What Would Be the Cost of Cliff Lee?

There seem to be two elite (or well, one elite and one very good) starting pitchers on the trade market right now: Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. I do not see the Yankees making a push for Halladay. There are several reasons why this will not happen...

Brian Cashman seems to be strongly against (and rightly so) "paying twice" for a player. The Yankees would have to give up a boatload of prospects and sign him to an extension. Furthermore, I do not see the Blue Jays trading within the division, basically taking themselves out of competition for several more years. Finally, I don't think the Yankees can afford Halladay right now; he is making $14.25 million dollars this year (so he is owed about $7 million more this year) and the Yankees have stated many times they cannot take on much additional salary. (They only took only a few hundred thousand for Eric Hinske.)

Lee is a completely different case. Lee is making $5.75 million dollars this year (so about $2.8 million left) and has a $8 million dollar team option for next year, which will definitely be picked up by whoever has him unless an unexpected injury occurs. Lee will definitely cost the Yankees a good amount in terms of players, but they will not have to "pay twice" (unless, of course, they want to extend him immediately). And the Yankees have some prospects that they can part with right now.

The Indians would want a very, very good prospects as the centerpiece of the deal. I would have no problem in sending them CF Austin Jackson as the centerpiece. In BaseballAmerica's most updated prospect list (from a few days ago), they listed Jackson as at least a top 50 prospect. He could definitely be higher.

Now who else could they offer? I would not under any circumstances offer the following people: Jesus Montero, Austin Romine, Mark Melancon and Zach McAllister.

The Indians could certaintly use some bullpen help. Maybe they would be interested in David Robertson? He has control issues at time but he certaintly has potential.

Now for the last prospect. Would they be interested in a guy like Wilkin de la Rosa? He really is impressive and I do really like him but they might have to. Maybe a guy that is just breaking out instead like Hector Noesi? Or do they take a guy that might be a bit of a risk, but who undoubtably has potential in Brandon Laird? Do they value Eduardo Nunez? Reegie Corona? How about Kevin Russo? I know he has no power but Russo's contact ability is fantastic. Would they have any interest in Melky Cabrera?

You know what, just for kicks throw in Edwar Ramirez to the deal.

How would you fellow Yankee fans (and any Indian fans out there?) feel about something like this? I would love to see something like this happen.

If the Yankees were able to pull something along these lines off they could take Joba Chamberlain out of the rotation (and send him to pen or minors, preferably the minors) and they could have a rotation of Sabathia-Burnett-Lee-Pettitte-Mitre.