Non-Gibby chatter 12/07

But god damn, when I read some of these columns and how they talk about Bedard:

"The Dodgers' field personnel love Baltimore's Erik Bedard, an aggressive hard thrower who was third in the American League in strikeouts and fourth in earned-run average.

"He is a left-handed version of John Lackey, only five months younger.

"And, yeah, Torre loves him because last season, he was 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA against the New York Yankees."

Sigh.  Bedard was one of the few reasons that the 2007 Orioles were tolerable, and he's going to be gone and kicking ass on another team in October:

"Either pitcher [Bedard and Santana] would cost them Matt Kemp. But either would put them in the playoffs. And, as Jose Lima would tell you, who knows what could happen then?"  (LA Times)

It's hard to say goodbye.

But everything isn't equal. Bedard is probably NOT going to sign an extension here, and why should he? He can get as much or more money from a team that has a reasonable chance of winning. We don't. We've all said it and we all know it; if we are not going to win in the next two years, then trading Bedard is the only thing to do, so long as we get back some top flight players in exchange. And remember...technically we have until July 31, 2009, to trade him. I think his value is highest NOW, mind you...but if we don't get a deal done in the offseason, there is always the trading deadline. And the Dodgers sure do have a lot of quality OFers. Excluding Juan Pierre.

1. Bedard is the best trade bait we've had in maybe a decade: phenomenally talented, good contract situation. We need LOTS of good players. We can get 2 guaranteed, with a crapshoot on a third, for Bedard. He is one of our best chances to getting back to respectability fast.
2. His injury history. Sign him for seven years? If his curveball blows out his elbow in 2010, then you're stuck. Well, someone is stuck. If we trade him it won't be us.
3. He wants to go. In fact, if you read between the lines, most of the Orioles players want to go. The only ones that don't are has-beens that are enjoying their twilight years, and new kids who are just happy to be in the bigs. To deal with the Orioles-are-poison cloud that hangs over the franchise, we really do need to clean house. We need a lot of kids who gel together and are excited about being in Baltimore.

It's just a question of arrogant self-entitlement against drunken limp-dicked self-loathing--DaBB

I've got to say that all of the names I see floating around in the Dodgers potential trade are good, solid names.  Kemp, Ethier, LaRoche, Hu, Kershaw... if they've taken Broxton off the table & are so reluctant to trade Kemp, I'll gladly sub Ethier in Kemp's place.

Kershaw, Ethier, LaRoche, and Hu would make this a no-brainer for me.
If we can swing Tejada to LAA for Brandon Wood we can move Hu to 2B & then there's no need for Iguchi.  Roberts to CHC for Pie & others and we suddenly have a very dangerous OF.

OF: Kemp/Ethier - Pie - Markakis
IF: LaRoche - Wood - Hu - ????

Our fans are better than yours.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-best-major-leaguers-50000-can-buy/