Anyone getting nervous that this season is too good to be true? Cause it looks sooooo good on paper…which always makes me nervous. 2008 team looked amazing on paper.

Regarding the quality of the 2008 roster, well, that depends on who you ask.

While the hype level behind the 2008 and 2010 teams seem about the same that’s where the similarities end. After the Bedard trade in 2008, we had the pieces in place only to make a run at the division at best. Too much needed to go right for the team to give the Angels a run for their money.

In 2010, this team is right in the thick of things even based on reasonable expectations. If everything breaks our way we could potentially pull away from the pack. Even if it doesn’t work out, it’s extremely unlikely we’ll suffer anything remotely resembling what we went through in 2008.

Safeco is a much much better park for LHP

That might be overstating it a bit. We know that it’s a park that favors pitching, but we don’t really know how that works out with left handers and right handers. We infer that it’s better for lefties because it tends to increase power to LH hitters and decrease it for RH hitters, but we don’t know to what extent it affects different handed pitchers.

Still, this is a great move. At worst the M’s get little or no production out of Bedard and eat the $1.5M, which is chump change in MLB in the grand scheme of things. At best he becomes the equivalent of a mid-season rent-a-player for the pennant run without having to give up any prospects for him.

Can someone speak to the wisdom of having 1 righty (Felix) and 4 lefties in a rotation (Lee, RRS, Bedard, and Washburn)?

Is that an issue, or not?

I was thinking the same thing. A trade for Harang would be great to balance out the rotation. But who knows what the Reds would ask for him? That may not be feasible. If anybody could pull it off though, it would be Jack Z. I LOVE that guy!

As for Bedard, I agree with Dave. Temper the enthusiasm a little; but it is fun to think about a healthy Bedard following Felix and Lee! What a playoff rotation that would be! I had major shoulder surgery this year and I’ll tell you, it can be extremely painful and frustrating. I hope Erik pulls through and earns every one of those incentives. That would bode very well for the Mariners.

My intuition tells me that this team could be very good or just so so. Now I’ve seen tons of projections that show the Ms winning 87/88 games. My question is: Are there any projections that include a standard deviation? How do you account for a wide range outcomes you combine a whole series of unpredictable assets?

And there really isn’t a lot of downside to this move flaming out….

But let’s say he’s more of a July return – assuming Washburn isn’t in the mix, is the pre-Bedard rotation Felix/Lee/RRS/Snell/Fister? Obviously, we’d have to see what happens in spring training, but is there anyone else obviously looking to horn in on the rotation?