Most of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ offseason moves have been met with a snicker. Rod Barajas? At least we’ll get to see the pierogie race earlier, with him getting out so quickly. Clint Barmes? Isn’t that a pseudonym for “Expensive Ronny Cedeno?” The Erik Bedard signing seems fit for ridicule, too. Looks like Charlie Morton will have a rehab buddy.

But that last one’s not really fair. Pittsburgh paid little for Bedard’s services — just $4.5 million, with $500K in possible incentives — and he’s coming off his best, healthiest season since he finished fifth in Cy Young balloting with the Orioles back in 2007. The Bucs went for upside with Bedard instead of giving similar dough to the Chien-Ming Wangs and Aaron Harangs of the world, and you should do the same even if it means absorbing a few potshots from your league buddies.

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– If MLB.com is to be believed, the second game in the Red Sox-Orioles double header will be one for the ages. Brian Matusz, owner of a 9.84 ERA, will face off against John Lackey, who sports an ERA over 6.00. If you’re a betting man, I’d suggest putting all your monopoly money on the over. It doesn’t matter what the line is, because no line could be high enough for this game.

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Everyone is happy when one of their pitchers is scheduled for two starts in a week. But that is not always a good thing. Here are five pitchers you may be on the fence about (or should be on the fence) putting into your lineup for Week 9.

Erik Bedard – After losing his first four decisions, Bedard has quietly put up some monster numbers in his last five starts. In that span, he’s 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA with 28 Ks and 7 BB in 33 IP. While his curveball may not be the unhittable pitch it was back in his pre-injured heyday, he still has an impressive 30.1 O-Swing%. Bedard has a deep repertoire and throws all of his pitches for strikes. He has two home starts this week against East Coast teams. It all adds up to a must-start week.

Madison Bumgarner – Each pitching staff has the guy that seemingly gets no run support and Bumgarner fills that role on the Giants. The offense has provided him with an average run support of 2.27 in his 10 starts, which explains how in his last six games, all Quality Starts, Bumgarner is 1-3. If he can’t get wins when he’s pitching well, what happens if he falters? This week he goes up against two pitchers with a combined 11-4 record this year. And with the Giants now without their cleanup hitter, it seems like a good time to sit the unlucky youngster.

Fausto Carmona – If you look at the WHIP leaders, you’ll see a nice collection of the game’s top pitchers and this year’s success stories. You’ll also find Carmona. So far this season, Carmona is 3-5 with a 4.73 ERA. And this is with a 1.18 WHIP. The last three starts have not been kind, as he has allowed 16 ER in 20.2 IP, thanks in part to 4 HR allowed. This week he goes up against Toronto and Texas, two of the better HR-hitting clubs in the AL. And his start against the Blue Jays is in Toronto, where the Jays have hit 30 HR in 23 games. Keep Carmona on your bench this week.

Charlie Morton – If you haven’t already read it, check out Cameron’s piece on Morton. Basically, Morton has revamped his approach and is now death on RHB. Some in the comments section even compared him to Doc Halladay. I don’t trust pitchers with BB/9 over 4 and Morton’s currently sits at 4.21 BB/9 after nine starts. This week he goes up against the Mets and Phillies, two teams that can easily put five LHB into their lineups. This seems like a week for the wheels to come off the Morton bandwagon so give him a spot on the bench if you can.

Ervin Santana – Everyone seems to be down on Santana because he’s not the pitcher he was in 2008. But the reality is he’s still a pretty good pitcher. The stat that jumps off the page is his 3.59 K/BB ratio, which goes a long way in explaining how both his FIP (3.41) and xFIP (3.52) are lower than his ERA (3.95). In his last two starts, Santana is 2-0 and in 15 IP he’s allowed just 1 ER with 2 BB and 13 Ks. This week he goes up against the Royals and Yankees, two teams struggling after hot starts. Get Santana active this week.

Other scheduled two-start pitchers in Week 9 are listed below. Please remember that these are projected pitchers and changes can and will happen between now and next week.

Halladay, Lester, Cahill, Billingsley, Kennedy, Wilson, Carpenter, Colon, McClellan, Latos, Arrieta, Vogelsong, T. Hudson, Harang, Davis, Wood, Narveson, Marquis, Holland, McDonald, Penny, Blackburn, Happ, Hochevar, Dickey, Fister, Gee, Francis, L. Hernandez, Saunders, Volstad, Talbot, Sonnanstine, A. Rodriguez, J. Reyes.

Check back Sunday night for an update of two-start pitchers.

Now I want to provide some accountability and check in and see how previous recommendations turned out. There needs to be a two-week lag, since last week’s pitchers have not completed their second start yet. So here are Week 7 pitchers and how they fared.

Garland – Advised to start. 3 Ks, 8.38 ERA, 2.379 WHIP, 9.2 IP, 9 ER
Garza – Advised to start. 3 Ks, 0.00 ERA, 1.500 WHIP, 6 IP, 0 ER
Jimenez – Advised to sit. 11 Ks, 3.00 ERA, 1.067 WHIP, 15 IP, 5 ER
Porcello – Advised to start. W, 3 Ks, 0.00 ERA, 0.375 WHIP, 8 IP, 0 ER
Volquez – Advised to sit. 12 Ks, 9.35 ERA, 1.731 WHIP, 8.2 IP, 9 ER

To close out our series of looks at the values of players in ottoneu Pick Six, we look today at pitchers.  As before, the numbers below are based on weighted averages of THT’s Oliver and BPro’s PECOTA (more weight to Oliver b/c it includes this season’s data).  The numbers are FP (FanGraphs Points per IP), though keep in mind that for starters this number is divided by four to keep starters from being the only thing that matters in pick six.

Starting Pitchers

Elite Five (they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it)

Tim Lincecum, 5.33 FP/IP, $48
Josh Johnson, 5.21 FP/IP, $38
Felix Hernandez, 5.04 FP/IP, $49
Cliff Lee, 5.04 FP/IP, $43
Roy Halladay, 5.01 FP/IP, $52

Johnson’s injury risk has kept his value down in traditional ottoneu, but when he’s healthy (currently has shoulder ouchie), he’s the best value of this group.  But you can’t go wrong here: more than any other pitchers in baseball, these guys should give you lots of productive innings per start.

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This past week, the CDC issued guidelines on how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. “In such a scenario,” the CDC warns, “zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way.”

Scoff at your own peril — the living dead are already in our midst. In the Pacific Northwest, Erik Bedard is feasting on the flesh of AL hitters.

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Here is the latest update to Week 14 two-start pitchers. Again this list is subject to change going forward.

Pitchers not listed on last update

MIN – Carl Pavano
OAK – Trevor Cahill
WAS – Livan Hernandez
SEA – Erik Bedard
DET – Andrew Oliver
CIN – Travis Wood

Pitchers no longer scheduled for two starts

MIN – Kevin Slowey
DET – Armando Galarraga
MIL – David Bush
CIN – Edinson Volquez
SEA – Ryan Rowland-Smith
WAS – J.D. Martin

Pavano has hurled five straight Quality Starts and has gone 4-0 in that stretch. Both his FIP and xFIP are right in line with his 2009 numbers, but Pavano has seen his ERA drop from 5.10 last year to 3.30 in 2010. He’s been lucky with a .261 BABIP but he has also upped his GB% to 47.6 percent, his highest since 2005.

Cahill has a 2.24 K/BB ratio, up from 1.25 a season ago. While both his FIP and xFIP show a pitcher around a 4.00 ERA, Cahill’s actual mark is 2.74. He beat both his FIP and xFIP in 2009 and may turn into the rare pitcher who can do it on a consistent basis. A 54.3 GB% certainly helps and a .232 BABIP also holds down Cahill’s overall numbers.

Hernandez continues to confound the experts, who predict him to collapse virtually every outing. One thing that Hernandez does exceptionally well is take advantage of his home ballpark. He is 4-1 with a 1.75 ERA and a 1.135 WHIP in Nationals Park. On the road Hernandez is 2-3 with a 4.70 ERA and a 1.432 WHIP. This week he has home starts against the Padres and Giants.

Bedard is slated to come off the DL and make his 2010 season debut. He is trying to make it back from labrum surgery and has not pitched in the majors since July 25th of last year. Assuming no further setbacks, Bedard will get two home starts, but will have to square off against Zack Greinke and C.C. Sabathia.

Oliver was a second-round draft pick in 2009. He started his professional career in Double-A Erie this year and went 6-4 with a 3.61 ERA. In 77.1 IP, he had 70 Ks and 25 BB. Oliver has pitched well in his two starts for the Tigers but has yet to come away with a Win. A fastball-slider pitcher, Oliver has averaged 93.5 with his heater so far but his success will rise or fall with his breaking pitch.

Wood went 13-5 between Double and Triple-A last year and was 5-6 with a 3.12 ERA this year at Louisville. He made his major league debut July 1st against the Cubs and turned in a Quality Start, as he allowed just 2 ER in 7 IP but came away with a no-decision. Wood averaged 90.4 with his fastball but profiles as more of a finesse pitcher, as he also throws a cutter, change, slider and curve.

Stock Up

Jorge de la Rosa, Rockies

A live-armed, 28 year-old lefty who has already been traded four times in his pro career, de la Rosa has intrigued (and frustrated) many big league franchises. However, the Monterrey native finally seems to have found a home in Colorado. de la Rosa’s 4.78 ERA looks just passable, but bear in mind he’s toiling in the best offensive environment in the majors, in front of some generally lackluster defenders (Jorge’s BABIP is .319, and the Rockies rank 24th in team UZR).

In 111 innings this year, de la Rosa has whiffed 9.08 batters per nine frames, with a career-low 3.81 BB/9. That’s not razor-sharp control, but it’s a considerable step above his career 4.68 BB/9. de la Rosa’s fastball continues to be nothing special (-0.84 Runs/100 pitches), but his secondary stuff is deadly. His mid-80’s slider has a +2.04 run value, with Jorge’s changeup coming in at +2.34. de la Rosa’s FIP sits at 3.70 for the season.

Brett Cecil, Blue Jays

The Jays have seemingly filtered through a couple dozen rotation options this season as the club deals with a rash of injuries to its hurlers, but Cecil may be the best of them all. A closer at the University of Maryland, Cecil was converted to the rotation on the basis of his sturdy 6-3 frame and four-pitch arsenal (91 MPH fastball, 85 MPH slider, 80 MPH curve, and 82 MPH change).

The former Terp tore through the minors, striking out over eight-and-a-half hitters per nine innings while posting a groundball rate in excess of 60 percent. Cecil’s control could use some sharpening (he walked about four per nine innings at AAA and has issued 3.66 BB/9 in the bigs), but he has had little problem fooling hitters at the highest level (7.47 K/9). Cecil has a 4.36 XFIP (based on K’s, BB, and a league average HR/FB rate) in 59 innings for Toronto in 2009. He’s basically a league-average starter right now, with considerable room for growth.

Travis Hafner, Indians

Pronk Smash! For better or worse, the Indians owe Hafner roughly $52 million from 2009-2012, meaning he would have to produce somewhere around 11.5 Wins Above Replacement over that period to be “worth” the cash (an average of 2.8-2.9 WAR a year). That’s a mighty tall order for a 32 year-old DH with a recent history of shoulder ailments, but Hafner has produced a .399 wOBA when able to take to the batter’s box in 2009. After seeing his ISO dip to a paltry .125 during an injury-riddled 2008, Hafner has bumped that number up to a healthy .259. Pronk is looking like an anchor on Cleveland’s book keeping, but there’s still some fantasy value to be had here.

Gordon Beckham, White Sox

Someone needs to inform Mr. Beckham that this whole…Major League Baseball thing? It’s not supposed to be this easy. The 2008 first-rounder out of Georgia zoomed to the South Side after just 259 minor league plate appearances (.322/.375/.519), and he has performed admirably as a 22 year-old rookie. Beckham holds a .289/.368/.447 line in 175 PA, good for a .352 wOBA. Gordon has displayed very good control of the zone, walking 10.6% of the time while punching out just 15.1%. Beckham has plenty of value in keeper leagues, but you could certainly do worse in the here and now.

Joe Blanton, Phillies

For the majority of his major league career, Blanton had been an Average Joe. His combination of moderate quality (4.17 FIP) and quantity (he made between 32 and 34 starts from 2005-2008) made Blanton a pretty valuable commodity (averaging 3.45 WAR over ’05 to ’08), but the shape of his production has been different in 2009. The former Kentucky Wildcat has a career K rate of 5.52 per nine innings, but he has punched out 7.76 per nine this season while walking 2.59. Blanton had some early-season issues with the home run (his HR/FB% is still bloated at 14.5), but his XFIP (3.91) is a career-best.

How is he garnering the extra punch outs? It’s difficult to say, really. He’s not garnering a ton of outside swings (22.1 O-Swing%, 21.4% career average), his contact rate (84.3%) is about four percent above the MLB average and a near match for his career mark (84.8 percent). Joe’s called and swinging strike percentages are actually down from 2008. About the only discernable trend I can find is a gradual increase in the percentage of fouls Blanton has gotten off of his stuff. What say you, Phillies fans?

Stock Down

Rick Porcello, Tigers

There’s much to like about Porcello in the long term. He won’t turn 21 until December. He possesses a 91 MPH sinker that really bores in on the hands of righty batters, and has helped him generate grounders at a 56.1% clip. He also totes a mid-70’s curve and low-80’s changeup that are in the development stage, as well as a low-80’s slider that the Tigers basically had him scrap.

In the here and now, though, he still understandably has some things to work on. Porcello has located 47.9 percent of his offerings within the strike zone (below the 49.3% MLB average), with a First-Pitch Strike Percentage (55.5%) that’s also under the big league norm (58.1%). The 6-5 New Jersey prep product has dished out plenty of souvenirs (1.57 HR/9, 19.1 HR/FB%). Given his groundball tendencies, that doesn’t portend to be an issue in the long run. But it could be the product of command that seems to come and go. Porcello is nearly at the 100-inning mark, and the Tigers will likely tread cautiously when it comes to his workload.

Erik Bedard, Mariners

Sigh. I would imagine that by this juncture, Mariners fans get kinda twitchy just at the mention of Bedard’s name. Six years of team control over Adam Jones and Tillman, plus some decent work by closer George Sherrill was the high, high price of acquiring the Baltimore ace. So far, Bedard has tallied just 3 WAR for the M’s. The 30 year-old free-agent-to-be has turned in a typical season in 2009: tantalizing pitching (3.51 FIP in 83 IP) interrupted by a seeming avalanche of physical problems. The latest, shoulder inflammation, sends Bedard to the DL yet again. Now the Mariners likely can’t shop his services, and Bedard won’t bring back a draft pick this winter, either.

Andy LaRoche, Pirates

Coming up with the Dodgers, the junior LaRoche was a walks and doubles machine. He posted a tasty .310/.400/.538 line during his minor league career, which caught Pittsburgh’s eye enough to make him the principal player acquired in last year’s Bay-Manny swap. While few expected LaRoche to be a brute, over-the-fence threat in the majors, his lack of thump is becoming a bit disconcerting. He’s doing a nice job of controlling the zone in 2009 (8.7 BB%, 16K%), but Andy’s work has been bereft of pop. LaRoche’s ISO sits at just .117 for the season. To put that into context, the weak-hitting fellow to LaRoche’s left (Jack Wilson) has a .121 ISO this year. His fielding has improved (+4.3 UZR/150 at 3B), which will give him a little more leeway. But from an offensive standpoint, LaRoche has been pretty boring.

Josh Hamilton, Rangers

Hamilton missed part of the season following surgery to repair a partially torn abdominal muscle, and he still looks rusty at the dish. The 28-year-old lefty batter has hit just .228/.279/.402 in 201 PA, with a .299 wOBA. Josh has gradually become more of a free swinger since his career re-birth in Cincy a few years back:

2007: 26.9 O-Swing%, 56.7 F-Strike%
2008: 34.7 O-Swing%, 60 F-Strike%
2009: 36.3 O-Swing%, 63.5 F-Strike%

(the MLB averages are 25% and 58.1%, respectively)

Hamilton has walked just 6.6% of the time, with a 27.2% K rate. He’s hammering fastballs (+0.89 Runs/100 Pitches), but secondary stuff is giving him the heebie-jeebies (-1.32 for the slider, -1.79 for the curve, -3.33 for the change).

Johnny Cueto, Reds

That Cueto has regressed shouldn’t come as a total and complete shock:

April: 2.19 ERA, 3.58 FIP
May: 2.72 ERA, 4.15 FIP
June: 3.60 ERA, 4.79 FIP

..But Johnny has turned in a pretty rough July (7.61 ERA, 5.97 FIP) in which his 20008 tater problems have re-appeared with a vengeance (1.90 HR/9 this month). He’s certainly been hit-unlucky (.393 BABIP), but Cueto has also issued nearly 5 walks per nine innings.

Here is the latest update to Week 14 two-start pitchers. Again this list is subject to change going forward.

Pitchers not listed on last update

ANA – Lackey
TB – Shields
WSX – Buehrle
CUB – Dempster
ARZ – D. Davis
SEA – Bedard
OAK – Braden
TEX – Padilla
STL – Wellemeyer
OAK – B. Anderson
TOR – Mills

Pitchers from Friday no longer scheduled for two starts

TB – Garza
LAD – Kuroda
WSX – Contreras
SEA – Vargas
OAK – G. Gonzalez
TEX – Holland

Lackey has a career high .337 BABIP and a career low 69 percent strand rate. But he has gone seven or more innings in seven of his last eight starts and has two home starts this week.

Shields also gets two home starts this week. He has 4 W and a 3.18 ERA at Tropicana Field this year. He has very similar rate stats to a year ago but in 2008 he averaged 4.92 runs per game and went 14-8. This year he receives 4.11 runs per game and his record is 6-6.

Buehrle has a .260 BABIP and a 78.4 percent strand rate. That’s led to a 4.09 FIP compared to a 3.09 ERA and an overall record of 8-2 despite HR, SO and BB rates the same or worse as last year’s 15-12, 3.79 ERA season.

Dempster has been unable to repeat the magic from his 2008 season. He is still performing at better than his career averages in most metrics but the 32-year old is a .500 pitcher. His fastball, which was such a good pitch for him last year, checks in at -10.4 according to Pitch Type Values.

Davis gets two home starts which is normally a good thing. But the big lefty is just 1-5 in Chase Field this year, where he has allowed eight of his 11 home runs.

Bedard is slated to return on Tuesday after missing a month with a sore shoulder. He threw a simulated game on Friday and Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu was impressed with the results of the 54-pitch outing.

Braden has gone at least five innings in each of his 17 games this season. He changes speeds, keeps the ball in the park (0.59 HR/9) and does not hurt himself with walks (2.37 BB/9). Braden’s best pitch is his changeup, which has an average speed over 15 mph slower than his fastball and one that checks in with a 7.8 Pitch Type Value.

Padilla is throwing as hard as ever but has the worst strikeout rate of his career. He has a career average of 6.15 SO/9 and last season posted a 6.68 rate. But in 2009 it is down to a 4.86 mark.

Wellemeyer has a .336 BABIP and it is lefty batters doing most of the damage. LHB have a .342/.417/.595 mark against him this year. Batting against Wellemeyer turns the average lefty batter into Prince Fielder. But oddly enough, Fielder has a .200/.333/.200 line against Wellemeyer this season in six at-bats.

Anderson averages 91.8 mph with his fastball but his slider is his best pitch. Anderson throws his slider 31 percent of the time, which would be the sixth-highest figure in MLB if he had enough innings to qualify.

Mills has had good strikeout numbers throughout the minors and in his brief major league career. But he is hardly overpowering, instead he features a changeup as his strikeout pitch. Mills allowed a 43.5 percent fly ball rate at Dunedin last year and it was 48.3 percent when he was promoted to New Hampshire. This year in his brief tenure with Toronto, he has a 74.1 percent fly ball rate.

Hopefully you were able to pick up Gavin Floyd and trade Mark DeRosa last week. But even if you stood pat there are still plenty of acquisition targets and trade bait guys out there for you. So, here are five guys to pick up and five guys to move.

Acquire

Ian Stewart – Last year Stewart had a .364 BABIP in the majors. This year he checks in with a .244 mark in the category, so there is a lot of room for growth in his low average. Obviously, he cannot keep up his insane power numbers, either the .286 ISO or the 21.6 percent HR/FB. But Stewart has claimed a full-time job, has cut down some on his strikeouts from last year and either has or is on the doorstep to eligibility at both 2B and 3B depending on your league format. And if you think he is simply a Coors Field product, Stewart is batting just .120 with only four of his 11 HR in his home park.

Scott Baker – Yes, the home runs are absolutely killing him. Hopefully, his 2.26 HR/9 rate will fall significantly. But even with that HR rate, his FIP is lower than his ERA and the 64.2 percent strand rate shows he has had some bad luck, too. And his WHIP and K numbers are already solid.

Laynce Nix – In the early part of the decade, Nix was one of the top prospects in baseball. John Sickels called him “a potential Seven Skill player” following the 2002 season and Baseball America ranked him on their Top 100 Prospect List (85) following the 2003 campaign. And then the injuries started piling up. Now Nix is finally healthy, getting playing time and producing. The AVG is as high as it is going to get but anyone looking for a cheap source of power should invest here. The updated ZiPS projection shows him finishing with 21 HR in 362 AB and he is likely to get more playing time than that.

Mike MacDougal – The one-time Kansas City closer is now the closer in Washington. There is no guarantee as to how long he will have the job, but Joel Hanrahan has already lost the position twice. Owned in fewer than two percent of ESPN leagues, MacDougal could be an easy source of saves.

Trade

Michael Young – It is time to look to sell high on Young. He has great stats, name recognition and multiple position eligibility, so there should be no problem finding a taker. He also has a .361 BABIP and a career-best .200 ISO, thanks in large part to a HR/FB mark of 14.3 percent, also a career-best and virtually double the mark he posted in 2008.

Erik Bedard – Another sell-high candidate, Bedard has pitched great this season. But his FIP is a run higher than his ERA and his 83.6 percent strand rate is the seventh-highest mark in the majors. Like Young, Bedard should still be a valuable fantasy player even if/when regression hits. Trading them now is just trying to maximize their value and not any indictment of their skills.

Mike Lowell – A hot start by Lowell, combined with an injury to Jed Lowrie and the decline of David Ortiz, has caused the 35-year-old third baseman to play 55 of the first 57 games for the Red Sox. In his first 30 games, Lowell batted .314 with six HR in 117 AB. Since then he is batting .275 with three HR in 102 AB. That could easily be random fluctuation. But combined with the collapse of his walk rate, a career-low 3.9 percent, following back-to-back years of 8.3 percent, it may be a more ominous sign.

Josh Outman – The production of the A’s young pitching staff has been a wonderful story the past few weeks. Unfortunately, Outman’s peripherals do not match his 4-0 record nor his 3.17 ERA. His FIP checks in at 4.20 and as you might guess, his BABIP is .246 and his strand rate is 74.8 percent.

Derrek Lee – A hot streak the last three weeks, in which Lee hit .364, has his AVG for the season up to .262 after it was beneath the Mendoza Line in mid-May. But Lee is still hitting for even less power than he did the past two seasons. ZiPS now forecasts him to finish the year with 17 HR. And the SB which helped prop up his value last year are missing, too. Lee currently has zero steals.

If you mentioned the name “Erik Bedard” to a Mariners fan during the 2008 season, odds are you would have received a menacing glare, followed perhaps by a desultory comment or two about your lineage. Bedard was baseball’s version of Lord Voldemort, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” for fear that doing so would force the cosmos to swoop in and pilfer another round of Mariners prospects.

Then under the command of unsteady hand Bill Bavasi, the M’s acquired Bedard prior to the ’08 season using fuzzy math: “88 wins plus studly southpaw equals playoffs.” Unfortunately, Seattle was not working with an 88-win talent base: going by the club’s runs scored (798) and allowed (825), the Mariners should have finished at a run-of-the-mill 79-83.

Seattle expended two immense young talents to acquire the powerful-but-fragile lefty, sending rangy center fielder Adam Jones and right-hander Christopher Tillman to the O’s, along with Anthony Butler, Kameron Mickolio and George Sherrill. While Jones was busy covering wide swaths of territory in the bigs and Tillman was beating up Double-A batters at age 20, Bedard tossed all of 81 frames for the M’s (only 28 more than Sherrill did out of the ‘pen for Baltimore).

Bedard was a force for the O’s in ’07, utilizing his low-90’s gas and power curve to post a 3.19 FIP and 5.4 Value Wins (that after compiling 5 wins in 2006). But in ’08, you name it, Bedard hurt it: hip, back and shoulder injuries caused the Canadian to turn in just 1.1 Value Wins. His whiff rate, which spiked to nearly 11 per nine innings in 2008, fell to 8 per nine, and he handed out 4.11 BB/9. The result was a 4.32 FIP- not exactly the desired return when you part with years of cost-controlled goodness from two top-notch farm products.

After a hectic offseason that included rumors of a serious shoulder injury and the possibility of the M’s washing their hands of Bedard by non-tendering him, the 30 year-old has rocketed out of the gate in 2009. In 13.1 innings, Bedard has flummoxed batters with a 15/1 K/BB ratio and just 9 hits allowed.

No grand conclusions should be drawn from two starts against the Twins and A’s, but Bedard has induced swinging strikes on 12.3% of his pitches (8.9% in 2008; the league average is 7.8%). His sweeping curve was superb against Oakland (check out the BrooksBaseball.net Pitch F/X tool-it’s a great resource), with over eight inches of dropping action as well as nearly 7 inches of horizontal break. His fastball also had plenty of tailing action, and he threw the pitch for a strike nearly 70% of the time. In Bedard’s stellar outing versus the Twinkies, he located his breaking ball for a strike almost 84% of the time.

Bedard will need to contribute far more than two great starts in April for the sting of the Jones/Tillman trade to even begin to fade (it likely never will), but a healthy Bedard (along with Felix Hernandez) would give the M’s one of the better one-two punches in the American League. His injury history is too lengthy to ignore, but Bedard could provide ace-level production at a discount for owners, given the sour taste he left in the mouths of many in 2008.