Today, it was reported that Roy Halladay wants to test the free agent market, which nudged his trade value down a little bit. Teams are going to trade a few young stud prospects for Halladay only to have to bid on him with all 29 other teams out their as potential suitors. That does not sound like fun.

Of course, this should come as no surprise if you've been paying attention all along.

When the Blue Jays announced whichever team traded for Halladay wouldn't be allowed to have a window to negotiate a contract extension, it should have become obvious that something was up. In the case of Johan Santana, the Mets got an opportunity to negotiate a long-term deal for him before sending their prospects to the Twins.

Why should it be obvious? If the Blue Jays granted whichever team had agreed to an exchange of players the opportunity to discuss an extension, they would've found out immediately that Halladay intended to test the free agent market, which would've made the team with the potential deal less eager to send its top prospects.

J.P. Ricciardi thought he could work around that fact by not letting teams negotiate with Halladay before a trade was finalized. This is an example of buyer beware in action.

Halladay kind of shoots himself in the foot here, as well. He has said he wants to play for a winning team, but wanting to test free agency means one thing: money. The teams that have money are well known, so I won't have to say Red Sox or Yankees here. There are plenty of teams with opportunities to win that don't have the money, like the Phillies, Angels, Rangers or Cardinals.*

*Those teams may not be world beaters without Halladay but imagine where they'd be with him, especially next season in the case of the Rangers.

As has been argued on this blog way before J.P. Ricciardi announced it wasn't likely Halladay was moving (here and here), it just doesn't seem like Halladay will be moving. That's a shame because the Blue Jays need to dump Alex Rios and Vernon Wells -- two stupid contracts -- and trade Halladay for everything they can get.

It doesn't seem like that's going to happen now.

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