Adam Jones for Erik Bedard has a chance to be a good deal for the Orioles.
Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, George Sherrill, Anthony Butler, Kameron Mickolio has a chance to be a spectacular deal for the Orioles.
Jones is a wonderful young player already. He’s accumulated too much experience to have rookie eligibility, but he’d certainly be a top 10 prospect otherwise. BP’s Kevin Goldstein said as much in a recent chat. He held his own in the PCL at 20, and tore the league up at 21. Despite playing in one of the best pitcher’s parks in the league at 21 he was in the top 15 in OPS, and 10th in the league in home runs. With his service time he’s under Orioles control for the next six years. He’s an Oriole at below market value, unless traded, until 2013. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Jones has Torii Hunter’s (a frequently cited comparable player) 1999-2004 seasons over the next six years. Hunter was worth about 30 wins over replacement over that timeframe. On the open market at today’s rates 30 wins over replacement is worth in the neighborhood of $60M. I think Jones has a fairly good chance at outplaying Hunter over the next six years. Jones is a good major league hitter right now, at 22. At Jones’ age Hunter had appeared in a single major league game without getting an at bat. At the age of 21 Hunter had a .639 OPS in AA. Jones could well be worth more than 30 wins and $60M through 2013.
At his peak, at least so far, in 2007 Erik Bedard was worth about 8.0 wins over replacement. He was under Orioles control at below-market rates through 2009. If you assume that Bedard was going to repeat his peak year for the next two years he’s worth 16 wins and $32M.
It’s not a huge stretch to conclude that Adam Jones’ years where he’s contractually obligated to the Baltimore Orioles could be worth twice what the years Erik Bedard would have been similarly bound to the team. Projecting the future is always a dicey proposition, but Jones could be a disappointment and still win a straight-up trade for Erik Bedard.
Luckily for the Orioles their odds on winning this deal don’t rest solely on Adam Jones’ talented shoulders. The Mariners have thrown in four promising pitchers along with Jones.
Chris Tillman is similar in many respects to Orioles prospect Brandon Erbe. Both are young, hard-throwing right-handers. Both had somewhat disappointing 2007 seasons. But Tillman’s performance comes with a big asterisk. His home park was Stater Brothers Stadium, home of the High Desert Mavericks. The Mavericks scored 5.72 runs per game in 2007, a total that would have led all of Major League Baseball. But in the California League, at High Desert, that total was just good enough to push the Maverick to a 54-86 record. The team allowed over 1000 runs in 140 games. This is a run environment not unlike Coors Field in the late 90s. That Tillman had a 5.26 ERA there as a 19-year-old is impressive, not disappointing. Erbe’s performance at Frederick pales in comparison. If Erbe is a top-10 in the organization guy then Tillman has to be higher.
George Sherrill isn’t a prospect at 30, and he has been used as a LOOGY by Seattle. But he’s averaged over a strikeout an inning in the bigs, and his splits indicate he’s able to get right-handed batters out at least adequately, too. He’s in the running to close games for the Orioles this year. As the 4th or 5th most valuable player in this trade he’s a steal. He might be worth two or three wins over replacement for the next several years.
Anthony Butler is another huge lefty that Seattle moved aggressively through their minor league system. He was one of the youngest players on his A-ball team in Wisconsin, and held his own by posting a 4.76 ERA and decent peripherals. As with any young pitcher future injury and development is hazy, but the Orioles are piling up highly-regarded teenage pitchers. One way to hedge your bets in a world where TNSSAAPP (there’s no such thing as a pitching prospect) is to collect a lot of kids, and hope some of them successfully run the gauntlet and emerge at 22 or 24 as real, healthy pitchers.
And were not done yet. Kam Mickolio was one of the last names that popped up in connection with this deal, yet he’s on the verge of being a contributing member of the Orioles bullpen in 2008. Mickolio is a mammoth human being, listed at 6’9”, 256. He ripped through AA and AAA in 2007, striking out over a batter an inning while allowing a scant three homers in 53 innings. He adds to an impressive pile of young fireballers the O’s have collected. He might end up in Norfolk to start the year, but it’s not out of the question that he could be closing games in Baltimore sometime next season.
Look back over this list of players. This is the type of deal that doesn’t have to go ridiculously well for the Orioles to win easily. Erik Bedard is a Cy Young-caliber pitcher, but he was only signed for two years. That’s maybe 400 innings. For those 400 potentially Cy Young innings the O’s got at least 25 years of guaranteed below-market value in talented young players. They got one potentially huge impact player in Adam Jones. They got four talented pitchers, two of whom will be contributing to the Baltimore Orioles in 2008.
There is another angle to this deal that one has to consider, and that's the idea that one star player having a huge season has a disproportionate impact on a team's chances of winning a wildcard berth, a division, a league, or the World Series. Of all the players in this trade, Erik Bedard has the best chance of earning the title of star player. He's already there. The Mariners now have a player who could be the most valuable pitcher in baseball sometime over the next two seasons, and that could be more valuable in the short term than a lot of decent to good years out of the players the Orioles have received in return. Flags fly forever, and Erik Bedard gives the Mariners a better chance at a flag. But in the same vein, the Orioles were very long shots at any postseason play over the next two seasons, so Bedard's Cy Young caliber arm wasn't going to have the same impact it will for a 80-90 win team like Seattle.
In the end, this should be a good deal for both sides. At worst most of these young players fail to live up to expectations, Jones becomes a glorified Cesar Geronimo, and Erik Bedard challenges for the Cy Young award in 2008 and 2009. But even in that scenario the O’s come out looking pretty good. It’s not hard when you’ve traded 25 years for two.
The O's had to flip their valuable players for a foundation the team has lacked for a decade. The Mariners needed a player to get them over the hump to the playoffs. This trade has a good chance at doing both.
