Prepare Yourself For Bedard Trade

So I was on record heading into this season that I was actually rather optimistic about Erik Bedard, writing about it here on the Log and over at RotoHardball.com. He was kind enough to make me not look like a total moron and has gone on to post a 3.00 ERA and a 8.5 K/9 over 90 innings pitched. Yeah, he's on the disabled list right now, but it's a knee issue and nothing related to the part of the body that helps him sling baseballs.

He's been a huge part of any moderate success that this team has had in 2011, and surely they would be a much better team if he stuck around (and was healthy) for the remainder of the year.

But Mariner fans, we need to prepare for the Erik Bedard trade because it's very, very likely. Why?

• The Mariners are not going to the playoffs in 2011. They're just not. I'm sorry. It simply makes no sense to hang on to your best trade chip when you have gaping holes in your organization and you're building for the future just because you want to try and win 80 games. 
• He's on a one year contract, so it's not like we have him retained on the cheap for years to come. In fact, there's nothing that says we can't re-sign him in the offseason even if we do trade him now. But he's not an albatross contract, so that ought to drive up the asking price a bit since clubs won't be taking on some mess of a contract just because they're making a push for the playoffs.
• This is really a best-case scenario when it comes to Bedard because he's been very successful and he's not hurt. Yet. Why wait for his shoulder to finally crap out again? Deal him now, wish him well, and he's someone else's training table problem. 
• Yes, this is the "year of the pitcher" so there aren't a ton of teams that are dying for starters, but teams that are still in the playoff hunt that could really use a guy like Bedard for the second half include the Reds, Indians, Rockies, and Red Sox. I could even see a scenario where the Yankees get involved even though they really don't need him.

Now, what we get back is obviously the biggest question. This team as it's currently built isn't going to realistically contend even next year unless they get some major-league-ready talent soon. But the Mariners very clearly need offense, and they need it badly in the outfield, at catcher, and at third base. And they need them to be ready to contribute next season, with the goal to be competitive by 2013.

Erik Bedard - you've been really great this season. But keep your bag packed.

Seattle Mariners Spring Update

I'm all therapy'd up and ready to roll

So our beloved Mariners are now 13-7, the bats have started to rattle a bit, and the pitching staff is starting to come together. I don't know about you, but this has been the fastest Spring Training in recent memory - perhaps that's just because I'm so busy. But damn if these M's don't look like they're ready to not lose 90-plus games again! Hopefully those aren't the words that Wedge uses to inspire. 

Anyway, with that in mind, let's take a quick peek at what we have headed into the final stretch before the big April Fools Day where Felix shuts down the Athletics.

• Ichiro: Awesome
• Figgins, hitting .361 with a pair of doubles, 7 RBI and 4 stolen bases.  
• Bradley, hitting .355 with a home run, 10 RBI, 4 doubles, and only 6 strikeouts in 31 AB's.
• Cust, hitting .255 with 3 HR's, 9 RBI and a whopping 19 K's in 47 AB's.  Yep, that's about what we expected.
• Adam Moore, .381 with two doubles, a triple, and 7 walks in 21 AB's. This is encouraging.

On the pitching side:

• Jamey Wright has unfortunately been impossible to hit, so he probably makes the team
• Josh Lueke has been very, very good - likely makes the team
• Vargas and Fister both still oddly effective in their how-did-they-do-that way
• Bedard appears really ready to go with a 1.69 ERA over 10 2/3 IP with 10K's and 3 BB.  Please oh please give us half a season to trade you, Erik.  
• Laffey has zero strikeouts over 6 IP since coming over from Cleveland. I don't know about you, but I want the M's to trade for Kevin Slowey so we can have Laffey and Slowey on the same team.  We could market some kind of Mariner Smurf bobblehead "Laffey Smurf" "Slowey Smurf" "Figgy Smurf" "Grumpy Smurf" (Bradley, of course). And the two smurfs that nobody wants to party with, "Fister Smurf" and "Frenchy Smurf".
• Luke French and David Pauley are battling for the best AAAA starter in camp, with Frenchy currently leading 1.13 ERA to 1.29.

Oh, and you've likely read that Jack Wilson moves to 2B and Ryan is our starting SS. Look for that tandem to turn some sweet double plays and combine for 6 HR's. One wonders if having Wilson at 2B provides the team a nice excuse to rush Ackley once Wilson goes down with a (insert body part) injury in May. We'll see.

Watch what happens on the whole Ring, Wilhelmsen, Delcarmen front... that ought to be an interesting narrative down the stretch here.  Geoff Baker has a pretty good rundown of the complexities of roster building for the M's right now relative to who has options, who is on the 40-man roster, etc.

Go M's.

Bullish on Bedard?

This is an odd post for me to write.  I'm certainly much more associated with skepticism than optimism, and without a doubt, when it comes to Erik Bedard, I'm not the first person on the "woo hoo we have two aces" bandwagon, and one surely exists.

Regarding Bedard, I've always maintained that whatever you get from him, whether it's 3 games or 10 games, you should consider yourself lucky - and this opinion was grounded entirely in my own suspicion that he'll get hurt again and the notion that you simply can't plan around a healthy Bedard because that would be just downright stupid.

So taking a step back, Bedard signs a very team-friendly-deal for 2011 out of apparent loyalty to the M's and an interest in showing the fans he can give a little back after Buzz's kid gave away the farm for him.  Awfully nice of him, really.  Low cost, high risk, but potentially high reward.  Super duper.  I'm all for it.

But again, there's this:

26, 24, 33, 28, 15, 15, ZERO.  Those are number of starts since 2004.  He has one full season, and three "almosts".  He has been hurt way more than he has been healthy, and that's why Bedard garners the eye-rolls among baseball enthusiasts.

I know the internet-snarky way to go is to just laugh at Bedard, and suggest anyone who thinks he can contribute is a fool because it's better to be wrong than right if you're a fan.  People who have false hopes can look silly in hindsight, and that's kind of how I always approached Bedard as well.  But after talking to BJ Maack who I write with over at RotoHardball, my tune might be changing. 

BJ knows about injuries - he's been a trainer for his professional life (19 years), and has spent time with major league baseball organizations working with players dealing with the whole range of baseball injuries. So where my opinion is just opinion based on observation and gut relative to Bedard's injuries, BJ's opinion is based on medical information and fact.  Read:  he should be trusted way more than anyone without a medical background (like me, or Paul, or anyone else who blogs about this stuff).  So on to Bedard... here's what BJ had to say:

In 2002 he had Tommy John surgery.  In 2008, he had a shoulder scope to debride/clean up some labral tissue...then last year the "big" labrum surgery.  Is there a "connect-the-dots" pattern here with the elbow & the shoulder?  Probably, but with it being 6 years apart it's not likely.  What does need to be looked at is a mechanical issue.  Something caused his arm & specifically his shoulder to be in a position to cause such wear & tear on his joint.

At which point, I referenced an article written in 2004, I think, where Will Carroll made a famous (ok, famous if you read as much as I do) statement about labrum injuries - "If pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they'd be destroyed".  Labrum tears were the death knell for pitchers.  Will Carroll knows what he's talking about too, if you're not familiar with him.  Here's what BJ said:

In the last 4-5 years, labral surgeries have come a long way, but more importantly the rehab process of allowing these things to recover.  I feel fairly confident that Bedard will be back to form...maybe not back to his 2006-2007 form...(but better than the previous two).  The thing to remember is the velocity issue.  His velocity should be back to or near that form after this procedure, as decreased velocity is almost always a sign of a full labrum tear.

So, looking at his velocity, indeed - he was throwing 92.1 in 2007, 91.2 in 2008, and 91.5 in 2009.  Not a massive drop, but notable. Would have been nice to peek at 2010 to see if it took a big hit, but reading this information from BJ is awfully encouraging. 

What we're left with is a Bedard that needs to address his mechanics, but also one who ought to be returning from a surgery with a fairly decent success rate, along with better approaches at rehab associated with labrum tears.  Changing one's mechanics is not something easy, but I'm suddenly way, way more optimistic about Bedard contributing to the 2011 Mariners than I was before. 

Recall that even in just a little over 80 innings in each of 2008 and 2009, Bedard was worth 1 WAR and almost 2 WAR, respectively.  Or put in perspective, half of Bedard in 2009 was about as valuable as an entire season of Doug Fister. 

And now I'm left to dream of getting 25-30 starts out of Bedard, and the possibility that he could be a compliment to Felix, netting us perhaps 3+ WAR on the cheap, and actually giving the squad a shot at a somewhat competitive season.  And I just know that I'm being set up for disappointment, but at least I have someone with a medical background to blame instead of my own hometown fantasies.

Go Mariners

On Bedard and what we know (we know)

So the product of arguably the worst trade in Mariner history is a free agent, rehabbing from his torn labrum surgery.  Erik Bedard is making, by all accounts, lovely progress and is anywhere from 3 to 5 months from being able to toe the rubber in game action - somewhere between April and June (which is why most say May).

How do all us Mariner fans know this? Well, he was hurt on Seattle's watch, so Rick Griffin has been keeping in close contact with him, working with him to get him healthy.

I find this arrangement curious.  Not only does Seattle get a nice report from Rick about the health of Bedard, but Bedard is also in a situation where he's working under a plan set forth by his surgeon and Rick Griffin, with Griffin providing the oversight and guidance on said plan.  Once Bedard signs with another club, that training staff gets to take over.

As one great (cough, cough) Secretary of Defense once said, "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know."

Ahem...

We know Bedard is good when he's healthy
We know we need a pitcher
We know Bedard has pitched hurt for two years
We know we have closer contact with Bedard than any other team.
We know starting pitching options are evaporating.

We don't know how much he pitched hurt the last two years.
We don't know if Bedard feels any loyalty whatsoever to the organization that paid so dearly for him.  But he may feel some kind of weird obligation to prove himself.  I wouldn't bet on it.  But you never know.
We don't know if his progress really is going well.
We don't know if Griffin knows how his progress is going, even when he says it's going well.
We don't know how much Griffin and the M's brass talk about his progress, but you have to assume it's frequent.
We don't know if Bedard is in their plans.

We do not know that we don't know that Bedard is an alien.  But that's just a guess.

Okay, enough with that.

Point is... Bedard might not pitch until June.  That probably scares clubs and likely is hurting the market for him to get a solid guaranteed contract.  Griffin might know that he's going to be ready to go in April.  If that's the case, the M's might be more likely to gamble on guaranteed money with a little less on the incentive side.

All this speculation is suggesting that I wouldn't mind it if they went ahead and made a commitment to Bedard now.  Or soon.  If they're comfortable with his progress, I say why not.  When he's healthy, he's got electric stuff. 

If he goes to the Orioles and has a fantastic year, Bill Bavasi is going to get a box of my kids excrement for a year.

Starter

Felix = yay
Cliff Lee = yay
Hyphen = uh, woo?

Then what?

Some very nice analysis over at Lookout Landing has the M's offense at about 40+ runs over last year's squad, which is just hoo-boy-dandy. But I continue to be real worried about who is going to toe the mound every 4th and 5th day.

Ryan Rowland-Smith is a lovely pitcher, but let's be honest with ourselves: if we can eek a 4.20 FIP out of the guy, we should be pretty happy. That's not bad, but when you have two giant TBA's behind him in the rotation, I'm not sure it's good enough.

If you can take a Doug Fister and replace him with a Bedard, Sheets, Wang, Myers, Davis, Smoltz, Pedro??? it allows Hyphen to become your #4 starter, and all of the AAAA guys can fight over the last spot in the rotation as they did pretty much all of last season (Vargas, Olson, French, Fister, Snell, etc.).

I doubt seriously that Smoltz or Pedro would sign here. Myers would have to come cheap because he's a health question and a major asshole. Wang, obvious health questions - but damn if his splitter/sinker wouldn't be well suited to this defensive-oriented team. Davis, kind of a Washburn prototype, just a tad better. Bedard and Sheets really emerge to me as the best investments due to their obvious upside(s).

Felix, Lee, Hyphen, Snell, Fister is not a rotation that will win the AL West with the offense we currently have. We need a guy to slot into that #3 hole.

Do it, Jack.

Bedard Business

Have to love the "Entertainment Tonight" style softball coverage MLB teams receive on MLB.com. Checkout the first paragraph of yesterday's Bedard article by Robert Falkoff:

KANSAS CITY -- The bad news for the Mariners is that left-hander Erik Bedard is expected to require six to nine months of rehabilitation following his exploratory shoulder surgery on Sept. 26. The good news is that Seattle is developing a cluster of young starters in the waning days of this season who have the potential to bolster the rotation early next year.

The real news here is that Bedard hasn't pitched since July 4th, and they are finally scheduling elbow surgery for September 26th. Those 2 1/2 months likely mean he will start the season on the DL rather than being ready for spring training. To be fair, medical issues like this are rarely black and white and there are probably legitimate reasons why the team and Bedard waited this long. Had he been able to come back and make a start or two it would have gone a long way to help the Mariners deal him for two buckets of baseballs in the offseason. At this point one bucket seems like a stretch.

The other takeaway from that first paragraph is the "cluster" of young starters the Mariners are developing. Developing into what? Team ERA in August: 5.78. Team ERA in September: 5.40.

How The M's Can Win The West

Most baseball minds believe that, unless disaster strikes them, the Angels will win the AL West. The question on a lot of minds is not IF, but by how many games. Nobody can question the edge LAA has offensively. Let's take a second to review the starting lineups:

Figgins, 3b
Matthews, DH/OF
Guerrero, DH/RF
Anderson, LF
Hunter, CF
Kotchman, 1b
Kendrick, 2b
Napoli, C
Aybar, SS

Top reserve bat: Juan Rivera (.310/23/85 in '06), who may get the nod on opening day due to an ankle injury to Matthews. If he played for Seattle, Rivera would be one of the Mariners' top 3 or 4 hitters.

M's:
Ichiro, CF
Lopez, 2b
Ibanez, LF
Beltre, 3b
Wilkerson, RF
Sexson, 1b
Johjima, C
Vidro, DH
Betancourt, SS

Top reserve bat: Hmm...

Assuming Ichiro is better than Figgins, and the backend players are comparable, the real difference in the lineups is LAA putting up Vlad/Anderson/Hunter every day vs the M's Ibanez/Beltre/Sexson (or Wilkerson). Tough to imagine the two teams have nearly identical payrolls. LAA will shell out $109 million this year, while the M's payroll is around $106 million.

Pitching is where the M's invested this offseason, and only injuries to LAA's top two starters (Lackey & Escobar) give them the edge. But the more the rotations are examined, this could be a significant edge.

LAA:

1. Jered Weaver: Can he bounce back from a disappointing 2007? I think he will be a solid #2 this year. But there is always the chance that neither Weaver will live up to their hype.

2. Jon Garland: This deal looks GREAT for the Angels now. Losing Orlando Cabrera hurt, but they would be in big trouble without Garland holding down the #2 slot. The trouble is he isn't much more than a #3 starter on a good team. Maybe a #4.

3. Ervin Santana: Followed up an encouraging 2006 campaign with a 5.76 ERA and 1.55 WHIP in 2007.

The Angels round out their rotation with two replacements for their injured big guns.

4. Joe Saunders: 3 year avg: 4.47 ERA, 1.48 WHIP. Silva's 3 year average is 4.49 ERA, 1.34. Look for the Mariners to give Saunders a $50 million. 4 year deal in the off season.

5. Dustin Moseley: Moseley was 4-3 with a 4.40 ERA in 46 appearances, including eight starts, for the Angels last year in his first full big-league season. Minor league numbers are not terribly impressive.

Kelvim Escobar is likely done for the year.

John Lackey has a strained tricep and won't throw at all for the next 3 weeks. Return is tentatively slated for early May.

Mariner Rotation:

1. Eric Bedard: My favorite quote from Eric Bedard this spring is this gem after his last spring tuneup start: "I didn't have a plan. I just went out there and threw strikes." I guess he's not a big believer in "practice like you play." My 5th grade basketball coach would be appalled. Should we be concerned? Bedard had a 6.06 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP in April last year, with the league hitting .291 against him. Expect a mediocre April and a great season.

2. Felix: The waiting is the hardest part. It's not now or never, but if not now, you have to wonder if he will ever emerge as a #1 starter in an M's uniform.

3. Silva: See: Joe Saunders, with upside.

4. Washburn: See: Silva.

5. Batista: Has his moments, but nothing to get excited about.

So when it comes down to it, the M's rotation is 2 high ceiling guys, and 3 others who are all just about identical. Any one could have a good year, but it is more likely that each has a month or two that are above average, and the rest nothing to write home about. The good news for Mariner fans is they have a proven track record and piece together a better rotation than what LAA is putting on the hill.

So what scenarios open the door for the Mariners to win the AL West:
1. Escobar is done for the year. CHECK
2. Lackey doesn't pitch effectively or is out until the All Star Break.
3. Anaheim's bullpen struggles early in the absence of Scott Sheilds. Speaking of Shields, the Angels' setup man is slated to only miss a week. Make that a month and now we have something.
4. No young pitchers step up to fill the voids in the backend of the LAA rotation.
5. Significant offensive injury. Vlad, Anderson, Hunter...one of those guys, or at least Figgins, need to miss significant time.

All of these are possible. But none matter if Sexson, Beltre, Ibanez, and the rest of the Mariner hitters don't step up.

Disaster has already struck the LAA rotation. Now it just needs to spread to the rest of the team. And the M's need to sign Barry Bonds.

George Sherrill... closer?

Well, now that the deal is officially, finally, mercifully, completed for Erik Bedard, let's turn our attention to an interesting development regarding George Sherrill's arrival in Baltimore.

First off, I really like Sherrill. He always seemed like a down-to-earth kind of guy, he was media friendly, he was humble, and I just love the story of the M's plucking him out of the independent league and letting him develop into one of, if not the best, setup men in the game.

But in the last few days, it has surfaced that Sherrill may be handed the closers job in Baltimore, which has to be exciting for the big guy. I've also spotted fantasy news sources touting the potential for 30-35 saves, low ERA and WHIP, good strikeouts, etc. That he'll be "a steal on draft day" - that kind of typical fantasy baseball blather.

Will George Sherrill make a good major league closer? I don't know. Let's look at his career numbers:

128 IP, 95 H, 60 BB, 138 K's, 3.65 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, .208 BAA. Damn!

But then there are the splits:

vs. Lefties 76 IP, 43 H, 19 BB, 98 K's, .81 WHIP, .167 BAA
vs. Righties 52 IP, 52 H, 41 BB, 40K's, 1.79 WHIP, .261 BAA

Hmm... and mind you, in his role - the righties were probably coming off the bench in late-game situations to face Sherrill. These are the Mike Napoli's not Vlad Guerrero's. He is practically unhittable by lefties, but he is pretty miserable against righties.

In closing situations, he may very well face a steady diet of right handed hitters too.

While I hope I'm wrong, I just don't see Sherrill being real successful as closer there. If Baltimore were smart, they'd let him be a lefty specialist, post his typical ridiculously dominant stats and then peddle him to the Yankees, Mets, RedSox, or some other contender at the deadline for two more shining prospects.

Or just watch - the O's will trade him back to the M's for Brandon Morrow.

Degenerative Hips, Ambulance Chasers, and Bad Negotiating.

Bavasi: "Andy, it's Bill."

McPhail: "Hey, how are you?"

B: "Fine, fine... Pelekoudas just brought me a nice ham sandy and a venti latte."

M: "you still got Squiggy doing scouting for you guys?"

B: "hmm...I'd have to ask Looper, I don't know. So hey - you want to do this Bedard deal or what?"

M: "Jones and who was it again?"

B: "Sherill, Tillman, your choice of a couple PTBNL's..."

M: "You sure you want to do that? Bedard is good, but..."

B: audibly eating sandwich..."job's on the line, Andy - I can't wait for next year. I mean, come on - didn't you see I gave Silva almost $50 million?

M: "Hahahahahahaha..."

B: "Hahahahahahaha..."

M: "Hahahahahah...oh, man...Bill...you're killing me... that's rich... okay, yeah, sure - let's do this thing. Get Jones on a plane to Baltimore for a physical"

B: "will do"

M: "I just need to talk to Peter to get the go-ahead"

B: "fuck"

M: "oh, don't worry - he brought me here so I could make deals like this on my own"

B: "fuck"

M: "just hold the line, Billy..."

M: dialing Angelos...

Angelos: "Andy, this better be good, I'm having my Monday rub-n-tug"

M: "Seattle wants to give us Jones, Sherill, Tillman and a couple others for Bedard."

A: "Honey, honey...stop that for a minute... Andy, say that again?"

M: "You heard me."

A: "Do they want Roberts too?"

M: "Just Bedard"

A: "Huh. So they're not that bright. Make something up to throw a wrench in the deal and get other teams involved to drive the price up."

M: "Like what?"

A: "I don't know, something that will scare Baltimore fans. Think of Joey Belle... say he's got a bum hip - leak it to the press"

M: "doesn't that seem unethical?"

A: "Bwahahahahahahah...bwahahahahahah... you're funny Andy, that's why I hired you. Gotta go. Okay, toots, I ain't got all day, get back to work..."

M: "uh, Billy - you still there?"

B: "Yeah, just called Adam to tell him to get on a plane, that he's being traded for Bedard. Kid is disappointed - Venezuelan finals and all - but understands."

M: "Yeah, uh - Peter has some personal matters to tend to today, so we'll have to get back to you, maybe tomorrow or the next day."

B: "fuck"

M: "nothing to worry about, I'm sure it's just his osteoarthritis or something"

B: "osteo-what?"

M: "nothing. Forget it... we'll talk tomorrow"

click.

click.

B: "Sally, get Adam on the phone and make sure he doesn't say anything to the press about this. And call the Twins for me. Then get Willie in here to wax my head."

Bavasi Jonesing For Bedard

This thing is on again, off again like a well priced dancer on the Vegas strip.

Reports had Jones on a plane to Baltimore to take a physical as part of a blockbuster trade for the M's, and now it seems that he's still in Venezuela and the whole thing might have been terrible translation between the club and the Venezuelan press. If so, that's pretty funny.

Regardless, there's obviously some teeth to this thing beyond the typical aluminum-hat 'net speculation. By most accounts, it looks like the O's are due to receive Jones, Sherrill, and Tillman plus a "fourth player" (when is the last time a PTNL turned out to be any good?) and the only thing holding it up is Peter Angelos himself (which is one giant ego roadblock). Reports have Angelos out of town Monday, so maybe we'll get nibbles of news about what he's thinking tomorrow or Wednesday. If you ask the great underbite himself, Ken Rosenthal, Angelos has or is likely to kill the deal anyway.

So around and around we go. Where's the waitress? Another 8 dollar Heineken!

Assuming it DOES happen, however - let me just go on the record: I started out in favor of this deal a couple months ago. Since when do the M's get to deal prospects for one of the top 5 starters in the AL? But it seemed every day a new reason NOT to do this deal would pop up. They include, in no particular order:

• M's offense was terrible in the 2nd half of 2007. Can they afford to make it worse?
• Dealing for Bedard after giving Silva a huge pile of cash will prove one of two things: 1. M's didn't have a cohesive strategy this off season. No way Bavasi would deal for another starter after spending a pile of cash on a guy who may be worse than Morrow. 2. M's don't believe Morrow is ready to start.
• Why deal Jones, who we have no replacement for, instead of Morrow who would be pushed into the bullpen by a deal anyway? (No clue if Baltimore had any interest in a deal headlined by Morrow...)
• Morrow's development as a player is being damaged by the M's. Why spend months in winter ball getting acclimated to becoming a starter to only be throw into what is likely a setup role for Putzer?
• Ibanez and Wilkerson in the same outfield is going to make the M's pitching worse.
  
• Pitchers hurt all the time. Hitters hurt some of the time.
• Bedard has a couple of good years, and only one great year. However, if he had 2 great years there is no way the O's would deal him just for prospects.
• Is there ANY way we can toss Lopez and Clement into the deal and get Brian Roberts? How great would that be?

If Jones has a mediocre rookie season, and Bedard has an average "Bedard" season in 2009, Bavasi is a genius who sold high. If Bedard gets hurt and Jones puts up a Rookie of the Year quality campaign, this one will go next to Soriano for HoRam as another Bavasi blunder. Tough call.

This deal is not an obvious stinker like the Soriano deal (Congrats to the Braves by the way for resigning Soriano for 2-years, $9 million just as they are about to hand him the ball in the 9th inning. 35+ saves later that deal will look like a bargain.) But it is a risk. So I tip my cap to Bavasi and hope Bedard retires a Mariner great. Hopefully sometime after 2010.

Ahem, that is - if it happens.