The Phillies Have a Great Farm System Now, But. . .

Three years ago they traded Gavin Floyd away in the ill-fated Freddy Garcia deal.

Two years ago they traded Josh Outman and Adrian Cardenas (who projects to be a good-hitting every-day Major League position player) for Joe Blanton.

Last year, to rent Cliff Lee (now apparently for half a season), they traded Lou Marson, Jason Donald, Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp. At one time, Marson, Donald and Carrasco were the organization's top catching, infield and pitching prospects. Their stars had fallen, but all four of these guys should see time in the Majors, some significantly.

And now, it looks like the team is going to send its top remaining catching prospect, Travis D'Arnaud, one of its two top outfield prospects (Michael Taylor) and either J.A. Happ or top pitching prospect (and perhaps the top pitching prospect in all of baseball) Kyle Drabek to the Blue Jays in the Roy Halladay deal. That means they'd be keeping they're top position-playing prospect, OF Domonic Brown, but still, this deal means they'd have traded a significant portion of their twenty top prospects over the course of the past 3 years.

I'm less familiar with the team's younger prospects, but if they trade Drabek, they are living the cupboard of pitching prospects rather bare for now. And then the question remains -- what happens at the #5 starter spot if Jamie Moyer doesn't recover from his surgery or falters? What's the back-up plan?

Because most teams need back-up plans for their rotations, as starters tend to miss starts or go down during a season. Especially 47 year-old ones, however many there ever have been.