox 22 innings of middle relief and the Astros 449 homers. Not exactly a wash.

The list goes on and on, and it doesn’t only apply to baseball. Though they were immediately silenced by the final product, many Celtics fans were unhappy with the decision to ship a package of first-rounders and Al Jefferson in the Kevin Garnett deal. And an early second-round pick for Corey Dillon? Please. The endgame, of course, remains championships. If you get a ring out of the deal, there’s no looking back. Hanley Ramirez may go on to shatter all sorts of records, but the only record applying to the deal that matters in Boston is 4-0: Boston’s World Series record since the trade.

Do Daniel Bard, Michael Bowden, and Lars Anderson all appear to have bright futures? Sure, but it’s also hard to pass on a rotation of Beckett, Halladay, Lester, Wakefield, and Penny/Smoltz.