The Mariners Career of Erik Bedard

By Joe Rugo
Updated: July 19, 2011

Image taken from Google Images

15 Starts

That seems like the magic number Bedard strives for each season, at least during his Mariners career. In his four seasons with the club (he missed all of 2010), Bedard has made exactly 15 starts in all of them. Here’s a look at his numbers:

2008: 6-4 3.67 ERA 4.50 xFIP 1.0 WAR (15 starts)

2009: 5-3 2.82 ERA 3.66 xFIP 1.9 WAR (15 starts)

2011: 4-6 3.00 ERA 3.27 xFIP 1.4 WAR (15 starts)

Any guesses on how many wins he has as a Mariner? Yep, 15.

It’s unfortunate timing that Bedard is currently on the DL. He’s a prime candidate to be traded before the July 31^st trading deadline. With an already superb rotation, and the team slowing slipping out of the race it would make sense to trade him. He’s set to come off the DL on July 22-24, which will give him 1 or 2 starts to hopefully prove to other teams that he is healthy. However, Bedard and season ending DL go hand in hand so even if he is traded, the return is unlikely to be great for the Mariners.

In 2008 Bedard was acquired from the Baltimore Orioles for Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, George Sherrill, Kam Mickolio, and Tony Butler. A year after the trade it looked like one of the worse deals in Mariners history. Now, in 2011, it was still a bad trade for the Mariners but not as terrible as once thought. For fun I added up the WAR of all the players involved in the trade. Note, these totals are the WAR that each player acquired when they were part of either the Orioles or Mariners. Sherrill was traded to the Dodgers in 2009 for Josh Bell and Steve Johnson so I included them as well.

WAR of players involved after the trade:

Bedard: 4.3

Total: 4.3

Jones: 7.6

Tillman: 0.6

Sherrill: 1.4*

Bell: -0.5

Johnson: 0

Mickolio: 0.4*

Butler: 0

Total: 9.5

*Does not include WAR they have acquired with new teams.