At least we dont get something crappy in return.

I would venture to say the Soriano was the worst in franchise history. We all knew what we were getting and it made it much, much worse. Only argument against it would be Soriano's head 'injury'.

Still, Ho sucked in the NL, had no stuff, no power pitching, and injury prone. Hell, at least Foppert had upside.

Of course, the Lowe/Varitek deal would be the rival.

I can't remember who pointed this out first, probably Jeff or one of the USSM guys, but the problem with the HoRam acquisition wasn't the thinking but the execution. That was an A for effort type situation. Yes we got crap in return, but we were trading from depth for a guy who would have been undervalued if he had any talent.

This trade is predicated on the false idea that adding two starters this winter makes the team an instant WS contender. We're sending away the first exciting position player to come out of our system since, well, since Lopez I guess, our best starter prospect, and then some. These are exactly the kind of players we've been unable to develop and need to in a bad way.  

This trade improves the M's more than the Soriano trade did, but this one is also worse because it showcases the shortsightedness and ineptitude of the FO (and I don't mean Bavasi, who is doing what he can, I mean tweedle-armstrong and tweedle-lincoln).

In the Soriano trade, I felt no feelings of happiness.....anywhere.

Here, I DO have the "Well, Bedard every 5 days will be freaking sweet" line running, and it's true. Not worth the price, but hey......Bedard.

The fact that the M's are getting back something of value is a good point, but the Bedard deal is still worse because it set the farm system back three years.

Tillman was the only starter above A ball who projected to be anything more than a 5th starter.  Butler had a higher upside and even with the lost year, was not too far behind Tillman.  Mickolio was the best bet as a near-ready power RHP who could bump Morrow to the rotation.

When the Washburn and Batista contracts expire in two years, there is going to be nobody to replace them.  The M's will be lucky if Juan Ramirez is ready in three years.

In general, you have to judge the value of a trade based off the information you know at any given moment. Soriano was good. Ram was bad. Hence that trade was bad.

So obviously that means that this trade is better, yes?

No, actually. I would argue that, in this unusual case, this trade CANNOT be judged until we see how it turns out. For the following reasons:

1. Bedard is an injury risk. When he is not injured, he is the best pitcher in baseball. Now, in a lot of ways every pitcher or player is an injury risk, but in this particular instance, we know he is a risk going into this trade, so we need to see if he gets injured.
   
2. The trade is based off the idea that we are not far away from the playoffs. While we on LL all disagree, if the Mariners get to the playoffs after this trade, then he actually was an important piece. If they don't, then he was useless.
   
3. Five prospects for 1 player. The Soriano trade was a 1 for 1, a bad for a good, and thus it was a terrible trade. Even if Ho Ram had done well, and Rafi was injured, it was still a bad trade. This trade, on the other hand, is a 5 for 1 - all of them question marks. If a majority of the prospects in the trade turn out to lead successful major league careers, and Bedard turns out to be a bust either from injury risk or not playoff shot anyway, then this was a bad trade.

What it all boils down to are two things: Soriano for Ram was a known bad for a known good. THIS trade is ABOUT the future. It is saying that the short term future (next two years) is improved at the sake of the long term future (~3 years away when all 5 players are certainly MLB ready). So it is not just the trading of players, it is the trading of future success (ie, we're trading 3/4 years away for 1/2 years away).

I'm rambling because I'm typing quickly, I apologize, but in essence I'd say that due to the circumstances of this trade, we can't call this a worse trade than Soriano until we know how it turns out, even though normally a trade must be judged on what we know at the time.

Can the Soriano deal possibly be viewed as the setup to the Bedard trade?  If Soriano's in our bullpen last spring training then there's no need to bring Morrow north and instead he spends all year starting at AAA.  Then, who knows what you have in him but he is eminently more tradable (read: valuable).  So maybe we still sign Silva but have Morrow as a possibly far more viable option as our 5th starter.  Now you have the option of trying to trade Soriano for a starter except you're not trying to deal out of desperation because your fall back isn't ChaSizzle.  And you're able to trade for a crappy contact starter because you have 2/3 of a really good outfield.  I guess not able...let's say less likely to look stupid when you do it, instead.

Shaq for Marion.