Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has repeatedly said that the team’s top priority this offseason, now that they have bolstered their bench and replaced third baseman Pedro Feliz, is to sure up a bullpen that bruised and battered for much of last season.

Brandon Lyon and J.J. Putz are both players that the Phillies were said to have had serious interest in coming into this week’s baseball Winter Meetings in Indianapolis.

Both players have since signed with other teams (Lyon with Houston, Putz with the Chicago White Sox). Scott Eyre and Chan Ho Park were integral parts of the Phillies run to the World Series last season (and particularly Eyre, who was invaluable in the team’s 2008 World Series victory), and yet negotiations with both teams appear to be at a standstill. Indications from Amaro are that there is a good chance the Phillies will move on from both players and replace them with younger talent, most likely players currently in their farm system.

So what gives?

The Phillies are said to be aggressively pursuing Roy Halladay in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays; much more aggressively than Amaro lets on.

Amaro may be telling the media that the chances of the Phillies acquiring, or even pursuing Halladay, are highly “unlikely,” but according to sources close to the situation, as well as a number of executives from other teams, the Phillies are pursuing Halladay above all else right now.

A source that I talked to said that the Phillies, behind the scenes, are pushing very hard for the trade, that the Blue Jays really like J.A. Happ and that Halladay himself is putting a good deal of pressure on Toronto to get the deal done. The final roadblocks appear to be finding a third team to take Joe Blanton from the Phillies (who would then send a valued prospect of their own to Toronto) and a contract extension with Halladay.

That is why the Phillies’ lack of aggression on filling the holes in their bullpen are telling. It seems that they are waiting to see how things go with Halladay before commiting serious money to their bullpen. Lyon is receiving $5 million a year from Houston and Putz is getting $3 million from Chicago. If they had signed one or both of those players, then that would virtually eliminate any chance of being able to afford Halladay’s $15.75 million salary in 2010. The Phillies will have to get approval from team ownership as it is to acquire Halladay even if they trade Blanton.

There are a couple more roadblocks still to overcome, but both the Phillies and Halladay have a mutual desire to be on the same team. Time will tell.