Trade talks for Toronto ace Roy Halladay are "dead," but the club remains willing to listen to offers leading up to Friday's 4 p.m. ET deadline, Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi said in an e-mail Thursday.
Rumblings still persisted about a possible deal that would send Halladay to the Texas Rangers.
"I'm not saying definitively," Ricciardi told ESPN.com's Jayson Stark when asked if Halladay would remain with the Jays. "I'm just saying it's looking more and more like he'll be here. We're waiting to be blown away, and we haven't been."
The Blue Jays set the bar very high for teams interested in the right-handed pitcher. Toronto and Philadelphia were involved in multiple talks, but the Jays were steadfast in their demand for two of the Phillies' best and most developed young pitchers, J.A. Happ and Kyle Drabek. Philadelphia, though, decided to move in the direction of Cleveland Indians ace Cliff Lee and dealt for the left-hander on Wednesday.
Toronto has had talks with the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees about Halladay.
Senior writer Buster Olney covers Major League Baseball for ESPN The Magazine.
