In an interesting situation, it is possible that you could either buy low or also sell high on Erik Bedard, depending on the competition level of your league and of course whether you own him or not. It’s hard to believe that it’s actually feasible to have an opportunity to take advantage of either fantasy tenents, so I’ll explain what I mean.
Why you might be able to sell high: The casual owner you could sell to would see the 3.48 ERA and recall that he was likely drafted as a top 5 or top 10 pitcher
Why you might be able to buy low: The savvy owner you could buy from would see the K/9 drop to 7.2, down from 10.9 last year and 8.7 for his career, and the BB/9 increase to 4.8, up from 2.8 last year and 3.5 for his career. He might also notice Bedard’s 5.57 FIP or 4.80 xFIP and conclude that his ERA is headed upward if these peripherals are sustained.
So there you have it, the same pitcher could be both sold high and bought low in the eyes of 2 different owners. So who do I think would be right? Well, if you recall, Bedard missed the first couple of weeks of the season with left hip inflammation. Chris Neault of The Disabled List Informer wrote an article for THT analyzing the injury and believes that Bedard could be pitching with a labral tear. Even if this weren’t the case, he thinks the hip issues could linger all season, which would obviously be bad news for Bedard owners expecting a repeat of 2007 or at least something close.
Checking in on FanGraphs’ pitch type and velocity data, we see that lo and behold, Bedard’s average fastball velocity is indeed down from 91.6 MPH last year to just 90.3 MPH this year. His curveball velocity has also dropped from 77.5 MPH last year to 75.9 MPH this year and changeup down from 81.3 MPH to 78.9 MPH.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I look at the total picture, as in the reduced K rate, increased walk rate and velocity drop, combined with the early season hip problems, it seems pretty clear to me that Bedard is not pitching at 100%. It’s always difficult dealing with injuries because we really don’t know if the player will suddenly be at 100% or if the problems hang around all season, leading to a down year. But given what we know about all aspects of Bedard’s season and the questions that Chris’ article has raised, I’d be squarely in the sell high camp if I were an owner (which I’m not, luckily).
So my advice would be to shop him around and see if you could still get pre-season value for him, which is quite possible if you are in a casual league where owners only look at ERA. Bedard has never been the picture of good health, so the odds were against him pitching a full season to begin with. As always, feel free to comment or send me an e-mail if you want some help evaluating specific trades involving Bedard.
Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.
9 responses so far ↓
1 phil // May 16, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I’m currently trading him straight up for Soria. Thoughts? (was part of a bigger deal: Hafner and Bedard for Soria and Loney - but our league kept rejecting it.)
2 Mike Podhorzer // May 16, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Phil- Although I own Soria in 2 leagues, it’s really weird to hear someone trade Bedard for him straight up! It’s a trade that would be ridiculed pre-season. BUT, as supported by my owning of Soria in 2 leagues, I loved him coming into the year, and he’s currently sporting an 18/1 K/BB ratio in 16 1/3 innings. Umm yeah, I think he’s for real!
I have no problem with the trade in terms of expected value the rest of the year. The only thing I question is maybe you could get more since Bedard’s “struggles” hasn’t shown up in his ERA yet.
3 Chris // May 17, 2008 at 1:54 pm
He has pitched fairly well since his return, and there has been no word about his hip pain returning…even so, the velocity drop across the board on his pitches could be telling…I would be trying to shop him around to see what kind of a package of players you could get…
4 Jack // May 18, 2008 at 12:44 pm
i would trade soria for bedard!
5 Mike Podhorzer // May 18, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Great timing of this article as he dominated the Padres last night! Of course it was only the Padres and what was telling was he got just 4 ground outs and 8 fly outs, very uncharacteristic of him.
6 Rob // May 19, 2008 at 9:09 am
Would Halliday be worth trading Bedard for?
7 Mike Podhorzer // May 19, 2008 at 11:59 am
Rob, Halladay works. I’ve usually thought him to be overvalued, but his K/9 is back up this year and his GB% is closing in on 60%. He’s much safer than Bedard, so if you could make the swap, I think I would. And his 2.69 xFIP tells me that if anything, he’s actually been unlucky, which is hard to believe given his current 3.38 ERA!
8 mike // May 21, 2008 at 2:44 pm
i was about to trade for bedard until i saw this page. The deal was i get reyes bedard and jair jurrjens and i give up rollins alex gorden and josh beckett
9 Mike Podhorzer // May 21, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Wow, Mike this is a tough one. Before the season, Rollins and Reyes were about equal, as were Beckett and Bedard. Of course back then Jurrjens wasn’t even expected to be drafted and Gordon was a hoped for breakout in his sophomore season.
Rollins and Reyes are still close to a wash so I’ll leave them out. From this point forward, I’m much more comfortable with Beckett. His fantastic peripherals leading to last year’s great season have carried over this year and his ERA should be back in the low 3’s once his bad luck goes away.
I would say Gordon and Jurrjens are close now too. I still can’t see Jurrjens posting an ERA much below 4 since he’s still a rookie and his skills are solid but not good enough for him to maintain his current ERA. Gordon isn’t great, but at least he does steal some bases guaranteeing he’ll provide value.
All in all, I’d pass on the deal. If you can’t even decide what side you like better, that’s a sure sign to just forget it!
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