My initial reaction upon hearing this:

"If the real world was more like wrestling, at the press conference to announce this trade, Jim Hendry would rip off his suit and tie to reveal a Cardinals shirt and then proceed to give Stone Cold Stunners to the entire Ricketts family and then down a case of Busch Lights with Albert Pujols."

Every deal he has made for the last 4 years, not involving someone named Theodore Roosevelt, has made us worse*

(*not actual statistic, just gut reaction while typing with blind rage)

Then I did some more sleuthing through Silva's stats and I figured it out. LOU HAD TO BE BEHIND THIS. As we all know, Sweet Uncle Lou is... to put this kindly, not very fond of Walks. The ONLY stat in all of Carlos Silva's numbers that points to anything remotely positive is his BB/9. He has the lowest walks per 9 innings of anyone in baseball.

And that, my friends, is apparently worth the career era of 4.72...

UPDATE: Sullivan says the Mariners are throwing in $9MM which essentially makes us owe Silva 2.5 this year and 11.5 next year. So.. We're basically saving 7 million. I no longer know how I feel. My blind rage has turned to confusion.