The Greatest Trade In Baseball History

The Seattle Mariners today made the greatest trade in baseball history by aquiring Milton Bradley from the Chicago Cubs for Carlos Silva.

"Are you nuts?" says you. "Bradley is a brittle cancer with a $33 million price tag." You are correct, sir (or madam, as the case may be.) But Carlos Silva is to strikeouts what Tiger Woods is to fidelity. Carlos Silva is  a major league pitcher like I am a Mongolian loofah sponge. And Silva is selling for the low, low price of $23 million over two years, plus the $2 million sendoff required for him to slink into oblivion in 2012.

Last year, the 30-year-old righty took the mound for a grand total of eight games. This was a blessing for the Ms, because in the 30 innings he managed to stay upright, opposing hitters uncorked a .324 BA against him and crossed the plate 29 times. Silva earned every bit of his 8.60 ERA, striking out 10 batters, one fewer than he walked. He accomplished this feat in one of the best pitching parks in the AL.

Of course, that was an off-year for him. In '08, Silva limited opposing hitters to a .330 batting average and sported a snazzy 4-15, 6.46 line. In '06, Silva went 11-15, 5.94 for Minnesota and held the league to a .326 batting average. In other words, against Carlos Silva, a utility infielder is Albert Pujols.

It's easy to see why Carlos Silva can't retire major league hitters: he doesn't have major league stuff. Good pitchers whiff a batter an inning. Marginal pitchers fan six per nine. Over his eight-year career, Silva sent 3.78 per nine down on strikes. That stinks like a limburger fart.

In fact, it's worse than that. In his last 100 starts over four years, Silva has been seven losses worse than a replacement level pitcher --  a guy out of triple-A who's getting sent back as soon as Eric Bedard comes off the DL. That is fantasmagorically abysmal. That is Double-A demotion abysmal. But since Silva earns 28.75 times as much as the President of the United States, Mariners brass was loathe to kick him to the curb.

In other words, the Mariners, who receive $6 million of Tom Ricketts' money in the deal, got Carlos Silva to go away for $2 million. What a racket! Milton Bradley could trot out to left field, moon Bill Gates, take the collar, boot the winning hit, flip off the crowd, spew expletives to the media, tip over the post-game spread and spontaneously combust, all in his first game in Seattle and still qualify as a bargain compared to his trade dopleganger. The Mariners swapped Phyllis Diller for Lindsey Lohan. You do the math.

If, instead, Bradley plays 100 games before inevitably getting hurt and hits his lifetime average of .370/.450 while clogging up the DH spot, he'll be worth four more wins than Silva. That ain't chicken scratch for a team that is a bat or two from favorite status in the AL West.

All this is just the capper on a great off-season for Seattle. They were the beneficiaries of the Phils' sudden Cliff Lee allergy and they inked Chone Figgins away from archrival Los Angeles. That creates a formidable rotation fronted by Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Eric Bedard, if healthy. (Granted, that's like saying the Tigers have an outfield that includes Ty Cobb, if alive. But Bedard's due to hit the 150-inning mark one of these decades.) They add Figgins and Bradley to Ichiro and Franklin Guttierez, plus a little pop from Russ Branyan, and suddenly you have a team with great starters, the best defense in the league, and an offense that no longer conjures up images of -- Tinkerbell. Still, I think Seattle is a bopper away from beating the Angels and Rangers.

I'm not sure that big bopper is on the free agent market this year, but since Lee is only signed for one more season, M's GM Jack Zduriencik might be willing to empty the farm for Adrian Gonzalez, whom the Padres have offered for the right prospect haul. In any case, there could be some meaningful games this September at Safeco for the first time since 2001. If that's the case, Pacific Northwest denizens can thank The Greatest Trade In Baseball History for helping make it possible, even if Milton Bradley spends the 2010 season orbiting Pluto.
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