Tuesday news
Real quick…
• The Mariners avoided arbitration with Erik Bedard today, agreeing to a base contract of $7.75 million. The deal can be worth $8.35 million if Bedard pitches 205 innings this season.Â
• They also pulled off a trade with the Red Sox. According to the News Tribune’s Ryan Divish, the Mariners sent minor league lefthander Fabian Williamson to Boston for righthander David Aardsma. This fills the M’s 40-man roster and adds another arm to the already overflowing fight for bullpen spots. As they say, you can never have too many pitchers and perhaps this is just the first piece of a bigger puzzle.
Williamson has a good arm, but has never been considered one of the M’s top prospects. The 19-year-old spent last season with rookie-level Pulaski. Over 11 starts, Williamson pitched 52.2 innings, striking out 67, walking 27 and maintaining a 4.10 ERA.
And, yes, Aardsma’s sister is an actress.
ah, but can she measure up to Dave’s cousin?
Everybody who thinks Bedard will reach 205 innings raise your hand. Well, his agent has an arm in the air anyway.
His average IP over 2004-2007 (his full seasons with the O’s) was 164; the max was 196. On the other hand, his average annual value over those four years was $14.8M.
But hey, I’ll take 150 innings at 2007’s level of performance.
Well, she was Miss Colorado in 1997 and placed in the top ten at Miss Teen USA that year, and she’s since played a role called “Sexy Mistress” on CSI….
On the other hand, I think Dave’s cousin wins on the strength of that site alone.
(7.5M page views in the past two years? She needs to link to USSM!)
oh, and both the Times & PI say Heilman is also signed.
Both of these players have a good strikeout to walk ratio and seem like decent prospects…. looks like can go any way for either of these clubs.
Aardsma’s sister just recently shot a movie with Jessica Alba’s brother.
Is his first name Torre?
Fabian-
Damn what a cool name why did we have to trade him…
Cool move!
Even cooler that he’ll be at the top of the All-Time Mariners roster, based on alphabetical order…
I assume that the top number is what Bedard wanted and the lower number is what the Mariners offered. If so, this becomes a no-lose proposition: if we get 205 innings out of Bedard, that’s worth a helluva lot more than $560K to the team. As I commented elsewhere in another post, the number one way for the M’s to be more successful this year is to have more innings out of Erik Bedard. Giving him a financial incentive to pitch more is a good idea.
Happy Days!!
1. Bedard: I’d have incented him a lot more $$ to reach those kind of numbers. If he gets to 205 innings…things are going well for the M’s.
2. Aardsma: Do you think we’ll get his sister to the stadium this year a few times? Wow…give up a low-level prospect for a player with experience in the bigs AND has a babe for a sister! Z really outdid himself on this one. That is going the extra mile for M’s fans.
Yes…I think our luck has finally changed!!!
Is there a link to how the Elias Sports Bureau calculates its FA classification rankings? I realize Bedard has virtually no chance of getting into the top 20%, but is the next 20% (Type B) attainable? The guy can cram top 5% numbers into the innings he does pitch, but I have no feel for how the ESB goes about its rankings so I have no idea what we should be rooting for.
I don’t believe the exact formula is public.