Q.  You seriously think the Mariners would ever be players here?

A.  No more than you do.  :- )

.........

Q.  What is the argument in favor of?

A.  One word:  Dynasty.

Consider all the teams that have ever fought for dynasties based on awesome rotations, such as the Cone-Duque-Pettite Yankees ... the Clemens-Mussina-Pettite Yankees ... the Schilling-Pedro (Beckett-DiceK) Red Sox ... the Maddux-Smoltz-Glavine Braves ... the Koufax-Drysdale-Osteen Dodgers ... the Unit-Schilling Diamondbacks... hey, even the cash-poor Oakland A's had a terrific run with Hudson, Zito and Mulder, despite having a payroll 30% of the Yankees'.

A Felix-Halladay-Bedard big three would level a *historic* grade of mortar fire at the rest of baseball.

With Felix, Bedard, and Halladay, the Mariners might actually find themselves in a Braves'-like situation, with the 1-2-3 best starters in the American League.  Them and Sabathia and Verlander, maybe.  

You might see playoff series over before they started.   "Game One?"  "GIN!"

.............

Obviously when you spend $15M each on three super-starters, you're going to cut corners elsewhere.  And that's fine.  You would be choosing to put your money into the rotation.

In 2001, when Lou's 116-game winners got crushed by the Yankees, he complained sourly, "They spend a lot of money on their rotation.  And it shows."

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Q.  You'd never have an offense.

A.  You lock in a Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz rotation for a decade, and that's a lot of chances to have young guys like Ackley, Tui, Saunders, Clement, Truinfel and Co. come through for you.

The Rays finally had that happen, several blue-chippers come through, and look what happened for them.  Even without Felix, Bedard and Halladay.  An HOF Big Three* is a play for more than "competitive."  It's a play for a dynasty.

Not everybody is interested in dynasties, though.

............

Q.  What was that Angels rumor?

A.  At the LA Times, the opening salvo was Jered Weaver, Trevor Recking, Brandon Wood and Howie Kendrick.  That's just a rumor, of course.

That could be compared to Brandon Morrow, Juan Ramirez/Chris Tillman, Jeff Clement/Adam Jones, and Jose Lopez.   Angels fans would probably insist their package is better, based on Weaver vs Morrow.

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Q.  Would Angels fans ever forgive them for trying to win a pennant?  Or would they lament every Brandon Wood home run for the next 15 years?

A.  :- )

What I find really bemusing about the Bedard situation, was that the beat writers fell in line with the blogs' unorthodox position on it.  I challenge you to find one non-Seattle beat writer who will be discouraging his team from going after Doc Halladay.

And you won't go back and find that non-Seattle beat writers demanded that their teams avoid Bedard, either. 

It's not shocking that a blog or two would have unconventional ideas about scrubs vs marquee players.  What is pretty weird, is to see the writers (other than Geoff Baker) falling in with it.

They wouldn't put it in those terms, but hey.  Thass' th fact Jack.

If the M's began to be rumored as giving up a bounty of cheap VORP/$ players on Halladay, would the writers match step again?  Would be interesting to find out, but the point's probably moot.

.

Q.  You think that Angels' rumor is in contact with reality?

A.  If I'm the Angels, I'm not giving up JERED WEAVER PLUS an Erik Bedard package.  Weaver himself is tremendously valuable to me if I'm rooting Angels.

Weaver's 9-3, 3.15, with a fabulous 95/34 control ratio in 114 innings.  He's only in the middle of his fourth year.   You've got to swap Weaver out of that package if you're LA.

As usual, Ricciardi with the usual narcissistic, stomach-turning "ONLY IF I'M SUPER DEE DOOPER BLOWN AWAY!" rhetoric.  He actually compared Halladay to a $500,000 house, saying he wants $1.2M for it.  I wonder who Ricciardi is talking to?  Probably the Jays fans, at this point.

Halladay will reap a cornucopia of young talent, as all Bedard-level aces do.  Whether that cornucopia should include an arb-eligible young ML pitching star PLUS a generation's worth of young players is another question. 

Cheers,

Dr D