As of 9:30 PM Pacific on Thursday night the 31st, I’m being told that the deal is indeed the 5-for-1 I originally reported earlier this week.

Could see an announcement as early as Friday, or it could drag on until Monday, but it doesn’t seem that anything else is going to hold things up.

By the way, Mariners fans. Don’t let Orioles fans talk smack. They are as inept as any franchise in the game and even though McPhail is robbing Bavasi in this trade, the Orioles are years from contention, as they have been since they ran Pat Gillick out of town more than 10 years ago.

So if they want to be happy about losing 90+ games for two more years, that’s fine, let them. They should be happy about getting a really good deal for their team, but they should not talk as if the Orioles are all of a sudden on the right track.

We’ll have fun destroying them for the next, oh, probably three or four years, because no matter how bad the Bedardless 2010 and 2011 Mariners might be, the O’s are very likely to be even worse.

Ya see, even when Bedard leaves Seattle via free agency, if they don’t grossly overpay him to stay, the Mariners will still have something that will always give them the upper hand over other terrible franchises.

Bob Engle, who gave M’s fans Felix Hernandez.

Even with Bedard in Baltimore, Seattle is better than Baltimore for the next four years.

So even though this trade sucks, and the Mariners GM and CEO are among the very worst executives in all of sports, the team on the field is what matters most, and Baltimore has nothing on the Mariners for the foreseeable future.

Which brings me to one last thing.

Poor Adam Jones.

As soon as the deal is made official, I have a full scouting report on Bedard ready to go. it’s probably the most extensive SR I have ever put together, thanks to the two coaches and two scouts that shared their detailed thoughts on Bedard, his arsenal and his mechanics.

For all their efforts to shore up the starting rotation, the Seattle Mariners offense needs help, too. That might mean that they have to get improved production from those already residing in Mariners Blue.

It’s all in the hips.

Mindless movie entertainment anyone?

Adage aside, a look at the swing of Mariner’s second baseman Jose Lopez will reveal much about the guy on whom we’re pinning more than a few hopes. I’ll refer you to mlb.com, where video archives will provide you with many of Lopez’s highlights.

You’ll see primarily home runs, crucial base-hits, and the occasional flash of leather. But let’s just focus on hitting.

I call on you, the fan, to follow along from highlight to highlight and join me in playing “baseball scout.” Anything you already know about hitting will be useful. A small background in rotational physics is certainly nice too. Either way, I’ll try to fill in the details as I go.

[The games in question are as follows, in case you’d like to watch as we analyze]

May 5th, 2007 @ NYY, May 15th, 2007 vs. LAA, May 24th, 2007 @ TB, May 25th, 2007 @ KC, June 3rd, 2007 vs. Tex, June 11th, 2007 @ Cle

Using a readily available source in helping me analyze Lopez’s swing, we went through each of these clips and more, then watched those of several stars, such as Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, for points of comparison. Also, because we’re nerds.

Immediately, St. John’s University’s starting center fielder Michael Aicardi noticed some flaws. The Red Storm hitting coach, John Quintell, has been passing Aicardi and the rest of the Red Storm the wisdom he received from Ted Williams himself, lending credibility to his knowledge of the basics of a baseball swing.

“He leads with his top hand, rather than letting his hips lead the bat through the zone,” Aircardi pointed out. “The first two swings were excellent. The next four were obviously wrong. It’s a tendency a lot of aggressive hitters have; trying to use their hands to pull the bat forward and get to the ball faster.”

According to Aicardi, who hit .349 as a reserve last season, a truly sound swing occurs when the hips lead the hands to the point of contact by the simple virtue of a batter’s turning body. Many of us associate the hands and arms as the driving force of bat speed, so much so as to credit a hitter “getting his arms extended” as something positive (I’m looking at you Tim McCarver).

More in-depth evaluations, however, turn up evidence to the contrary.

“What a lot of hitting guys are teaching now is that if you are looking to extend your arms all the time, more often that not you’ll reduce your torque, eliminate bat speed, make contact on pitches away from your body and out of the zone and ultimately produce a lot more weak grounders and infield pops,” said an American League scout.

“Getting full extension can be good, still, but it absolutely should not be the objective. There are far more advanced philosophies these days.”

“Extension circumvents much of the power in a batter’s swing,” Aicardi continued. For one, a batter’s arms are much less stable when extended away from his body.”

This can easily be shown by trying to push a friend’s extended arms down, versus having them bent close to his or her body.

But on top of that, extension increases a batter’s rotational inertia, also known as the resistance against acceleration. While one can learn that from a college physics course and quickly looking up the simple formula for rotational inertia, anyone can immediately see why.

Rotational inertia increases proportionally with the increase in an object’s rotational radius. A report by Steve Phillips of ESPN (aired during Baseball Tonight this past season) touches on the very same concept in busting the “extension myth.”

- Further research revealed more into why the hands must always “stay back,” provided by Batspeed.com

The mechanics of a baseball swing can be described by the “double pendulum” model of physics. Most of us know about pendulums, but a double pendulum carries its own characteristics of motion. Batspeed.com describes the hands as one pendulum while the bat head takes on the role of a second. According to the physics of angular motion, the second pendulum will accelerate when the first pendulum achieves a circular path of motion.

Fans at home can also demonstrate this by attaching a blunt object to string and then attempting to twirl it. Use your hands in a circular path first, then compare it to a linear path - preferably while inside your house and within a close proximity of expensive or valuable objects.

For the bat head to gain speed the hands must stay within a circular path, from the initial opening of the hips to the follow-through immediately after contact. Should the hands fall out of the circular path at any time, before and up to the point of contact, the bat head immediately loses speed and the force of contact decreases considerably.

It’s much easier to see now how the natural turn of a hitter’s body (and not the arms or wrists) controls the speed of the bat by providing the circular path for the hands to follow. It also becomes increasingly easy to see how Lopez’s hands begin to lead out in front more and more as the season wears on. Think about it, the hands start in the back, and then lead into the front. Is that circular, or is that linear?

“I’m not really familiar with Lopez,” said Aicardi, “but I do know aggressive hitters have a hard time keeping a consistent swing. Better fastballs give them trouble because their hands pull forward to meet the ball quicker, but that not only takes power away, it commits the bat into the zone before the hitter even knows where the point of contact will be. Slower pitches in the zone feed right into a nice, smooth swing correctly led by the hips.”

The main point to gather from that last statement is that pitches outside the zone do no such thing.

Aggressive hitters like Lopez tend to chase pitches, if only because they simply exhibit less discrimination between the good offerings and the not-so good. A lot of slugger types will chase and miss completely (Richie Sexson, for example) and it’s actually where a lot of strikeouts are taken. But ultimately, even if contact can be made outside the zone, the extension that would have to occur to do so takes away much of the leverage produced by a hitter’s body.

So says Aicardi…

“You see all the time in televised games how analysts draw the straight line through a batter’s head and body during a side view of someone’s swing. That’s called the power position, and almost always the hands start at the back hip. If the hands stay back, the point of contact will be at the peak of the swing, right through the center of the zone.”

In other words, the longer the hands stay within the body’s circular path, the more bat speed that will be generated.

“But if your hands come forward, like he has the tendency to do, your arms extend and your hands become separated from the body. All that torque generated from your core becomes less of a factor because you’re relying more on your wrists and arms to provide the power, when in reality they aren’t all that powerful on their own.”

It’s obvious to see how chasing pitches outside the strike zone limits your ability to make good contact. Throw in the fact that in those cases when the batter chases, the power position simultaneously breaks down and you’re basically combining a poor contact rate with a weak swing.

“A lot of strikeouts if you’re a free-swinging slugger.”

And if you’re a contact hitter who rarely strikes out?

“A lot of turnover ground balls, lazy flies.”

And Lopez’s hitting chart from mlb.com supports that, particularly at Safeco Field.

But apparently, the issue goes even further than that.

“What you’ll see in the side view of good swings is called the hitter’s diamond. The top-hand arm, also the lagging arm, forms the bottom of the diamond while the lead arm forms the top half. The most important part is the top hand arm, and you’ll notice almost every time that it’s bent, not extended.”

Aicardi goes on to describe that the bent arm acts as a strong, “compressed” spring, designed to help the batter power through the pitch at the point of contact.

“From contact to follow-through, that arm literally extends only 2-3 inches and really occurs in an instant upon contact.”

Elite hitters show a perfect hitter’s diamond on almost every swing, regardless of the quadrant in which the ball is thrown.

“You look at hitters like Alex Rodriguez and Pujols and Barry Bonds, and you notice no matter where the pitch is, as long as it’s in the zone or close enough to it, the swing is always the same, the diamond is always in tact. The amount of contact may vary, but the strength of the swing does not.”

What a hitter is essentially doing is completely removing a variable from the equation.

“That’s really your difference between power guys who hit .300 and those who hit .270.”

And perhaps it’s also the difference between a .250 hitting, medium powered middle infielder and a .270 hitting above-average powered Jose Lopez.

Notice he made the comment about power bats. Then think about players like Ichiro, who have a very unorthodox swing and little power in which to speak, but still manage to out produce players like Lopez day-in and day-out.

Their remedy? Speed, of course. The problem with Lopez is that his below-average wheels do not translate into a whole lot of infield hits or even extra bases. Also keep in mind that while Ichiro’s swing gives some scouts nightmares, he rarely employs it to pitches that aren’t close, allowing his superior bat control to essentially place the ball where he wants. Lopez doesn’t carry those tools, or any remotely close to it.

“There are some talents that are so unique that you throw the book out and leave them alone,” said one former big-league first baseman who is now an advanced scout for an AL West rival. “Ichiro is one of those, surely, and so was Rod Carew.”

“I can’t imagine anyone has a combination of tools like Ichiro does, let alone Lopez,” Aicardi said.

Lopez’s swing has instead been developed for power, so much so that Mariners officials are banking on him becoming an annual 20 HR hitter, and soon.

The immediate prognosis?

“Judging by these clips,” Aicardi opined, “his top hand doesn’t cheat so much that it’ll completely remove his function as a hitter, so long as he’s staying on pitches in the zone.”

Even with poor swings, any pitch can be driven 350 feet if it’s placed correctly. A more selective approach may lead to a few more strikeouts, but would probably yield better results on batted balls.

But therein lies the problem. If his swing warrants an approach that he doesn’t have, you end up with seasons like 2007. and if that weren’t bad enough, it turns out most pitchers are pretty smart these days. They had no problem wringing Jose Lopez for all the easy outs they could muster, and that will certainly continue if the Venezuelan native doesn’t make the proper adjustments.

Some would argue that many contact hitters consistently perform at a high level. In fact, a new theory suggests that with a little luck, Lopez could quite easily hit .300 in a season with a few more “dying quails” or well placed pop-ups, being that he strives to make contact so often.

Some of you fellow statheads will point to the consistency of the league-wide BABIP (That’s batting average of balls in play, if you’re wondering), which generally hovers around .290.

But that statistic really only applies to pitchers, those who see the full spectrum of quality in major league batsmen, versus one batter who has a generally poor approach at the plate, regardless of who he’s facing.

So what do the Mariners do?

The fact is they haven’t been able to develop strong offensive talent from within since the days of Alex Rodriguez.

To the contrary, several players blossomed only upon leaving Seattle, Asdrubal Cabrera, Scott Podsednik, even Raul Ibanez. There’s a reason for all of that. And no, not just because of poor scoutingand player development

In the same way Lopez needs a change in approach, the Mariners need a change in philosophy. Even a slew of poor drafts can’t excuse a system vacuously hording talent for over a decade. The truth stands that as you look through the dozens of prospects that have passed through Seattle since the new millennium, one statistic always seems to stand out by being way too low.

And that’s walks.

Plate discipline isn’t a perfect science, but “walks drawn” is a decent indicator of patience, and more importantly, pitch recognition. Other good indicators can be found on a player’s stats page, under “situational stats” for 2007. There, you can find a comparison of statistics by count.

When there’s no count, Lopez is hitting .362 and slugging .594. Thinking about how often pitchers want that 0-1 count, it’s pretty obvious Lopez is getting plenty to hit on the first pitch. That, first of all, really only shows me how well he can handle pitches in the zone.

When he’s worked the count to 2-0, Lopez hit .294 and put up a .510 slugging percentage and an OPS of .947. At 2-1, despite hitting .238, he managed to slug .571. Again, these are high-leverage situations and more likely to induce pitching within the hitting zone. In turn, Lopez hits well in these situations.

At 3-0, almost no one swings - only 7.5% league wide - and neither did Lopez. Perhaps more telling, however, was that he only managed this count six times - all season.

At 3-1, he hit just .136, but still managed an OBP of .406 by virtue of 10 walks – half of his season total of 20. It seems pitchers wouldn’t mind walking him (he hits 7th or 8th, after all), but Lopez helps them out by not laying off pitches when he should. A called second strike in this case might benefit him, as:

With a full count, Lopez hit .313 with an OBP of .405.

What are some other high-leverage situations?

With the bases loaded, Lopez had six hits in nine at-bats.

If it were up to the Mariners, he’d improve both. The swing would be sound, consistent, mechanically correct, and selective to pitches over the plate. And, every once in a while, he’d let the opposition know that the phrase “ball four” isn’t his secret self-destruct code.

What would it take to do this?

Practice. Lots of it, every day.

And I’m talking about extra practice - the kind that keeps you above the rest of the league, not with it. Cincinnati’s Joey Votto takes dozens of extra reps everyday to keep his swing in check, and now he’s a bonafide future star.

Shocking, huh?

A drill one might suggest is the “Edgar Martinez special,” which is to have numbers written on tennis balls or baseballs during batting practice, and try to call out each number as you see them, just before you drive them into dust. Not only does your swing become more consistent, you begin to discern a pitch’s rotation ahead of time. That’s what leads to recognition, and eventually discipline.

Worked for Edgar.

“His work ethic has come into question a lot when I’ve asked about him,” said the rival scout. “His conditioning, his willingness to see new things through, give ideas a chance. Jeff (Pentland) is a good teacher and a good communicator and if he (Lopez) isn’t any better by now, it’s the player. And I don’t believe he’s simply incapable.

“Slow bat, yes. But there’s a reason for that, too.”

Without some sort of drill or Edgar-cise, it’s difficult to visualize any significant improvement over Lopez’s current career baseline of .265/.300/.375. High leverage counts aren’t available very often in the majors, unless the hitter creates them for himself. Lopez, at this point in time, will be hard pressed to earn them.

And by then we may be seeing Yung Chi Chen, Miguel Cairo or even Tug Hulett at the keystone’s right side.

And considering the job status of the front office, probably sooner rather than later.

Jonathan Aircardi is a new addition to the Prospect Insider staff and will be offering prospect and player analysis as well as thoughts and ideas on the Seattle Mariners. You can reach Jonathan via email at Aircardi@ProspectInsider.com

I did some leg work to see if anyone else I knew could fill in the gaps since the last time any significant news came down the pipe on the Erik Bedard-Adam Jones scenario, and while there wasn’t much to stir up, I did dig up a few fresh nuggets.

One club’s representative says the latest he heard was that Baltimore was waiting for Seattle to either agree to include Brandon Morrow or Carlos Triunfel in the package along with Adam Jones and George Sherrill, or for the Reds to start their package with Jay Bruce.

I pushed hard to see if the Orioles were truly only interested in what Cincinnati had to offer if Bruce was included and the response I got was “yes, unless they want to gut their system.”

This tells me that the Reds have not agreed to a Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto, Joey Votto and a fourth player deal.

Another league source claims he spoke with someone close to the situation in Baltimore and got the impression that Seattle was likely to cave on Morrow before agreeing to include Triunfel in any trade, but that no progress involving the right-hander had been achieved.

The most intriguing information I got this morning is from a former front office member of one of the teams involved. He says the Orioles gave the Mariners a once-and-for-all type counter offer (apparently to the Jones-Clement-Sherrill offer Seattle is thought to have made) and if Triunfel or Morrow are not included, the Orioles will shut down talks.

He also says that this type of act by one side often forces the other to either turn away completely or fall for the move and give in.

He predicts the Mariners will introduce Bedard at a press conference Thursday, “if not well before” and that the Mariners will certainly have vastly overpaid in the deal.

When asked what kind of package he’d be willing to part with if he were the Mariners, this is what he came up with.

“Nothing involving Jones, and no deal that has two of their best guys in it. Not Clement and Morrow, not Clement and Triunfel. I might do Clement and the other outfielder, Balentien, but Baltimore wants pitching. Clement or Balentien plus Tillman or Butler. I’d do that.”

For the record, my offer would start and end this way:

Wladimir Balentien OR Brandon Morrow OR Jeff Clement, plus Tony Butler, George Sherrill and one of the following three — Adam Moore, Kameron Mickolio or Michael Saunders. Although I’d include any two of the latter three if the Orioles put newly-acquired left-hander Troy Patton or right-hander Pedro Beato into the deal, too.

Otherwise, the club runs a ridiculously high risk of acquiring Bedard and finishing in second place for two more seasons, watching Bedard sign with the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Mets or Blue Jays while Jones and company come into their own as key members of the Orioles 25-man roster.

In my conversation with a friend of mine that works with the Mets, he asked me to describe a scenario where I would make a deal for Bedard that included Jones or Triunfel.

I painted in two Beltre or better level bats, at least one a lefty, that were assets defensively at first base (in place of Sexson) and in a corner outfield spot (in place of Ibanez, who moves to DH).

Then the offense and the defense are ready to support what would be a pretty solid staff with a rather nasty 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation.

But since the offense has just a good a shot to finish in the bottom third as it does the top half (see potential declines from Ibanez, Johjima and Vidro, and more bad offense by Lopez and Sexson,) and the outfield defense could be wretched in the corners, I absolutely cannot figure out a scenario where the current roster plus Bedard seriously contends with the 2008 Los Angeles Angels, who, by the way, may not be done bettering their roster, too.

Far too many things would have to go right. Most of which could easily be deemed “unlikely” by objective observers.

And for those who keep telling me “if they get Bedard and need more offense, they can still go get it since it’s only January,” well, tell me who they can go get? There isn’t a single impact bat - outside Barry Bonds whom the club won’t consider signing - on the free agent market and the trade route might bare even fewer and less attractive options.

And even if there was a perfect trade target, you’d have to further gut your system or trade from the 25-man roster in order to get a deal done.

Seattle is so close to being in a position to make moves, such as the Bedard idea, it’s just a year or two early. Think a year or two from right now as the Halos get old and their key guys get to free agency, and when the Rays are trading Scott Kazmir or the Rockies are entertaining offers for Jeff Francis, Ubaldo Jimenez or Franklin Morales.

At that point, the M’s will know what they have in Chris Tillman, have a better idea of what Butler, Juan Ramirez and Phillippe Aumont are going to be, and won’t have to consider Triunfel a high-risk talent since he’s likely to see Double-A in 2008.

There are almost always certain prospects that each club should protect, particularly in this day and age where the free agent market is what it is. And most of those with such value are usually on the brink of the big leagues.

The Yankees have Joba Chamberlain. The Red Sox have Clay Buchholz. The LA Dodgers have Clayton Kershaw while the Cincinnati Reds have Jay Bruce.

And the Seattle Mariners have Adam Jones.

I have it on pretty good authority that the Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles may very well be making significant progress on a trade involving left-hander Erik Bedard.

Unfortunately, if you are an M’s fan, the word is that the Mariners may agree to include Carlos Triunfel in a deal along with Adam Jones, and perhaps one other player (George Sherrill, most likely), due to their stance on trading Brandon Morrow.

I did not get this info from a source directly involved in the talks, but it was relayed to me through a mutual source of one more directly involved.

If the Mariners send Jones, Triunfel and Sherrill to Baltimore and the return is simply Erik Bedard without Brian Roberts or other valuable pieces, the Soriano-Ramirez trade will be buried by this monster of a mistake.

But, what else is new? This is not a smart baseball team and this would be yet another blunder as they continue to believe they were an 88-win team last year and are building on the team as a result.

Updates coming as I get them, and I’m already making calls to scouts to get reactions to such a deal, should it go through.