Cliff Lee has been traded. Everybody knows it, but nobody is talking about it. Cliff Lee is arguably one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, but was just a pawn in the Philadelphia Phillies’ attempts to secure Roy Halladay as a long-term piece of the pie. In 2008, Lee finished ahead of Halladay in voting and won the Cy Young Award, largely because the voters weren’t paying attention, but since then, Halladay has shown that he is in fact the “one” to Lee’s “one-A”.

Lee has spent the last year living in Halladay’s shadow. There was a battle of Cy Young winners when Toronto traveled to Cleveland for a series in mid-April. Halladay took the mound for the Jays while Lee represented the Indians. Halladay got the win, throwing seven innings of five-hit baseball, allowing one run with two walks and seven strike outs. On the other side, Lee managed to go five innings, spreading out four runs across the first three with seven hits and four walks. He struck out five.

At the trade deadline, the Phillies were in serious negotiations with the Blue Jays to get Halladay’s services, but couldn’t come to an agreement on a deal, and Philadelphia opted to go after Lee instead, and ended up getting him and Ben Francisco in exchange for four others. Lee pitched tremendously for the Phillies and ended up losing to the Yankees in the World Series in six games. Lee pitched in two of them, winning both, but the team behind him couldn’t solve the Yankee machine and lost the series in six.

The story of the blockbuster trade has been widely followed this week, and if it were not already clear, it must be known now that Halladay has been Philadelphia’s target since day one. Lee was a means to an end that didn’t quite work out. He’s now been shipped out of Philadelphia just as fast as he arrived, and his final destination in Seattle may not be as bad as it seems. They’re no Philadelphia, but they have certainly put together a fantastic core for 2010. Lee just may make it back to the postseason next year, and with any luck, he may get some retribution against Halladay and the Phillies.