Thinking It Through

More and more talk about Mark Prior and Miguel Tejada fills the papers and the airwaves and the bandwidth. The current particulars seem to be Mark Prior, Korey Patterson and Rich Hill (or Brian Dopriak) from the Cubs to Baltimore for Tejada and Erik Bedard.

My favorite talk was this morning's report on WSCR that the Cubs and Orioles haven't talked in 5 days. The implication is that the negotiations are stalled. Um... Isn't it more likely that Mike Flanigan and Jim Hendry, the people negotiating the trade, were CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS and WERE NOT WORKING?!?!?!? Sheesh!

But, the more interesting talk was that Baltimore doesn't want to give up on their young pitcher, Erik Bedard. Bedard looks like a good pitcher. He strikes out just under 1 batter per inning. Has a K/BB ratio in the mid twos. With only 2+ years of major league experience, I believe he has four more seasons before he can file for free agency.

On the downside, he's rarely been healthy and will reach 26 years old by Opening Day having never thrown over 150 innings in the majors.

You can see why Baltimore would be hesitant to trade him. He's good and cheap, but unreliable.

Mark Prior, on the other hand, was about as brilliant as a pitcher could be in the fall of 2003. But since Alex Gonzalez's "little whoopsie" that October, Prior has been a shadow of what he was.

His elbow is questionable and there are rumors that he just doesn't have the mental makeup to play through the nagging injuries that all major league pitchers have to deal with. Additionally, there is talk that he wants to go back to the West Coast when he becomes a free agent after the 2008 season.

With all this, Prior is due a huge raise and could make upwards of $6 million this year and more in 2007.

You can see why the Cubs would be willing to trade him. He's expensive and unreliable, but shows flashes of brilliance.

But let's break the trade down.

Baltimore doesn't want to trade Tejada and the promising but unreliable Bedard if the promising but unreliable Prior is in the deal. Fine. Here's the solution:

Take Bedard out of the deal and the Cubs take Prior out of the deal! That was easy, right? Patterson and Hill for Tejada, straight up should do it.