Orioles Trying to Re-Sign Bedard?

I just got finished listening to the BaseballChannel.tv Under the Lights broadcast featuring MLB.com's Baltimore Orioles reporter Spencer Fordin. These quotes shouldn't come as a total surprise, but they're not gelling with other reports surfacing earlier today.

"There might be a late breaking development that we've ascertained," Fordin told host Peter McCarthy. "The Orioles may be trying to sign [Bedard] to a 5-year extension instead of trading him. We don't have confirmation from sources high up in the general manager's office yet but it does appear that that could be the case right now."

"They never thought he would [sign an extension], to be quite honest," he continued. "They talked to him about a 3-year deal earlier in the offseason and his agent countered with a much longer proposal, apparently, and the Orioles weren't able to stomach that at the time. So they sniffed around, considered offers, they got very reportedly close [with Seattle]."

"They apparently decided to explore the option of seeing if they could sign him to a 5 year deal," said Fordin, adding moments later, "I think Seattle's on hold, from what we've been told."

Fordin was unsure of whose idea it was to try and re-sign Erik Bedard, president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail or owner Peter Angelos, but called a new contract a "sketchy possibility."

When asked how close Baltimore came to trading Bedard to the Mariners, Fordin replied, "They came very close. They decided on the players involved. They were close enough that Seattle thought it was imperative to get Adam Jones back from Venezuela. Adam Jones thought it was close enough that he told reporters that he was traded to Baltimore, but somewhere along the line there was a slip in communication and the Orioles apparently canceled the physical for Adam Jones. It's really hard to tell where things lie right now."

Not a lot of new info there. Fordin went on to mention that Angelos never approved the deal, not saying he nixed it either. "From what I'm told they never fully got approval from the ownership."

Besides that, Fordin went on to say that he didn't believe any other teams besides the Mariners were involved at this point, contrary to a recent report.

As far as the contract talks go, he said it was still in the early stages. Bedard and the Orioles are still feeling each other out and determining how many years and dollars it will take.


That's all I got from the broadcast.

The contract that Baltimore previously couldn't stomach? $100M over 7 years, according to Jim Street.

In my last post I wrote about the different ways to interpret a recent Prospect Insider update:

UPDATE: 2:37 PM - Prospect Insider's Jason Churchill is expecting this deal to be done before the weekend, according to his sidebar. He went on to say that "the same Orioles rep that gave me the trade offer details has told me Angelos has told McPhail he's fine with the trade as long as extending Erik Bedard is not a realistic option at this point." (Thanks Rob T.)

You could look at that quote two ways. Patrick thinks that it could be bad news, considering Bedard's quotes in which he mentioned that he'd be open to an extension. I see it as good news, because Bedard also said he didn't want to be part of a rebuilding effort. What do you think?

It looks like Patrick had the better guess, assuming Fordin's reporting is correct.

It's strange that we can have so many conflicting reports in such a short period of time. As I was transcribing these quotes BBT contributor Dustin Shires let me know that Tim Kurkjian was on ESPN and was saying something along the lines that the deal makes too much sense, both teams are in too deep, and it's inevitable now. He further paraphrased Kurkjian by telling me, "the Orioles need to take the deal. Adam Jones can be a superstar in the league. He's young, and can have a team built around his potential."

As if these rumors weren't already a mess...

I'm sure we'll have more for you later.