Trust me, this trade works out wonderfully for the Orioles. The Mariners? eh, not so much.

but with Bedard and Roberts (who has been on the team several years), what they have is not working, so they essentially need to strip down what they are doing, because its not working and start fresh. You have to get certain parts in order to be successful, and Bedard is a major trading chip to get a high quality player like Jones.

If they wait to trade him, he could get injured again and he might not be as valuable as now. Injury factor and pretty cheap the next two years, with next year being an option year.

Yes Ordonez and Pudge were both free agents, but the Tigers did it with their young pitching of Robertson, Bonderman, and Verlander, Granderson, etc. Those guys really came through.

The thing about the O’s is they have some really nice young pitchers which they can probably afford giving up Bedard. Adam Loewen and Daniel Cabrera have been around the team for a couple years and could step into their own.

I just think you have to make the deal to set up some kind of future. They are not going to get better with him and he has already turned down a contract extension before all of this trade hostage bullshit going on, so I do not see how keeping him, even if the O’s could, would be beneficial.

1. those “recent acquisitions” of david segui and albert belle seemed like they were in a different generation. its not like they are still under contract or just got off of there terms (belle signed in 99, segui in 2001 and the later of them have not been on the team since 2004)

2. Erik Bedard is a nice pitcher, but what the orioles have to do is do a full rebuilding process. Bedard has already turned down a generous contract extension of something around the neighboorhood of 5yr/65-70 mil. since he doesn’t want to be part of the future, the orioles need to get pieces to help them be where they once were and do something like what they did with Miguel Tejada. They need to do it right and that is to get pieces like Adam Jones to come in and change this teams mentality.

3. What is in the Orioles best interest is getting those young players to come in, play care free, understand a rebuilding process is occuring and lose like a team-similar to what the 2003 Tigers did, only to win the American League 3 years later.

4. Angelos gave Andy McPhail total control and it is all on him. Angelos has not nixed anything and I believe he is supposedly famous for nixing 2 trades in the last 10 years (bonilla for prospects, roberts/hayden penn to braves for adam laroche)

5. Sell high with Bedard now. Who knows with these pitchers whether it be injuries or their career goes sour. He only has 1 complete game in more than 110 starts. He quits on his team when he is dominant and the Orioles have some nice pieces. Yes Bedard is a great pitcher now, but what is a great pitcher if you have basically nothing but Nick Markakis to play with, so you might as well start over the right way