After the deal for A's pitcher Rich Harden fell threw last night (praise Jesus!), Red Sox GM Theo Epstein might be Ivy League educated (Yale) but he clearly has a pants tent for injury prone starting pitchers who have never really put it all together.
Today, Boston was involved in a three-team trade and they ended up with Seattle Mariners pitcher Erik Bedard and minor league righty Josh Fields (who was a first-round pick in 2008).
The Red Sox sent Double-A catcher Tim Federowicz and right-handers Juan Rodriguez and Stephen Fife to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who dealt OF Trayvon Robinson to the Red Sox. Finally, the Red Sox sent Robinson and Double-A OF Chih-Hsien Chiang to Seattle.
Much like Harden, who I wrote about last night but deleted after he failed his medical check, I can't get too excited about Bedard since he gets hurt all the time and has failed to live up to the potential he showed with the Baltimore Orioles in 2006 and 2007.
He's 4-7 in 16 starts this season with a 3.45 ERA and he just came off the DL on Friday from a sprained knee (and promptly got lit up). Bedard was 15-14 with a 3.31 ERA in 46 career appearances with the Mariners. He missed most of the 2009 season and all of 2010 after left shoulder surgery.
He was 40-34 in five seasons with the Orioles, going 15-11 with a 3.76 ERA in 2006 and 13-5 with a 3.16 ERA the following season.
Fields, 25, the 20th player taken in the 2008 draft out of Georgia, was 2-1 with a 2.77 ERA for Double-A Jackson and 0-0 with a 6.23 ERA in nine games for Triple-A Tacoma.
From what everyone has said, Bedard is tough to deal with and a bit of a headcase. Let's also not overlook the fact that he's never played in a pressure-packed environment (Baltimore, Seattle) so basically we're getting a left-handed John Lackey, who has done less in his career.
Ugh. The truth is that he'll only have to be a fourth or fifth starter going forward as the Red Sox come down the stretch with a little over two months left in the regular season.
Federowicz is nothing special, I've never heard of Rodriguez or Fife but I will say that people who pay attention to prospects say that Chiang is a good one. His numbers this season for the Sea Dogs (.338 with 36 doubles, 18 home runs and 76 RBIs in 87 games) attest to that. Also, Robinson is hitting .293 with 26 home runs and 71 RBIs in Triple-A so he seems like a decent prospect too.
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