Buyer beware with Bedard

Ben Sheets and Eric Bedard have been linked since free agency started, on the surface it would appear the two pitchers are very similar, both possess ace like stuff and have a history of injuries. While I would sign Sheets in a minute, I'm much more leery of Eric Bedard.

In Feb. 2008 the Mariners traded five top prospects for Eric Bedard with two years of control left. Bedard had been publicly blasting the Orioles that off-season and the pressure was on them to move him.

"If they don't want me, [a trade] is the best thing to do," Bedard told The Sun. "Obviously, they don't want to keep me because there are a lot more talks [about] trading me than signing me. What am I supposed to do? I just go with the flow. I'll keep it as it is, and go with it, day by day." source TSN

Maybe it was the pressure of the bounty the Mariners gave up to get the 28 y/o ace or that the GM's job was on the line with the trade, whatever the reasons the marriage between the Mariners and Bedard never seemed to work. When Bill Bavasi ( Seattle GM who made the trade) was fired he unloaded on Bedard, seeming to question his toughness and competitiveness.

On Bedard going only five or six innings and 100 pitches of late, Bavasi says a lot of pitchers can have days where 90 pitches feel like 200. On why Bedard can't go longer, Bavasi says it's a good question, but one that has to be put to Bedard.
"He'll have a stupid answer for you, you can count on it,'' Bavasi said. "He'll have some dumbass answer.'' source Seattle times

Some will say that's just a frustrated GM blaming the player for a trade that didn't work out which ultimately cost him his job and that may very well be but one thing has be consistent is frustration with injuries. The next Seattle GM may not have questioned his toughness but he did become frustrated with his injuries and in 2005 just as a younger Bedard was leading the Orioles to first place his injury went from a few starts to months...

“Erik’s frustrated – we all are,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “He wants to come back, we want him back, but the No. 1 thing is, we want to get to the bottom of this. source The News Tribune

"We'll wait until the pain is gone and he feels like going out there again," executive vice president Jim Beattie said. "Some of these things have a life of their own. We thought it might be a couple of starts, and it took longer than that. It's going to be at least two weeks before he gets back on the mound." source Orioles.com 2005

The 30 y/o left hander has had only one full season ( 30 or more starts), in 2006 he made 33 starts going 15-11 with an ERA of 3.76. He has three seasons where he made 28 (2007), 24 (2005) and 27 (2004) starts respectively with a combined ERA of 3.91. He's made 15 starts each of the last two seasons and in those 30 starts has a record of 11-7 with a combined ERA 3.24.

While he's been compared to Ben Sheets because of their injury history and ace like stuff, at the same age, Sheets has pitched 30 or more starts in 4 of his 8 seasons. I'd pass on Bedard and while I'd sign Sheets, because of the risk I would sign an innings eater to ensure they had the depth in case of an injury...