John Fay Thinks The Reds Are Still In On Bedard

that Bedard had some significant jumps in his numbers last season, especially K/9, whip, and ERA?

Or that he's never come close to pitching 210-220 innings in a season?

Dan le Batard too.

that his OPS against tends to be high at the beginning and the end of the season. You can probably chalk up March/April to rust, but his August/September spike, together with his sub-200 inning routine, might indicate problems with stamina (?)

I suppose worth noting he's another Oriole and, therefore, was a teammate of David Segui, Brian Roberts, Jay Gibbons, Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Matthews and Jason Grimsley.
 

Hello Reds fans. This is zknower from over at camden chat. Here are a couple things you should know about Bedard in the past couple of years that won't show in the stats:

1. In 2006, Kris Benson taught Bedard how to throw a changeup. Bedard has largely credited this event with helping him to "break through" (and has made little mention of Leo Mazzone, for those of you who are worried about Bedard away from Leo). His ascent didn't really happen in 2007. It happened in the latter half of 2006. In the latter half of '06, he had an ERA of 2.85, with 96 strikeouts over 101 innings. He basically kicked ass, and we were all drooling about what Bedard might be like the following year.
2.  In 2007 Bedard took all the tools he'd acquired and added confidence. He'd had Kevin Millar whispering in his ear for some time that he could dominate and he began to do just that. He stopped pitching around guys and started going after them with his stuff—and his stuff is filthy.

The biggest knock on him is his pitch count: it's always high, because to strike out 11 batters per 9 innings, you have to throw a lot of pitches.

What does Bedard give you? Pretty much a guranteed lead handed to your bullpen in the seventh inning every fifth day. Kinda like Pedro.

Here are some other things to think about:

• Bedard's numbers come in a division where he plays the Yankees and Red Sox 19 times each every year
• They also come in a hitters' ballpark
• Bedard's stats are comparable to or better than Santana's for 2007. His ERA is lower (3.16 vs 3.33), his WHIP is about equal (1.08 vs 1.07), his BAA is lower (.212 vs .225). If he doesn't strain his oblique muscle, he pretty much walks away with the Cy Young this year. He led in strikeouts until late September despite the fact that he stopped pitching in August.
• Did I mention that he owned the Yankees (2-0, 1.29 in 3 starts) and Red Sox (1-0, 3.29 in 2 starts) this year?

No one know about our beloved Érik because he plays for the Orioles (if he plays for a less crappy team, he wins 18-20 games in 2007). But I assure you he's the real deal. He's the kind of guy you empty your prospect list for. He's really the kind of guy teams never trade...unless they need to blow things up completely, which the Orioles must. Plus, they know he wants to go somewhere where he can compete sooner than 2010, and Baltimore is not that place. Someone will sign him for $6M or $7M a year for 4-5 years, and compared to Santana, that's a huge bargain.

Bedard is a pitcher who will take a close team over the top. And propects are.... just that. Prospects. Some of the top-rated guys don't pan out. You know it. I know it. MacPhail knows it.

So he'll wait until someone empties their bank account, because, at $3M per year, Bedard is a helluva bargain for whomever picks him up, even if they only get him for two years. We're in no rush. If no one wants to bid what he's worth in December, someone who can taste the pennant will do it next July.

Only by then, he'll have a dominant first-half-of-2008 behind him. So the price may be a little higher.

Great blog you have over here; hope you didn't mind my stopping in.

as I mentioned above I'm not sure his "track record" is all that "proven." His 2007 season was awesome, but is it the beginning of a dominant stretch or a career outlier?

If he were to fall back to his 05 or 06 form, will 2 years of Bedard have been worth giving up 4 to 5 years of cheap Bailey and Votto? I just don't think this is a slam dunk, and the fact that Bruce's name has even been mentioned scares the fuck out of me.

So, are the Reds willing to part with 3 of top 50 prospects in all of baseball for 2 years of Erik Bedard?

All that said, you've got to like Bedard's chances of dominating the NL Central after battling in the AL East.

That's why we have so many OFs, what with Hobbs and Jr. and Freel. I don't think you put injury into the equation unless Bedard has a history of injuries. Which, I understand, that he does not.

When you have two young prospects, you're one injury away from having only one prospect and two injuries away from having none...

there's so little good pitching out there.

Thanks for that.  What a classic.

The Yankees were in desperate need of a center fielder then.  And the only reason Cano and Wang were still in the Yankees system was that nobody thought they'd ever amount to anything.  Otherwise, they'd have been traded.  (They were both part of an offer for Randy Johnson; the D-backs didn't want them.)

Two days after that post, Robby Cano made his Yankees debut.  (By the next year, he was an All-Star and Wang a Cy Young runner up.)  

The Yankees went with a combo of Tony Womack and Bernie Williams in CF.  (Tony freakin' Womack.  He's not even an outfielder.)  Until September, when Bubba starting getting playing time.  Including the game of his life.  Against Erik Bedard, no less.  ;-)

I remember when he was traded.  Yankees fans were in an uproar. They loved him.

Claussen is a six-year minor league free agent now.  His poor performance last year is hardly a surprise.  He had surgery on his rotator cuff and labrum.  It takes time to recover from that kind of thing.  If you recover at all.  

The Washington Reds/Nats of course...

are desperate. Maybe they're getting word that Reds may really be close to getting Bedard, so they come up with some trade idea to distract the Orioles from their Reds talks.

Anyway, I don't think there's any way the Cards can beat what the Reds could put on the table. But the Cards could end up forcing the Reds into paying more for Bedard.

As long as the Reds don't give up Cueto or Bruce, I'd be pretty OK with a Bedard trade.

...Haren will be a lot more expensive than Bedard.

Their stats aside, Beane has a reputation for being difficult to deal with.  He's reportedly asked the Yankees for the same package they offered for Santana.

There's also the fact that two of the likely highest bidders are out of the Bedard race.  The Yankees would love to sign Bedard, and I suspect the Sox would, too, but the Orioles won't trade him within the division.

as noted above, Bedard came off of TJ surgery in 2004 and took some time to find his control. In 2005, his Ks were good, but his walks were high.

His WHIP for all of 2006 was 1.35, but his WHIP from July on (after he learned the changeup...again, see above) was 1.25, and his K/BB numbers were 96/33.

In other words, his "breakout year" was really a year and a half.

Also, Bedard throws the ball with his left hand. This is seen as a positive thing by a lot of people.

Haren's numbers are certainly impressive. But in 2007, Bedard had 30 more strikeouts in 40 fewer innings, and (as I've said before) had to face some of the league's best players more than your average bear. Strikeouts may not be your thing, but they sure make a difference when you're trying to get out of a jam.

You're right that Bedard is arb-eligible AND that he becomes a FA in two years. The nod goes to Haren on those points.

Whatever else he is, I would argue that Bedard has far surpassed the label of "outlier".

Unless the Reds are willing to pay Freel's salary, but even then I think the Reds would have to add another bat, like Rosales or maybe someone like Dorn.  Even then, I still have my doubts that they'd take it.  My guess is that the deal has to include at least two of Bruce, Bailey, Votto, or Cueto and another prospect from the 5-15 range on Sickels list.  Since they have 2 years left on Bedard, the only impetus to trade him now is that the possibility of injury or a down year could lower his value.

We should be searching for a solid starter, but what is the point if we trade a starter(bailey/cueto)?  I hope Krivsky knows his bargaining chips are his offensive weapons and that he should keep the arms at home.

The Reds had 28 games with blown saves last year, but they won 10 of those games.  That would mean they would need to win 10 of the other 18 to make that change in the record that you are assuming.  That would be one hell of an improvement.  I think it's more likely that Cordero improves the Reds by 5 games or so.

the other day we had a O's fan talk about how great Bedard is and what we'd be recieving. It sounded extremely impressive. But then I thought back to instances in which the reds were conducting a fire sale of such and how everyone overvalues thier own players. Its how we all remember Kearns as top level major leaguer when his numbers the last few year don't make that arguement. I agree that Bedard numbers look good however thinking a about that O's fan got me thinking about how upset I was when sweatherpants made the trade and what those guys have done since.