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Before my time.  But, as I noted over at MC, while I don't think Gillick's position is wrong in the abstract, I think it is wrong when done to excess.  What did Gillick leave the club with on the farm when he left?  How many licks does it take to get to the bottom of the Farm System rankings? 
The "what if" games have no answers.  But how much less of an impact would the Bedard trade have had on the Mariner farm if Gillick hadn't been so willing to (and here is the key word), REPEATEDLY toss aside the late first rounders?  Aardsma was a late first rounder.  They do succeed. 
If there's a variable that gets lost in the shuffle here is that while the odds of the late firster turning into something special is low ... when you find one who does succeed, you've got him CHEAP and under club control for some time.  Whereas, the FA, by the very nature of the beast is going to be expensive, and typically expensive for multiple years. 
The hidden cost of the type A signing is FLEXIBILITY.  Bavasi trapped the team into building around Beltre and Sexson.  I've argued repeatedly that ORDER matters.  If you sign the type-A guys EARLY in the process, you lose the positional AND payroll flexibility that is there in doing things the other way around.