I disagree with you on Seattle. The Mariners are #1 in the AL in Runs Scored. So, you take the best offensive team in the league, give them the #4 Runs Allowed team in the AL, and you win a lot of games.

As to great pitching, haven't we all seen teams at or below .500 with Clemens, Mussina, Wells, Johnson as their front four? I know I have. As for trading Randy Johnson, if I had him I'd trade him for any of the major guys, A-Rod, Chipper, Andruw Jones, etc. Pedro is just so good that you can't compare him to anybody. He is somewhere around 25% better than the next-best guy. So to compare, we'd need a guy with a .600 OBP and 80 home runs.