It's About Time!
Welcome to Seatown Mr. Bedard. It's been a long 2 weeks and I'm tired of you already.
People are really split right down the middle on this deal, some loving and some hating. I for one, LOVE it. This deal is right for both teams....right now. The M's now have a left-handed, flame-throwing ace that can take the pressure off of Felix and let him stop trying to be the man. Newly acquired Carlos Silva at the No. 3 spot...Miggy and Washburn can fight over No. 4 & 5...and let's not forget about Brandon Morrow...because he can grow into a starting spot with no pressure now as well.
What did we give up for this Canadian stud? Who really knows? In my mind, it had to be done. "Prospects" are always a crapshoot. Is Adam Jones a prospect anymore? ...No. But c'mon. Maybe he becomes the next frickin' Eric Davis....maybe not. It's all speculation. I'm not hearing much speculation on the future of Erik Bedard though. Across the board better stats than the other top 5 pitchers in the league (excluding Santana in his big season) when you eliminate wins/losses.The M's have a nice group of young talent on defense that showed a little 'pop' last year. Adam Jones has played in 70 games. Bottom line is, Bedard played on a crappy team...and no matter how good you are, you are going to lose games. ERA, SOs, IP, WHIP....everything else is the bomb. And now he's coming to a pitchers park with a solid D. I think we can all agree that this guy will sell a few more tickets than the Jeff Weaver show. It's ok to pretend like you're excited Seattle. You don't have to ride the "I told you so" fence just so you can pull that shit out later if anything happens, or the flipside by saying something like "...I knew all along that this guy was gonna be good...and how about that mass transit, huh?" Get off the fence and commit, nobody will fault you for being a fan either way.
I'll go ahead and take one for the team/Lodge and head down to AZ in a few weeks to scout out this guys true potential. I will be objective but heavy-handed in my critical analysis, and I will report back on my findings.
posted by seatownshawn at 12:49 PM
6 Comments:
I also want a report from AZ on the number of bikini-clad babes in the outfield grass...
But seriously, I love the trade also. Bedard & Felix is the best 1-2 in all of baseball. Bold statement, but true.
Shawn, the one thing you didn't mention, is that Bedard hasn't pitched more than 200 innings in his career up to this point. The flip side of that argument is he started pitching seriously when he was in his late teens in Canadia, and he's already got his torn rotator cuff surgery & subsequent rehab out of the way... oh wait, maybe that's a negative too.
Either way you spin it. Bam, the M's have what it takes to battle the over-hyped Halos in '08. Especially with the question marks about Escobar coming out yesterday for the California-Los-Angeles-Anaheim Angel-Monkeys.
Better team with Bedard for the '08 season: check ... built for the playoff run of September with Bedard: maybe....
I'm not going to pretend like I've known Bedard for 20+ years, but things I've read and heard indicate he's not much of a clubhouse guy and we've already mentioned the durability issues...now...does this mean that he can't click with other 24 in the M's clubhouse? no...does it mean Johnny Mac watches his innings and pitch count pre-All Star break? no...are we talking playoffs?...not sure...still need to address the hitting stats for the DH and 1B and where the power is going to come from in the lineup...
oh that's right...Bradley Wilk...seriously though...I was there when the season turned in late August when they were a game out with a three game series at the Safe and showed the tired arms of the bullpen and found the nearest bed and dropped the biggest duece of the season...is this corrected with an older Felix and Stud Bedard?...we will see...
Wow. They dropped a Najeh right in front on you, eh?
the entire team...it was like walking through downtown Bellevue w/o f'n golf shoes on...
Well...Johnny Mac is already predicting that Richie Sex is going to be the comeback player of the year. If he is even 1/10th correct...this could be huge, because you can't get much worse than we had at 1B last year. Still need some pop in the lineup though and the B-Wilk signing smells and awful lot like the Scott Spezio lovefest that Bavasi threw down in his first season. Let's hope it's not.
I do believe that Bedard will make our bullpen better, because that should be one more day that our mid-level relief guys won't have to bail us out like they did last season....which is why they were injured/wiped out by late summer last year. As far as the durability issue goes, call me an optimist. (Does this surprise any of you?) I'm hoping that we have let Baltimore break him in and re-hab him back to the pitcher that everyone seems to THINK he can be.
Shawn, you should join the baseball fantasy league all of the Lodge guys used to be in with me, my brother Mike, his old roommates & a bunch of our friends. With Jimbo & Goose dropping out a couple of years ago sometimes we have openings. Let me know...
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