Erik Bedard

[Nat Uralice]

Damn Curtis that was some awesome insight indeed! Sounds like great news for Bedard if he can stay healthy (and somewhat good news for Felix, who I also own)

[Curtis Pride]

Amazing analysis! Question: where did you get these numbers for runs cost/saved for outfielders?

Thanks!

Fangraphs, the greatest site on the Internet.

[lastingsgriller]

I believe I've mentioned this before in other threads, but don't think I posted anything in the Bedard thread specifically.

Obviously, Bedard's health is the big issue. If Bedard is healthy, everyone knows he will be good. He had a 3.67 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP last year when he pitched, which is pretty good, but not what he had done in his career year.

My point, and what has gotten almost zero play in fantasy circles is that Seattle dramatically upgraded their outfield defense this offseason and Bedard should benefit hugely. They went from one of the worst LF in baseball in Ibanez to Endy Chavez. If you look at Fangraphs, you'll see that Ibanez cost his team 25 runs while Endy saved his team about 15. That's a 40 run swing.

Similarly, the Seattle RF disaster of Balentin/Reed/Bloomquist, cost the team about 15 runs last year. Replacing them with Franklin Guitierrez, who saved 25 runs in only 1,000 innings is another 40 run swing. Factor in that Endy and Guitierrez didn't play full seasons last year (and Ichiro adds more value in RF than CF, and even if we assume all things being equal from last year - Seattle should let up about 80-100 fewer runs than last year just because of those two defensive upgrades.

That's about a 15% drop in runs (and logically, hits) and would bring their team ERA down from from 4.73 to about 4.15. Since Bedard is a pretty extreme flyball pitcher, he'll benefit much more than Felix (an extreme groundball pitcher - Betancourt is poor defensively / Branyan stinks while Beltre and Lopez are gold glovers). But even if you just reduce his ERA by 15% and WHIP by 10% (the defense can't reduce walks),

For Bedard, you get an amazing season with a 3.15 ERA and 1.10 whip. So if you assume he's healthy, given that massive, massive improvement (they could seriously win 5 gold gloves) in defense, Bedard should be an absolute monster this year. All he has to do is be able to throw every 5 days.

I realize I took some liberties with the numbers and there are more things at play, but the point is adding two elite outfielders (Seattle probably has 3 of the top 5 fielding OF in baseball right now) behind an extreme flyball pitcher like Bedard is going to mean magic.

Get him in every single league you can.

Amazing analysis! Question: where did you get these numbers for runs cost/saved for outfielders?

Thanks!

its all in Bill James' Fielding Bible II... that book is full of all kinds of awesome stuff...

[DaShiz23]

I think he's worth a pick for where his ADP is at.

Agreed, but he has gone earlier than this number in all of my leagues.

[Bozo]

That is great info and makes me think about taking a run at Bedard after all. However, I thought that the knock on Lopez is that he's poor defensively, so much that they had talked about moving him to first base?