Dealing Lee Was Jaw Dropping: J-Roll

"I thought we had enough to keep (Lee)"

Plenty of Phillies fans were stunned and upset that the Phils traded Cliff Lee during the offseason and it seems that at least one of the Phightins' stars was just as shocked.

Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins went on the Dan Patrick Show Wednesday to talk Lee, the Yanks and even Michael Vick.

Patrick asked the Phillies' spark plug why the team couldn’t keep Lee.

"I have no idea," answered Rollins.

"I'm sure we could afford him. We turned nearly four million people through the turnstiles last year. I don't know. You should have Ruben (Amaro) on here."

(Quotes care of SportsRadioInterviews.com.)

In December the Phillies traded Lee to Seattle for Mariners' prospects after Philly picked up new ace Roy Halladay from Toronto for some Phillies' prospects.

"I couldn’t believe it," Lee said afterwards -- seems like J-Roll felt the same way.

"When the trade happened, I actually got a text from Jayson Werth and he was like, 'What are we doing?' And I was like, 'Didn't we get Halladay?' And he was like, 'Yeah, but we traded Lee.' And my mouth dropped like, 'That wasn't part of the deal.'" Rollins told Patrick.

Plenty of Phillies fans thought the same thing -- why couldn’t the Phillies keep both former Cy Young Award winners?

"I thought we had enough to keep (Lee)," he said. "I thought we could have done enough to keep him. I guess that's just a move the Yankees do," said Rollins.

Ouch -- management had to hear that one J-Roll.

Back in February Amaro basically explained that the Phils can't be the Yanks.

"We cannot be the New York Yankees," Amaro told the Inquirer. "We have to have people that we can bring to the big leagues from our system. The guys who are our core players are guys from our system."

"The Yankees would have been like, 'Hey, we got a chance to keep both of them. We'll pay them both for a year or two and we got a chance to win a championship,'" said Rollins.

It’s not like the Phillies haven't forked over dough, though, to put out a championship-caliber team. Their $141.9-plus million payroll was the fourth highest opening day payroll in baseball, according to USA Today.

Of course the Yankees are No. 1 -- forking over more than $206.3 million to their roster. Even if the Phils forked over the $9 million owed to Lee their payroll still wouldn’t have reached that Yankee-esque stratosphere.

Despite all the Lee lamentations, Rollins still thinks the Phils will win it all.

"I really do expect to win a World Series this year," he said.

And Rollins didn’t just talk Lee. J-Roll also said that he thinks that he is faster (now) than Vick but the Eagles' QB still throws harder.

Contact Us