On a day when the Phillies officially introduced Roy Halladay during a press conference, Wednesday’s talk seemed to center around the trade that sent Cliff Lee to the Mariners for assorted pieces of candy.

Many Phillies fans felt like the team should have tried to keep both Lee and Halladay in the rotation, but Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro characterized the Lee deal as a necessity for the organization’s lobby stash.

“We could have kept both of them,” Amaro said of Halladay and Lee during Wednesday’s press conference. “But it was a baseball decision for me and our organization. We could not leave our candy bowl bare.”

With the team’s recent offseason activity, people have been in and out of the lobby at Citizen’s Bank Park taking all of the Hershey’s Nuggets and Snicker’s Bars, with nothing left but a couple Circus Peanuts and Mary Jane’s. Amaro maintains that the Lee deal was his best shot at getting back some solid stuff for future visitors.

“If we held onto Lee for this season and lost him to free agency, there’s no telling what kind of stuff we’d get for him in the draft,” Amaro said of the compensation candy the Phillies would receive for losing Lee after the season. “If we let him go as a free agent and end up with some butterscotch in return, then we’re screwed. It’s my job to maintain a delicious stash of treats in our lobby, even if that means giving up the ace that would make our team the most unstoppable force this world has ever known. But a World Series title with Charleston Chews in your bowl does no one any good.”

Phils dealt Lee to replenish prospects [Philly.com]