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ghost's picture

I think what I see in Bedard overall (even early in April during his "bad luck" starts)...was a guy how didn't have feather touch to locate his breaking ball anymore. The angle on it looks less down and more slideways (misspelling intentional). It's still an effective pitch...but doesn't change the eye level as much to help his fastball. And his fastball, while lively, is not 93-94 even when he humps up...and when he does hump up, he misses badly almost every time. He looks like the free throw shooter who's lost the fine touch and is clanking too many...I think the arm just doesn't have what it needs to throw hard AND throw accurately...when he aims, he gets pasted...when he tries to pitch tight, he throws too many balls and curve doesn't snap as hard...leading to a lower SWS% and longer at bats (higher pitch counts).
In the bullpen, I think you would see some life return to the curve because he wouldn't have to pace himself at all...he could max out on every pitch and the command would come back. He would be George Sherrill + 4 mph of heat and 5 inches of break. Read: death on a stick, as Doc put it.
And frankly...while we're stretching out Wilhelmson, we could also be starting David Pauley...who can pitch a bit in the bigs and is probably better in the rotation than Bedard right now anyway. So it's a double (or triple!) upgrade...Bedard is better as a LOOGY than Laffey, Pauley is better in the rotation than Pauley, and Laffey is better used as a longman than as a lefty specialist. That would give you five (!) pitchers I'm OK with in the bullpen: Aarsdsma, League, Bedard, Wright, Laffey. You could probably run a six-man pen too with Laffey and the extra arm able to eat up innings when a starter burns out.

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