He's Gone: Phillies trade Chase Utley to the Dodgers

I didn't think we'd ever get to this point. Not now, not last year, but certainly not yesterday when Phillies GM Ruben Amaro, my new least favorite person ever, told us that Chase Utley was likely staying with the Phillies until the end of the season. 24 hours later, we know that's not true at all.

The Phillies have agreed to trade Chase Utley and $2M to the Dodgers. In return, the Dodgers will send them two minor leaguers. Neither club has confirmed the deal, and reportedly nothing's been signed yet, but this is really happening and we all have to deal with it now. As for the players the Phillies will be getting back, we don't have any names yet, but Jon Heyman elaborated a little on the possible quality of these guys.

The deal would be expected to be for multiple "mid-level" prospects, not very top guys.

What an exciting return for the best second baseman in franchise history and a future Hall of Famer.

If the Phillies were going to trade Chase Utley, the return was always going to suck since Utley is worth so much more to Philadelphia than he is to any other team on the planet. Some people say that Utley and Jimmy Rollins being back together helps ease the pain, but that just makes me remember that Jimmy is gone and 2008 was so long ago and everything sucks.

There are so many great Utley moments to talk about, and we'll definitely get to those in the next few days. But right now, there's just one I can think of.

Thanks for everything, Chase. *sob*