Justify keeping Bedard or Roberts

[sevens]

Aside from keeping them as fan (your) favorite please explain how keeping them helps the Orioles team get better.

There is thread after thread that explains why trading them helps, but I have yet to see a convincing argument for keeping them on the team.

1 or 2 or no draft picks in 2 years for each of them is possible, but does not help the team get better anytime soon.

2 or 3 players each for them is a gimme now.

I guess I do not see how keeping either of them helps the O's get better.

[furryburres]

Aside from keeping them as fan (your) favorite please explain how keeping them helps the Orioles team get better.

There is thread after thread that explains why trading them helps, but I have yet to see a convincing argument for keeping them on the team.

1 or 2 or no draft picks in 2 years for each of them is possible, but does not help the team get better anytime soon.

2 or 3 players each for them is a gimme now.

I guess I do not see how keeping either of them helps the O's get better.

To tell you the truth, anyone who has said we could keep them on this board was shouted down immediately, so I wouldn't bet on getting too many responses that are pro-keeping them.

[Boy Howdy]

Look, I understand & agree with the logic in dealing Bedard, but I'd be very happy to see him make another 30-70 starts in an Orioles uniform. A number of reasons can be found here. Baseball careers -particularly those of pitchers- can end in an instant, and Bedard's someone I really enjoy watching make hitters look bad.

http://urbanshocker.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/bedard-is-kkkkkkkkkkkkkkking/

I really respect Roberts, but it wouldn't break my heart to see him go. PED's have absolutely zero to do with my opinion, and it's based only partially on the fact that I'm a happily married heterosexual male. Nevertheless, if PA decides to keep him around for being a fan favorite, loyal soldier and good ballplayer, I can live with that too.

So in closing, I'm not all emotionally vested in reasons why they must stay, but I won't be charging the warehouse with a pitchfork and torch if they do.

[birrman54]

Bedard needs to go, he brings in top prospects that we could not find otherwise. If he nets us someone like Jones - him, Markakes, and Wieters are a good start. With Scott holding it down in LF for cheap, it's not a bad start to the team. You can figure that at least one of Reimold, Rowell, Snyder, Moore, or any of the other pieces of the Bedard trade will pan out into a reasonable bat.

With those pieces and the pitching depth, a free agent acquisition or two makes us a competitive team. Losing Brob isn't automatically necessary IMO.

[Roll Tide]

Bedard needs to go, he brings in top prospects that we could not find otherwise. If he nets us someone like Jones - him, Markakes, and Wieters are a good start. With Scott holding it down in LF for cheap, it's not a bad start to the team. You can figure that at least one of Reimold, Rowell, Snyder, Moore, or any of the other pieces of the Bedard trade will pan out into a reasonable bat.

With those pieces and the pitching depth, a free agent acquisition or two makes us a competitive team. Losing Brob isn't automatically necessary IMO.

I agree... The only chance we have of being any good in the next 5 years is gutting the team. And getting 4 players for Bedard & 3 For Roberts & combined with whatever we can get for this rest of this sorry bunch. Markakis is the only player who started this past year that is worth hanging on to. Pitching wise almost all of those guys should be available.

[ShoelesJoe]

We can keep them both, and we can have Cal back at SS too because that's also what real fans would want. Of course we'd continue to lose 90 games a year with those three guys on our team, and have little hope of getting better any time soon.

But at least we'd look good when we were losing.

[Rob H]

I guess I do not see how keeping either of them helps the O's get better.

Therein lies the source of any disagreement.

A lot of people simply don't care if the Orioles get better. That is, they are content to go to the ballpark every once in a while and watch the players whom they know will entertain them. Brian Roberts is steals all those bases and just plays real gutsy baseball, and Eric Bedard has that big hook and can make a lot of people look foolish, of course they're the guys people just want to see stick around. These people aren't emotionally invested in the season, just the few games that they watch. It'd be nice if they win those games, but it's hardly necessary to be a suitable distraction from the drudgery of a normal life.

[Why Not?]

Therein lies the source of any disagreement.

A lot of people simply don't care if the Orioles get better. That is, they are content to go to the ballpark every once in a while and watch the players whom they know will entertain them. Brian Roberts is steals all those bases and just plays real gutsy baseball, and Eric Bedard has that big hook and can make a lot of people look foolish, of course they're the guys people just want to see stick around. These people aren't emotionally invested in the season, just the few games that they watch. It'd be nice if they win those games, but it's hardly necessary to be a suitable distraction from the drudgery of a normal life.

There aren't a lot of those type of fans on this board.

[wildcard]

To tell you the truth, anyone who has said we could keep them on this board was shouted down immediately, so I wouldn't bet on getting too many responses that are pro-keeping them.

Excuse me. I have been posting plans to keep Bedard and Roberts all winter long and no one has shout me down or explained how the blow up plan is any better. The blow it up plan takes longer. That's about it.

Posters mainly fall back to you can't sign Bedard as their logical argument. Of course, we don't know that to be true and no one can prove it to be true.

The other argument is about letting Bedard walk for draft choices is bull also. The O's have a year to sign or trade Bedard which is time to build around him and sign him. Letting him go for draft choices has little to no place in this discussion.

If you put everything together, which I have on many occasions, including improvement of the young pitchers, the return of Ray, possible signing for Tex or Dunn, the maturing of players in the O's farm system, and trading some of the surplus young starters to fill holes - you end of with a plan that will return the O's to contention faster then the trade Bedard and Roberts, blow it up plan.

And don't come back and say that I am saying to keep Huff, Millar, Payton, Gibbons or Mora for the long term. I am not. They all need to be replaced. Fact is that the O's can't trade them right now without eating a whole bunch of salary which I don't see Peter doing. Therefore I expect Millar and Payton to be with the O's until the deadline and Huff, Mora nd Gibbons to be with to O's all year. Maybe they are tradable next off season, maybe not. That's just what has to be dealt with.

People have called me wrong, stupid, shortsighted and a range of other things. However, here we are on Jan 20th and the team is closer to what I have been saying then anything the blow up crowd has projected. Bedard and Roberts could still be traded. If they are it looks like MacPhail will have to get an excellent offer. I have no problem with that. It is a win-win. Keeping Bedard and Roberts is a win because they are both impact players to be built around. Trading them for a kings ransom is also good because in that case the O's are getting great value for them. I say keep that value high Mr. MacPhail

[Boy Howdy]

Therein lies the source of any disagreement.

A lot of people simply don't care if the Orioles get better. That is, they are content to go to the ballpark every once in a while and watch the players whom they know will entertain them. Brian Roberts is steals all those bases and just plays real gutsy baseball, and Eric Bedard has that big hook and can make a lot of people look foolish, of course they're the guys people just want to see stick around. These people aren't emotionally invested in the season, just the few games that they watch. It'd be nice if they win those games, but it's hardly necessary to be a suitable distraction from the drudgery of a normal life.

Your description makes it sound like these people are just casual fans out for an occasional day at the ballpark to watch the Orioles do their thing, then forget about it as soon as they had back to work the next day.

In reality, some of the best, most passionate baseball fans out there are capable of enjoying the sport based on its' own merits, without the bottom line success of their chosen club determining whether they're having a good time or not.

I'm amazed by the vocal minority (I hope that's what they are, anyway) poised to drop the O's if x, y & z aren't traded by such & such date, or if moves they consider no-brainers aren't implemented.

There is so much failure involved in a sport where the best batters fail to hit safely two-thirds of the time that I worry these types are setting themselves up for misery.

We're all tired of losing, but my advice to everybody (that you're free to ignore, of course) is to pay attention to every game you see, because a trip to the ballpark will often include something you may never see again. When I think back on three decades of going to various stadiums, I remember fondly all the Hall-of-Famers and All-Stars I've seen, the great catches, that one no-hitter (Wilson Alvarez), etc...

But what I really remember are great summer days watching batting practice, getting a cracked bat from the Royals Bill Pecota, or seeing Luis Polonia get all excited when I showed him his first major league card, shaking hands with Oil Can Boyd and wishing him a healthy comeback & carrying Stan Jefferson's bags into the clubhouse the first day he arrived with the Orioles. The little things basically.

All I'm trying to say is there are many reasons to love baseball and to root for specific players, and they are not wrong no matter how many people try to convince you that your duty as a fan is to embrace the most cutthroat, bottom line player evaluation techniques to decide who is worthy of wearing your team's laundry.

(Move it to the rants if need be)

[Terpdawg32]

I don't post on here very often, but I was actually thinking that it might not be so bad to keep these guys. This may be more me coping with the fact that nothing has been done at this point though :-)

While I do think that trading these guys would most likely do the team good in the long run, I keep thinking that we played pretty well when Tejada was out last season. As long as we get someone back to play CF (I wouldn't mind if that was Patterson), and find a closer, then I think we could be alright this season.

How good that is, who knows?

[allstar1579]

Everyone here would WANT to keep them in a perfect world. The problem is we want to keep them so we have a better chance of winning. If we trade them for a good haul we could have a great chance of winning again soon (2010 or so), if they leave for draft picks we are 7 prospects or so short on that path to contention. Keep in mind there is a good chance we aren't competing with the Yanks by then, but more likely the Red Sox and TB.

[blueberryale77]

Aside from keeping them as fan (your) favorite please explain how keeping them helps the Orioles team get better.

There is thread after thread that explains why trading them helps, but I have yet to see a convincing argument for keeping them on the team.

1 or 2 or no draft picks in 2 years for each of them is possible, but does not help the team get better anytime soon.

2 or 3 players each for them is a gimme now.

I guess I do not see how keeping either of them helps the O's get better.

Both players are very, very likely to net us two draft picks when (if) they leave barring devastating injury or complete collapse of a magnitude pretty rarely seen among players in their early 30's. Obviously, projectable prospects who are close to major league ready and likely to be better than average Major Leaguers are far more valuable than those draft picks. That being said, you need to look at deals individually.

My feeling is that at least two teams have probably offered deals I would take for Bedard, but we don't have 100% confirmation as to all the players that were involved in any deal that's actually been on the table. With Roberts, it gets a little more dicey because the caliber of prospects being offered for him are not necessarily that much better than two high draft picks (not to mention what Roberts would do for you over the next two years). Take, for example, the Gallagher-Marshall-Cedeno deal that about 60% of this board voted in favor of taking. With that deal, you get Gallagher who projects as a solid 3rd or 4th starter (4th probably being more likely in the AL East), Marshall who is not expected to get any better and is a marginal fifth starter or lefty long reliever, and Cedeno who has close to two full years of Major League experience and is below average both offensively and defensively. Over the next two years (while you are not competing), Cedeno gives you a high error, low offense stopgap at either SS or 2B, Marshall gives you a weak fifth starter or long man, and Gallagher probably needs most of 2008 in AAA before moving into the rotation after which he becomes about an average starter. In 2010, assuming as most of us do that Roberts would leave, your choice is between two draft picks or one solid starter coming into his prime and two replacement level players who could easily have been acquired without trading an all-star and fan favorite. So the way I look at it:

2008-2009: Roberts > not quite ready for prime time Gallagher + mediocre at best Cedeno + mediocre Marshall

2010 & beyond: 1st or 2nd round pick + sandwich pick >?< solid mid-rotation starter Marshall + 2 replacement level players

Conservatively, you might say that Gallagher is much more of a sure thing than draft picks, which of course he is, and therefore we should make the trade. However, I don't believe we're going to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox by being conservative. We're going to have to build our organization from the bottom and draft extremely smartly to compete in our division over the long run. I'd rather take the chance on draft picks and hope we hit the jackpot with one of them than trade one of our best players essentially for one guy whose upside is third starter just because that guy is going to be under control for longer.

If that's not enough, this analysis ignores the potential that a better deal for Roberts comes along between now and the time he hits free agency. Imagine how we'd feel if we took Gallagher, Marshall and Cedeno and then some contending team's second baseman tears an ACL turning a double play this July. It also ignores intangible qualities of Roberts which would not be compensated for but could be of value over the next two years. Even if he's not around by the next time the Orioles compete, he could help instill work ethic, smart baserunning and sound fundamentals in our young players over the next couple of years which would help them compete after he's gone.

In conclusion, the one close to confirmed offer we've heard for one of the players simply isn't enough to make a major difference in our rebuilding effort. If that's all we're being offered, we're really better off waiting for a better trade and/or taking the draft picks. That doesn't mean I don't think both players (especially Bedard because all rumored offers for him involve at least one player who is definitely projected to be a very good major leaguer) should ideally be traded. I just think trading them (especially Roberts because the offers are much lower and he offers more in terms of intangible value that won't be compensated for in a trade) for subpar returns would be far worse than not trading them.

[Roll Tide]

Excuse me. I have been posting plans to keep Bedard and Roberts all winter long and no one has shout me down or explained how the blow up plan is any better. The blow it up plan takes longer. That's about it.

Posters mainly fall back to you can't sign Bedard as their logical argument. Of course, we don't know that to be true and no one can prove it to be true.

The other argument is about letting Bedard walk for draft choices is bull also. The O's have a year to sign or trade Bedard which is time to build around him and sign him. Letting him go for draft choices has little to no place in this discussion.

If you put everything together, which I have on many occasions, including improvement of the young pitchers, the return of Ray, possible signing for Tex or Dunn, the maturing of players in the O's farm system, and trading some of the surplus young starters to fill holes - you end of with a plan that will return the O's to contention faster then the trade Bedard and Roberts, blow it up plan.

And don't come back and say that I am saying to keep Huff, Millar, Payton, Gibbons or Mora for the long term. I am not. They all need to be replaced. Fact is that the O's can't trade them right now without eating a whole bunch of salary which I don't see Peter doing. Therefore I expect Millar and Payton to be with the O's until the deadline and Huff, Mora nd Gibbons to be with to O's all year. Maybe they are tradable next off season, maybe not. That's just what has to be dealt with.

People have called me wrong, stupid, shortsighted and a range of other things. However, here we are on Jan 20th and the team is closer to what I have been saying then anything the blow up crowd has projected. Bedard and Roberts could still be traded. If they are it looks like MacPhail will have to get an excellent offer. I have no problem with that. It is a win-win. Keeping Bedard and Roberts is a win because they are both impact players to be built around. Trading them for a kings ransom is also good because in that case the O's are getting great value for them. I say keep that value high Mr. MacPhail

IMO you are wrong !!!! Without removing Bedard & Roberts the Orioles dont have any Blue Chip positon players ready to step in. We will be watching the same old trash that we've been watching for years! The other option is watching retreads like Roberson or the never will bees with the patched in veterans.

[Del34]

There's only two reasons to justify keeping Bedard and Roberts.

1. We are contending. (but we aren't)

2. AM hasn't received a good enough deal for either.