Ferrari-type Opening Day Starters
Chris Carpenter, to take one example, was injured in 2007-08 and returned in 2009 ready to pitch. Despite being out for two years, he crashed back into the game with an instant 11-3, 2.26 explosion.
Lesson learned? When aces of this caliber are out for a while, they can be good bets -- because they're just flat good pitchers.
It would be one thing, if Jarrod Washburn had shoulder surgery and then you were betting $8M a year on him to pitch well. But Opening Day starters in the Carpenter-Bedard class, return to pitch very well.
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Kelvim Escobar begins to look like a very close value (and risk) comp to Erik Bedard.
- Two healthy years, 1999-2000, that comp to Bedard's last 2 yrs with Balmer
- Two half seasons, 2000-2001, that comp to Bedard's last 2 yrs with us
- .................... [Bedard's career point now]
- Two full, healthy seasons following (that would comp to Bedard's next two)
- A partial season, 60 IP, in 2005
- Two full seasons, 2006-07, as one of the game's best pitchers
- Missed 2008, trying to come back now
If you read the Angels' blogs, they have never been apoplectic with rage at the Angels for being interested in Escobar's healthy performances. Nor have the Angels' fans been interested in throwing back the Angels' division flags that were driven by Esco's high-performance contributions during those years.
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A.J. Burnett missed his #5 season, sputtered during his #6 -- comparable to Bedard's last two -- and then with a few hiccups since, has logged consistent innings. This is yet a third (valuable) durability pattern in the general non-100% mold: he has ducked Escobar's later woes.
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Ben Sheets sputtered, off and on, for three (3) seasons, scaring roto owners who HEDGED THEIR BETS, but then those who picked him up for 2008 snagged a glory 5x5 season from him. Owners of Sheets won far more roto titles (on a % basis) than non-owners of Sheets.
Sheets' FA classification made teams tentative on him for 2009, so he went ahead and had his elbow surgery done and is rehabbing it now. He stands a very good chance of making some team victory-rich in 2010.
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Bret Saberhagen, after he hit age 26, struggled to throw more than about 150 innings a year -- but fired 130, 140 OPS+'s when he was out there.
Typical were his 1998-1999 seasons, when he provided 175 and 120 great innings as the Red Sox' #2 behind Pedro Martinez (the Red Sox' Felix Hernandez).
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Of course, aces who are sputtering with injury can come back to bite you, too, as DiceK, Jason Schmidt, and others have bitten their teams. If you want a game with no luck involved, try chess. Russ Branyan isn't a guarantee, either.
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What happens is that pitchers will get overused, their arms will sputter and choke and finally quit on them .... and then after a year or two off (like Carpenter) or a year or two of 50% usage (like Escobar) they will just wake up one morning and it's healed up.
It is POSSIBLE that Bedard's surgery, and the last two seasons of light usage, have positioned him to roll to two or more seasons of pennant-winning performances. It would be very typical of aces whose arms have given out.
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It is one of the idiosyncrasies of Seattle fans, that we are risk-averse. We lean towards guarantees. This season, for example, we felt friendly towards the predictable-feeling Jarrod Washburn, and hostile towards the elite but unpredictable talent that Bedard offered.
In other cities, they're more acclimated to the fact that nothing's a guarantee. One of those cities is Milwaukee. I'm glad that Capt Jack hails from Ben Sheets' old stomping grounds.
Cheers,
Dr D