Why does everyone think pitching is sooooo much more important or hard to find, or shouldn’t be traded. Just because Morrow throws a ball, doesn’t make him a MLB caliber starter, in fact that’s less certain than AJ being MLB caliber, so why would you NOT include him because of that? Also, say getting JP Howell for a mid level prospect would be as big of an improvement as trading Jones for Bedard, because you don’t lose Jones. It makes no sense. Comparing to the Yankees, who should be winning 100+ games every freaking year btw, and when nobody in the world can spend like them, isn’t a good comp. They’re also closer (like almost a given) to the playoffs than us. Also, Felix is a #1 starter now, not potentially, he is, now.

I stated it in the last post, but in addition to the win calculations, you have to think about the positive impact this would have on Felix and the rest of the rotation — you in essence would be adding another stopper to the rotation, which certainly would have been helpful during last year’s swoon.

I don’t get that, it does improve the team, replacing HoRam w/ Bedard, but how does it improve Felix?

And I do think that adding Bedard in exchange for prospects puts the M’s in position to compete in the AL West or wild card in 2008, which bolster’s the teams overall ability to attract and retain other free agents and also establishes a culture of winning throughout the system.

I disagree, I think Bedard for Jones is a 1, maybe 2 win improvement if things break right, which I don’t think makes a hill of beans difference in people wanting to sign here. Free agents are overrated anyway, and I think the whole “attractive to Free Agents” things is overstated as well.

And general thinking seems to be that if Bedard goes, so does Roberts. Toss in Lopez and another prospect for Roberts by all means — that guy at the top of the lineup next to Ichiro would be unstoppable.

I might do that, if we were a little closer, but we’d still need a RF or LF. I also would be careful about giving up on Lopez yet. It depends too, AJ for Roberts AND Bedard might not be so bad, especially if we can include Lopez for an OF.

Lastly, if you look at the coaching staff that the M’s have assembled, it’s not exactly a bunch of progressive thinking coaches that are good with young kids — we have an AARP crew that has deep baseball knowledge, but probably won’t be that great at helping our younger players along.

That’s a fixable problem, tell McLaren etc, that it’s play the kids or get new jobs. Our coaching is hardly untouchable, is it?

Grab Bedard, make a run at things this year and then if it doesn’t work out Bavasi will be gone and we’ll have a GM who would know how to sell some vets and restock with prospects.

If it doesn’t work, we’ve blew our chance for ’09, IMO.

And shame on all of you threatening to become A’s fans — that is the most disheartening thing i’ve ever read.‘

That I’ll agree with! I’m too much of an M’s fanboy, bad trades or not.