Erik Bedard Deal Official

I know, I know, I’m a little late to the party, but I figured it was still worth posting for my fellow stragglers. Anyway, Erik Bedard has passed his physical, and he is officially a Seattle Mariner…again. The deal has a base salary of $1.5 million, with a whole lot of incentives that could push the deal all the way up to $8.5 million. It also includes a mutual 2011 option for $8 million, but that probably isn’t even worth paying attention to, as there’s almost no scenario in which it would be exercised by both parties.

In terms of improving the team this year, it obviously depends completely on Bedard’s health. If he misses the entire year, the team isn’t any worse than it was a week ago, and we’re only out $1.5 million. If he comes back in early June and pitches well for the entire second half, this team will be anywhere from 1-2 wins better, if you figure that Jason Vargas, or whoever the #5 starter ends up being, would be worth something like 0.2-0.5 wins in the second half.

Guys like Dave Cameron have preached the value of the marginal win when a team is in the position that the Mariners are currently in, and this is a great example. Is Bedard likely to give us a 3-4 win boost? Absolutely not, but if he can even manage a couple of good months, he’s going to make us a slightly better team in an extremely tight division.

Oh, also, Yusmeiro Petit has been DFA’d to make room for Bedard on the 40-man roster, so his extremely brief tenure here in Seattle is over. Nothing to worry about.