But trades should be evaluated at the time, and the Silva for Bradley swap was fantastic in every way. If Bradley had any baseball skills left I don’t think anyone here would give a shit about his attitude. In reality, I still don’t care about the attitude. The rest of the Mariners team wasn’t bad because Bradley was here. They are bad because they are bad. Milton Bradley’s personality was and is meaningless, and so the trade, at the time, when indications were that Bradley would be a good hitter with a bad attitude, was phenomenal.

But then he came here and he sucked at the game of baseball. That’s it. His bad attitude didn’t do anything. He got suspended for a game. Oh fucking well, he wasn’t very good anyway. He’s also on the last year of a contract of a team he won’t play a role on in the future, and so keeping him around was completely pointless.

Most Cubs fans and Indians fans said his bad attitude would be a serious problem for the Mariners. It wasn’t. It was completely meaningless. What mattered is that he sucked at baseball more than he’s ever sucked at baseball in his life, and so he gets to go away. Anyone that’s gloating because “they were right” are being idiots, because you weren’t right. His attitude was barely a presence. The only way he affected the Mariners was being bad at baseball, which was absolutely not the argument that any Cubs or Indians fan had against keeping him on the team.