It wasn’t the greatest trade in baseball history, but it might go down as one of the best the Orioles have made.

On Feb. 9 the team shipped ace Erik Bedard to Seattle for reliever George Sherrill, outfielder Adam Jones and pitching prospects Chris Tillman, Tony Butler and Kam Mickolio. It was looked at as a small step in the right direction for a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 1997.

Now, it appears more like a quantum leap.

The Orioles were 48-53 entering the weekend, but have exceeded expectations for a team that many analysts believed would lose more than 100 games. The Orioles were 47-54 at this point last season.

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Seattle, which entered the season with one of the highest payrolls in the league, was 10 games over .500 at this point last year. The Mariners enter this weekend 38-63, tied for the worst record in the majors.

The deal has made Andy McPhail, the Orioles’ president of baseball operations, look like a genius.

But the deal cost Bill Bavasi, the general manager of the Mariners, his job. He was fired earlier this season because of his team’s poor play.

“Trading future value for present value makes sense when it puts a team into contention or vaults them over a competitor or two,” ESPN analyst Keith Law said of the trade. “But the Mariners aren’t doing that.”