Feeling 'Unwanted'?

The Prima Dona of the week goes to........Erik Bedard! Congratulations, you get a box of tampons and chance to tour the WE Network television studio!

"If they don't want me, [a trade] is the best thing to do," Bedard said in a phone interview with The Sun. "Obviously, they don't want to keep me because there are a lot more talks [about] trading me than signing me. What am I supposed to do? I just go with the flow. I'll keep it as it is, and go with it, day by day."

Two things:

1) Is he really that out of touch that he can not understand why they were looking to deal him? It should be nothing personal really.
2) Did he really want to stay with one of the two worst run franchises in the bigs?

Erik Bedard was a Cy Young candidate for the majority of the year and he needs some extra ego stroking to feel wanted? Cry me a river Bedard. The funniest part is that from what I remembered, they did talk long term.

"We wanted to talk about a multiyear deal and they suggested that they just do a one-year deal," MacPhail said. "That's the truth."

Pieper acknowledged that the two sides talked conceptually about a three-year contract that would have bought out one of Bedard's free-agent years. Bedard made it clear yesterday that he has no interest in pitching for a rebuilding team.

Ha. While Bedard was flowing like a river, MacPhail was trying to figure out how to improve a team that is probably the worst in the AL East. Bedard over the next three or four years was not going to change that, but a nicey nice package with Adam Jones in it is much better for this team long term. We just need more clarity at this point as to who the other players are and MLBTR.com says Jones, Tillman, Sherrill, Tony Butler, and Kameron Mickolio is what he is hearing right now.

That is two top tier prospects in Tillman and Jones, and good prospect in Butler, a good big league reliever, and another prospect of mediocre status. I like the deal for both sides as the Mariners still retained some blue chip talent though I think the Orioles will end up as the winners unless Bedard is extended. Next, Roberts should pack his backs. Rebuilding is a good thing if you can manage to have some decent drafts, just ask the Cleveland Indians. The Orioles are now putting together a nice core of offensive players and have some nice arms in the stable.

* * *

Jenna Jameson is looking pretty bad these days. I want the old one back.

Tim Marcham has three questions for the Mets.

1. Are they going for it or not?

This isn't, in other words, a team like the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks or the 2005 Houston Astros, teams on the verge of implosion that had to win before their oldest, best players fell apart, and it shouldn't be managed that way. Minaya and Randolph, though, are under great pressure because of the collapse. To them, a win this year is much more important than a hypothetical win in the future. This Mets team isn't faced this year with their last chance to win; the men who run them, though, may be. This is a potentially toxic dynamic.

Beautiful...{sniff, sniff}. Some objectivity out of the media. Someone who realizes the Mets are in fact a very good team with a solid long term outlook.

2. How creative are they willing to get with the pitching staff?

When there were holes in the rotation, Randolph and Minaya have had a tendency to go with really terrible pitchers such as Brian Lawrence and Jose Lima or really unprepared ones such as Philip Humber. Obviously the hope this year is that Pelfrey and Humber, who now have at least a bit of experience in the majors, will give the Mets a chance to win when they're given the ball. This surely represents improvement on the likes of last year's Chan Ho Park experiment, but the team could do even better with a bit of flexibility.

Humber, Mulvey, and Pelfrey cannot be forgotten here. Even if one is traded, the Mets will still have decent back up options. Marchman also suggests a six man rotation, which I cannot get down with. It is always an interesting notion, but ultimately, it doesn't seem like a great idea. Sure, it keeps Pedro and The Duque (who still should not be in the rotation) fresher, but I would rather see them take a short, mid-year vacation instead.

3. How patient will the team and the fans be with Willie Randolph?

If the biggest questions surrounding the Mets are structural questions about how well they can handle the tension between youth and age, or how well they can best use a talented pitching staff with some large and obvious flaws, that's probably largely because Willie Randolph hasn't always handled them well. The obvious greatness of Reyes and Wright made them immediate fixtures in the Mets' lineups, but aside from them, Randolph hasn't done a good job of handling younger players. Many pitchers have thrived during his tenure, but many have also been put in positions where they could do nothing but fail.

Bingo! I'd like to say a big fuck you to everyone who questioned my continued crusade against Randolph for only exhibiting he is clueless. Making stars like Wright 'earn their chops' even through most of last year while Delgado was being an outmachine in front of him killing his RBI opportunities.

He sets up Humber to fail miserably in his only start and failed to give Milledge a steady role even though he was by far the best option thereby not letting him get into a groove and keeping his trade value down. Or his refusal to let Pelfrey or Humber get any meaningful innings out of the bullpen because he wanted to keep running Mota out there and so many other viable options over the rookies. But hey, there was no reason to worry. Everything was fine. Then there is Keppinger as well a few years ago.

The list certainly goes on, but if you ignore the young guys with talent, you will not win. You need to use your roster and sometimes that includes guys under 30 who can contribute. Personally, I do not think he can change. He is who is he is and holds something against young guys and that hurts this team who is still trying to develop their own prospects. I would not say I hate him because I do not know him, but he do not particularly like him.

I can say for sure he is not the right guy to lead this team over the next five seasons or so.

Overall, Tim proves why he is one of the best writers in New York. He can look at a team and analyze them fairly.

Dayn "I'm So Emo" Perry lays down the obvious.

1. Pedro Martinez, SP, Mets
The Mets have serious rotation issues, and they've done nothing to address them this winter. So the onus falls on Martinez, the future Hall of Famer. Martinez isn't the dominator of old, but he's still capable of loads of strikeouts and a sub-4.00 ERA. The innings load, however, is another matter. Last season, Martinez was sidelined until September after undergoing rotator-cuff surgery, and he's eclipsed 200 innings in a season only twice in the past seven years. With the injury-prone Orlando Hernandez and the volatile Oliver Perez in the rotation and no clear candidate for the fifth spot, the Mets badly need Martinez to rediscover his durability.

Pedro will not give 200 innings. However, does he need to? I think 180 would be just fine and we all have to remember that innings is not necessarily the thing we need to worry about. He can give the Mets six innings every five days because he knows how to pitch. Six or seven innings on 90 to 100 pitches for Pedro is not that much of a stretch. He can be very, very economical with his approach to batters and I do not fear much when it comes to him this year.

Good riddance Captain Tom. His ego and know it all-ness was no longer needed for this exuberant team.

More Stantana stuff.

"It is what it is," said an official from a club in the loop on the Santana talks. "Three GMs, all of a sudden, acted rationally at the same time. When's the last time that happened?"

Never maybe? The market determined the price and it was decided Smith was off his rocker. Yes, Johan had value, but not nearly as much as he thought. It cannot hurt to ask, right? Well this proves sometimes it does and he did not know when to come down.

Now, it might be him taking the best offer which many believe is far less than anything he could have gotten months ago. At this point, things appear to be coming to a head (which I know we have all thought before) and the Twins are asking for final packages.

The Twins would like a package from the Yankees that includes righthander Phil Hughes and outfielder Melky Cabrera -- an option that some Twins players quietly prefer. Cabrera, with 16 assists last season, would join Michael Cuddyer (19) and Delmon Young (16) to give the Twins one of the best defensive outfields in baseball.

Whoa, I had no idea assists was the main metric used to determine fielding prowess. The truth is, Ryan Church is probably a better centerfielder than Melky and luckily the newspaper columnists have no hand in the trade. The Twins front office is probably well aware of Cabrera's short comings in center.

Of course, the rumors lately have been that Hughes and Lester are now off the table so I have no idea what is actually being offered these days. If that is true, then the Mets might actually pull off a coup and get Johan while keeping Fernando.

"My strong recommendation is we stick with our young pitching staff and keep it in-house," Cashman said. "That's my recommendation, and we've fought hard to take one step back to take two giant steps forward."

For 2008 that may present some bumps in the road, but it is hard to disagree with Brian there. He has three really good looking guys ready now with Brackman, Marquez, Horne, Sanchez, and Betances down the road. Why not try and develop some young guys? As for the Red Sox, they already have Buccholz, Daisuke, and Schilling. Do they really need to spend on Johan? I find it hard to believe that they want to, but they certainly do not want him on the Yankees. Maybe the Yankees are playing coy to keep the Red Sox out of it, but I think both are truly not all that interested in giving much up for him.

In the end, if the Twins insist on the Mets giving up three B+ type prospects with another fringe B+ prospect in Mulvey ontop of other prospects as well, then I would say Omar needs to tell Smith he is nuts. Bedard was arguably more valuable and the Mets current offer is not all that far off that one. Adam Jones is clearly the more valuable than anyone the Mets are offering outside of Fernando, but Gomez is still a highly respect prospect and Guerra is worth more than Tillman. The package the Twins really want would make sense if Johan had four years under market price attached, but that is not the case. Frankly, I think Smith is proving himself to be rookie GM.