I don’t often advocate for my team to “mortgage the future” so to speak, but I do ocassionaly make an exception when that player immediately makes my team the prohibitive favorite to make the World Series.

That player has become available.

That player is Roy Halladay.

The Phillies are in prime position to do what no other National League team has done since the time of the Big Red Machine: win back to back World Series titles.

Halladay is without question the best right hander in the majors today, and arguably the best pitcher in total. He is in a class of once in a generation pitchers with Greg Maddux, Johan Santana, Randy Johnson, and Tom Glavine.

Halladay, 32, is arguably having the best season of his 11 year career with a record of 10-2 and an ERA of 2.79. He would instantly make a feebled and shaky Phillies’ rotation one of the most formidable in the league.

Halladay’s career numbers are staggering. He is 141-68 all time with a career ERA of 3.47. He has 1385 strikeouts in his career while allowing just 437 walks. That’s a K:B ratio of roughly 3:1 and a WHIP of just 1.20.

The pitcher that Halladay has been constinuously referred to, particularly now that it appears he may be traded, is CC Sabathia, who was traded by the Cleveland Indians to Milwaukee last season, ensuring a playoff birth for the upstart Brewers. One of Sabathia’s most talked about assets last season was his ability to go deep into games, accruing 10 complete games on the season. Halladay had nine complete games last year. Over the course of 271 career starts for Halladay, he has amassed 43 complete games, whereas Sabathia has just 28 in 272 starts.

Johan Santana, who is often referred to as the best pitcher in the majors, has just nine complete games in 226 starts.

Halladay’s career line is 141-68 with an ERA of 3.47, 1385 strikeouts and 437 walks in 297 games played, 271 of them starts. Sabathia has a career record of 125-78 with an ERA of 3.66, 1482 strikeouts and 558 walks in 272 games played, all of them starts. Santana is 118-58 in 302 games played, 226 of them starts, with an ERA of 3.13, 1694 strikeouts and 463 walks.

Halladay has 16 more wins and 10 less losses than Sabathia in one less game started. He has 23 more wins and only 10 more losses than Santana, granted that is in about 50 less games started.

But one thing needs to be taken into consideration when comparing the stats of Halladay, Sabathia and Santana: the respective divisions where they played most of their career.

Sabathia spent the majority of his career (all of it until a month before last season’s trade deadline) in Cleveland, playing much of his games against the weak AL Central. The same can be said for Santana, who came up with the Minnesota Twins, also in the AL Central. Santana has played the last season in the half in the definitively weaker National League.

Halladay has played in the majors, full time, since 1999. During that time, six American League Penants and four World Series Champions have come from the American League East. Only one World Series Championship has come from the American League Central during that span, the upstart 2005 Chicago White Sox.

Halladay has put up numbers comparable to Santana, and much better than Sabathia, all while pitching in the toughest division in baseball. The point being that Roy Halladay is a once in a generation type of pitcher, and he is available for the taking, at the right price.

That price to pry Halladay away from the Blue Jays is going to be steep for sure. The benchmark for this scenario is Sabathia, who was plied away from the Indians’ last year in exchange for Matt LaPorta, one of the top prospects in the game, and three other solid, but not stellar prospects. The price to retain Halladay will also be steep when his contract expires next season. Sabathia commanded a contract worth over $20 million a year when he signed with the Yankees this off-season.

David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News broke down the different trade scenarios that the Phillies could offer to Toronto in a great piece yesterday on Philly.com. The most notable prospects being discussed as possible trade pieces are RHP Kyle Drabek (probably the best pitching prospect in the Phillies farm system), OF Dominic Brown (ranked as the organization’s top prospect by Baseball America), RHP Carlos Carrasco (currently ranked as the top pitching prospect in the organization), LHP J.A. Happ, INF Jason Donald, C Lou Marson, and OF Michael Taylor and John Mayberry, Jr.

Drabek and Brown are largely seen as untouchables within the organization. During an hour long press conference Wednesday afternoon, GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. and manager Charlie Manuel, without specifically naming them, stated that there were players within their farm system that they would not trade under any circumstances. Those players are largely considered to be Drabek, Brown, and RHP Jason Knapp.

That being said, I don’t think anybody should be considered entirely “untouchable” when it comes to Halladay. Amaro should do everything he can to avoid trading Drabek, but if that is what it takes to land Halladay, then I don’t think you can discount it. Drabek could very well be the next Halladay, or Santana, or Cole Hamels. Or he could be the next Phil Hughes.

There is a prime, but limited, window in which this core Phillies team will be together and has an unprecedented opportunity to add more rings to their fingers. The Phillies have one of the deepest farm systems in the majors right now, and no matter what they have to give up to land Halladay, it will still leave them with a number of solid prospects for the future. In the meantime, Halladay will put them in the best position to win now, and next year.

Amaro should put everything on the table, history is on the line.