Bill Bavasi's Job Secure

Saying that an Erik Bedard injury is unpredictable is just plain laughable. Bedard getting injured during the year is almost as predictable as Ken Griffey Junior getting injured. As a Reds fan, I know when September is, even without looking at a calendar, because come EVERY September, KGJ is usually on the DL.

Also, Bedard being injury prone is EXACTLY why MOST Reds fans didn't want Krivsky to trade the farm for him. Trading four or five young guys, including Cueto or Bailey, for one Pitcher who MIGHT give a team 200 Innings was just plain stupid as far as a lot of Reds fans thought.

If you looked at Bedard's history, he was just plain trouble waiting to happen.

While growing up in Canada, Bedard was short in High School and grew like seven inches during his Junior and Senior year. Also, since he played baseball in Canada, the weather made their seasons shorter, so those two things combined meant Bedard didn't pitch as much as a LOT of High School players in the United States.

Bedard was a college walk on and that was where he threw the majority of his pitches. Then, in 2002 (I think) Bedard had to have Tommy John surgery and needed over a year to recuperate and come back.

Having that surgery so young and after NOT pitching as much as MANY Pitchers his same age was very troubling to me.

Combine that with the fact that he has STILL not thrown 200 Innings during any season in the Majors and he STILL relies on a Curve Ball as his Out pitch, those were the things that turned me off of Bedard, as far as the Reds trading for him.

Maybe Bedard shows everybody and puts together some great seasons the next few years. Then again, it is more likely that he blows out his elbow or develops some other injury because his elbow is barking and he compensates somewhere else in his delivery to try and offset that.

No offense ctownboy but I don't think Reds fans were onto anything miraculous when the thought of Bedard being injury prone was a reason to not trade for him. Most Mariners fans helf the same feelings. Its just too bad the M's management isn't the brightest.

There are some painfully bad insights as to the problems of this team and some very good ones, which I will respond to all of them in due time...

First I want to talk about this blog post... I don't know who wrote this lame duck of an attempt at quantifying the problems with Seattle, but it's laughable.

"The much-criticized Silva signing looked fine in April, terrible in May"

Let's have a little even play here, you can't say a high 2's ERA is "okay" and then sh*t on the guy for a couple bad starts. In all fairness the deal looked AMAZING in April, a little less spectacular this month, but it's two months into a 4 year deal and the guy is pitching his prime years in Seattle, let's not jump the gun on this one JUST YET! Let's see what he looks like in September and then we can start talking sh*t!

"Bedard's injury and ineffectiveness couldn't have been predicted."

He missed two starts, that's 5 more than Lackey has made... If he goes the rest of the year healthy, then Bedard makes 32 starts.

As for his "ineffectiveness" , you're right he's had TWO bad starts and 5 QS and 1 NEAR QS where he didn't go 6 innings but gave up 1 ER in 5! Sounds pretty effective to me!

If you are going to throw around baseless allegations than keep talking about Bedard because he's about THE LAST person you can blame for this melt down.

"Aside from a slow start by Kenji Johjima, the hitters have played to expectations."

This is my personal favorite and I'll diagram the moronic thinking below

Players +/- Career AVG
Ichiro -.040
Lopez +.033
Ibanez -.016
Beltre -.024
Betancourt -.001
Sexson -.061
Johjima -.053
Vidro -.064
Balentien -.017
Clement -.052
Bloomquist -.095
Cairo -.099
Burke -.086

THAT'S A COMBINED 575 POINTS BELOW THEIR CAREEER AVERAGES!! Take away Lopez and the team is 608 BELOW THEIR AVERAGE CAREER!! AND YOU PUT IT ON KENJI?!?! LOL THAT'S HILARIOUS!!

These are all the players with ATLEAST 30 ABs this season... So ONE player is hitting above their career average and it's on par with where he'll be routinely considering the death of his brother last year and the 1st season pulling his overall numbers down. There's ONE who is within .001 of his average and everyone else sucks right now! Beltre and Ibanez have been getting it done and so has Ichiro, but to say they are playing to their potential is RIDICULOUS!

Who quotes a sportswriter for the sake of saying "and Griffey won't be dealt"... Seriously?! Are you kidding me?!

Wow, now I want to go get buy a Gatorade, a can of Cambell's Chunky Soup, and a Hanes T-Shirt... Let's try and not use fictional "expert accounts" that's a preference not a reality.

The Reds are not climbing in the stands with exceptional pitching from a couple of their guys and Bruce isn't going to save the season!

Anyone expecting him to do much better than Balentien did his first couple weeks in the bigs is crazy.

Bruce will be a GREAT MLB player, just not right away and not in a big enough way to win more than they lose the rest of the year!

As for Griffey: They don't want to pay his $4MM buyout, they sure as hell don't want his 16MM contract next year, he's only around until he hits his 600th HR and then they'll work for a trade, Armstrong wouldn't have sent Schaffer to see Griffey play if the Reds weren't shopping him, Seattle would've already made the deal if the bottom didn't fall out of their season, just stupid speculation by the writer.

Victor, do you also believe in the 100 pitch rule too?! Next you'll be telling us about Santa Claus! There's no such thing as the "200 inning club" The fact is that it's hard to get there because of pitch count limits, not because of injuries... There have been MANY pitchers that have suffered far more injuries than Bedard at this point of their career and have made the MAGICAL "200 inning club" Back then you could pitch into the 7th and 8th innings every start, there was a FOUR MAN ROTATION, NOT FIVE, so you got 40 starts... 200 innings is hard because you have to be healthy or you have to have a manager and ownership that won't baby your arm... Case in point, the ever durable Livan Hernandez, he goes 130 pitches every game... His arm is close to toast at this point of his career, but he was a 200 IP guy every season even when injured he'd hit 200 IP, but he got to work deeper... Typically your worst innings for pitch count are early on... The difference between 100 and 130 for pitch count can be 3 innings late in a game...

You also forgot to include the fact that he threw year round in an indoor chicken coop that's like an indoor gymnasium or warehouse in size, so he was throwing year round. He also didn't grow 7 inches, he grew like 4 and finally his lack of throwing actually would SAVE his arm not hurt it and being in Canada he wasn't exposed to the breaking pitches like he would've been here.

Probably why his curveball has so much bite considering he can still grip a baseball firmly, unlike the kids in the states who start to suffer arthritis in their hands from trying to over grip a baseball to make it move as a 12 year old.

I read the article and you just threw a WHOLE BUNCH of speculation together...

Thank you Tim for the words of wisdom, but I just hope it was to compensate for a horrible article, Say It Ain't So Tim!

seamariners85

Just a thought, but you don't think a 15MM a year price tag had anything to do with the Reds not going after him? Have they ever made a dedication of money to a player that didn't offer them an UNREAL amount of box office draw?! Griffey was supposed to be that and his deal was GREAT for Cinci...

Vidro was never a number two hitter, he was a #3 hitter before he lost his power and that's why he's been producing now that he's in his comfort zone again... He's really a #7 hitter and shouldn't be given the credit that he is... Plus that could steal away 50 PAs from him to keep his contract from vesting!