Sabathia is on a completely different level and would be awesome in pinstripes. Think about opening ‘09 with CC, Wang, Pettite and Joba…. take that Chowda Heads.

He needs to transfer a little of that finger toughness to his feet!

And just to play devil’s advocate, what does the failure of the Randy Johnson experiment have to do with whether or not a Bedard experiment would work? Just because they’re both lefties with prickly personalities?

I think the other reasons to pass on Bedard — that he hasn’t shown any toughness or consistently pitched to his potential and that the price to get him would likely be too high– are more compelling than the RJ-comparison.

He shut himself down as much as the Orioles shut him down.

The guy is a dog.

You can’t be an ace if you can’t go to post more than he has in his career.

CC Sabathia is an ace. He goes to post. Eric Bedard has the potential to be an ace but has never done what it takes to attain that status.

There isn’t a pitcher in the game who doesn’t pitch with some kind of soreness. Bedard is a guy who won’t push it.

Two years ago, Chien Ming Wang was hurting bigtime. Yet, he went to post and made his starts, despite the pain.

Its why I thought the Yankees went a bit overboard during arbitration (its a brutal process) with Wang. The guy has more toughness in his little finger than Eric Bedard has in his entire body.

Its why investing in Bedard is so risky and why the Orioles are happy as hell they got rid of him (and got what they got for him).

If the guy was such a pain in the butt in soft media markets like Seattle and Baltimore, can you imagine him in NY?

If it was just one or two people saying rough things about him, I’d overlook it.

But, honest to God, I haven’t talked to one person I know in the game who has anything nice to say about the guy.

Front offices execs, scouts, players, they all say the same thing. Talented, doesn’t push himself, and a bad teammate.

When you get that kind of response from such diverse people around the game, it makes me say, “pass”.

They didn’t bring RJ here “thinking he’d be happy.” They brought him here thinking he’d be able to pitch like the Randy of old. RJ was miserable here, but a 15+ year veteran is more than capable of leaving stuff like that off the field, and his teammates don’t care as long as he wins. He just got old. He still had a good ‘05, but the cold seemed to affect him a lot worse. And by ‘06, his body just broke down to the point where he needed his back medicated to keep pitching. Look at his return to the media-desert of Arizona — it hasn’t exactly been sparkling.

I wouldn’t turn down a deal for Bedard based on him being a bad teamatte. Clubhouse chemistry is hugely overrated.

He pitched around 380 innings the last two seasons, his third and fourth in the bigs. Nothing to scoff at.

I’d worry about reports of his competitiveness. Girardi might need to crack the whip on him, and he might chafe at that. But if he gives the team his best, doesn’t let the media get to him, and doesn’t suffer a complete physical breakdown (bigger risk to Sabathia, imo, despite the injury histories), he could be an ace for us.

There’s still risk, though, so the price would have to be right.

Makes sense to me.

It will take AJax, Hughes and Betances to even start the conversation with Seattle. They aren’t giving him away and they have to get close to what they gave up in order to trade him. If they don’t, its a double disaster for the Mariners.

I’ll pass. He’s not that good. Go back and look at his entire career. He’s always hurt and always miserable.

The last LH pitcher they brought into NY thinking he would be happy was Randy Johnson. How did that work out?

I wouldn’t say he had issues. He just ignored them for the most part and said as little as possible. Its actually quite funny listening to him give an interview after a game.

SJ says he is a bad teamatte. I have no idea about that but if SJ says it I’m sure there is some truth to it. With his talent, though, I wouldn’t care too much about how good a teamatte he is.

The only thing that worries me about Bedard is his injury history. Last season he was on course to win the Cy Young but was shut down because of a sore shoulder/oblique. The Orioles reasoned that the team was out of contention so they wanted to make sure he was healthy but that sounds too much like an excuse to me.

Despite his injury history I’d still love to have him on the Yanks. I doubt it will be this year though because his value is kind of low right now. I think the Mariners will let him play out the rest of the season in the hope he does well then trade him in the offseason.