Are they on hard drugs in Philadelphia?

Well, it’s official – the Philadelphia Phillies rewarded ace pitcher Cliff Lee by trading him to the Seattle as part of a complicated deal involving four MLB teams.

“Dude, this deal is like way, way complicated,” said Phillies General Manager Ruben “Shaggy” Amaro Jr. at a press conference after the deal was finalized." I mean, whoa! You know? Hey – did you ever think when they mean space was infinite they meant, like, a whole universe could be in my fingernail? The Solar system looks a lot like an atom, you know? Man, we could all be living in someone’s toenail! Dude!”

Lee – a good Benton, Ark., boy – headed to Philadelphia after a trade with Cleveland in July. He won four games in the postseason for Philadelphia and was credited with the team’s only two wins in the World Series against the Yankees.

Philadelphia rewarded Lee by trading him to Seattle for three minor league prospects and a case of Milwaukee’s Best. By the end of the day, the Phillies still had the three prospects, the case of cheap, swillworthy beer and ace pitcher Roy Halladay after a trade with Toronto.

Yeah, there’s some reward, huh? You work hard to get your team to  the World Series, win a couple of games for them when they get their and then you get traded for three scrubs and a case of cheap beer. Yes, they’re either ungrateful bastards in Philadelphia or they’re smoking hard drugs.

I prefer to blame drug use for the rotten treatment Lee received. Why? Because that’s funnier.

At least Philadelphia got something out of the deal. The real loser in the trade was Toronto. That team got three minor leaguers from Philadelphia, lost one heck of a pitcher and – to add insult to injury – sent $6 million to the Phillies.

Oh, Toronto sent one of those prospects – Michael “Who?” Taylor – to the Athletics for Brett “King of the Minor Leagues” Wallace.

Toronto, in this instance, played the part of the Pittsburgh Pirates – a team known for trading great players in exchange for some prospects. The hope, of course, is those prospects will amount to something. In Pittsburgh’s case, the prospects that don’t pan out become franchise players while the ones that turn out to be pretty good get traded off for more prospects. Hopefully, Toronto isn’t wandering down that sad path.

The team that is in great shape here is Seattle. They get a heck of a great pitcher in Lee and get to team him with Felix Hernandez, another outstanding pitcher.

Sadly, all the talent in the world won’t send the Mariners to the World Series. There’s a club that seems to figure out creative ways of dashing any hope of heading to the World Series in spite of the number of great players who have played there.

It’s all just too bad for Lee.