Cliff Lee: Who made the best deal?

Maybe five years from now we'll be able to look at the three Cliff Lee trades made in the last 12 months and declare a winner.

Maybe we can even turn it into a board game: Cliff Lee's All-Star Baseball. Spin the wheel and see which prospect you land on.

For now, it's too soon to tell whether the Cleveland Indians, the Phillies, or the Seattle Mariners made the best deal for Lee. It's possible they could all end up as clunkers, leaving three entire cities disgruntled about Lee's departure.

What we can do now is compare the current seasons of each player shipped elsewhere for Lee, so that's what we will do.

Cleveland players acquired from the Phillies

P Jason Knapp                   single-A Lake County

Has not pitched

(shoulder injury)

P Carlos Carrasco             triple-A Columbus

7-3, 4.38 ERA

IF Jason Donald                Cleveland Indians

.280, 12 doubles,

2 HRs and 12 RBIs

C Lou Marson                   Cleveland Indians

.191, 1 HR, 12 RBI,

threw out 16 of 26 runners

*demoted to Columbus      triple-A Columbus

.162, 2 HR, 4 RBIs

Phillies players acquired from Seattle

P Phillippe Aumont             double-A Reading

1-6, 7.43 ERA

*demoted to Clearwater      single-A Clearwater

1-0, 4.35 ERA,

13 Ks in last start

OF Tyson Gillies                double-A Reading

.238, 2 HR, 6 RBIs;

on DL with hamstring injury

P J.C. Ramirez                   single-A Clearwater

4-3, 4.06 ERA

*promoted to Reading         double-A Reading

2-1, 4.62 ERA

Seattle players acquired from Texas

1B Justin Smoak                Texas Rangers

.209, 8 HRs, 34 RBIs

P Blake Beavan                double-A Frisco

10-5, 2.78 ERA

P Josh Lueke                   single-A Hickory

2-1, 10 saves, 0.46 ERA *promoted to Frisco            double-A Frisco

1-1, 2 saves, 3.86 ERA

2B Matthew Lawson             double-A Frisco

.277, 7 HRs, 34 RBIs

One footnote: Lee was also traded by the Montreal Expos to Cleveland in 2002. Charlie Manuel was the Indians' manager at the time, but he was fired a couple of weeks after the trade.

- Bob Brookover