[新聞] Around the Horn: Starting rotation
From http://0rz.tw/373ET
Bedard's future with Orioles murky as Spring Training nears
Now you see an ace, but tomorrow he may be gone. Southpaw Erik Bedard has
endured an offseason mired with trade rumors that reached a crescendo earlier
in the week, and he has the capacity to completely determine the character of
the Orioles' rotation by sheer virtue of his presence or absence.
If he remains, the Orioles have a top-shelf arm capable of matching up with any
team in the league. If he's traded to Seattle, as many reports indicate he will
be, Baltimore's starting staff will be turned into a proving ground for
prospects. After Bedard, the team's next three most experienced starters have
combined for 55 career wins.
Bedard moving on will help swing the O's rebuilding process into full bloom.
Even manager Dave Trembley, while refusing to name anybody specific, said as
recently as last week that any offseason plans regarding his rotation could
change quickly and irrevocably.
"I still think there's the likelihood that between now and the next time I talk
to you there could be changes, additions and deletions," he said Jan. 24. "We
want to sit down with the guys early in camp and tell them the slots that are
basically open, try to clarify as best we can what the roles are they'd be
competing for."
Bedard, who went deep into the season as a contender for the American League's
Cy Young Award, has been one of the most highly sought-after players on the
trade market this winter. All the negotiations apparently bore fruit on Sunday,
when various reports leaked out that the Orioles had traded him to the Mariners
for a five-player package.
That deal hasn't been consummated just yet, but sources close to the
negotiations say it could happen by the end of the week. Bedard, who's still
under contractual control for two seasons, has won 13 games and thrown at least
180 innings in each of the past two seasons. More importantly, he's performed
despite rapidly escalating expectations.
Bedard had a 15-strikeout game last July and went 13 starts without a loss
toward the end of the season. He wound up missing all of September with an
oblique injury, but his slot on the bench was precautionary more than anything
else. The Orioles didn't want to risk hurting him worse down the stretch, so
they let him heal up and start his offseason early.
After Bedard, questions start to crop up regarding the rest of the rotation.
Homegrown arms Daniel Cabrera and Adam Loewen are all but guaranteed rotation
slots, as is Jeremy Guthrie, who performed impressively after arriving last
winter as a waiver claim. None of them have ace credentials, and individual
concerns swirl around each of them.
Take Guthrie, a former first-round pick who had never earned a big league
decision prior to last season. The right-hander ran out of chances in the
Cleveland organization and had to prove himself to the Orioles, and he
dramatically exceeded virtually everyone's expectations by seizing a rotation
slot and thriving for most of the season.
Now, the question becomes whether he can repeat the process. Guthrie hit a
little bit of a wall late in the season, and his ERA rose by nearly a full run
(from 2.89 to 3.70) in his final nine starts. Still, there's nothing fluky
about his stuff or the way he got outs, and the Orioles expect him to produce a
largely similar season in 2008.
Cabrera, meanwhile, had another erratic year. The right-hander led the league
in walks for the second straight season and lost a league-high 18 games, but he
also set career highs in starts (34) and innings pitched (204 1/3). Cabrera's
power arsenal has few matches around the league, but he's yet to bridge the gap
between potential and production.
Perhaps no pitcher on the team has more to gain from new pitching coach Rick
Kranitz, who has spent the winter analyzing videotape on all of his new
charges. Cabrera has gotten four chances to stick in the rotation and may be
running out of opportunities, but first the Orioles will see if Kranitz can
help him break through to the next level.
Loewen, unlike Cabrera or Guthrie, has question marks related to health. The
former first-round Draft pick was shut down last season after just six starts
due to a stress fracture in his pitching elbow. Loewen tried to rehab the
injury at first, but eventually elected to undergo a season-ending surgery that
corrected the ailment.
Now, he's back and appears to be completely healthy. The southpaw has had
trouble with command at virtually every level he's competed against but can
iron out his weaknesses with more experience. Loewen is out of options and has
to learn at the big league level, and the Orioles are committed to seeing the
process through.
"My understanding is that there's no restrictions on him," Trembley said last
week. "We're looking forward to him just coming into camp. I'm not going to
hold him back. ... I know he's probably as excited as anybody after missing so
much time, but I think he's smart enough to know that he doesn't have to
audition in Spring Training."
After Loewen, the list devolves into a chart of lightly tested but highly
regarded prospects. Garrett Olson and Hayden Penn will both be competing for a
back-end rotation slot in Spring Training, and they'll be pushed by offseason
trade acquisitions Troy Patton and Matt Albers. The job is wide open, but
Patton and Olson likely have the best chance of taking it.
Of course, if Bedard is traded, there's room for more than one of them. Penn,
who has missed much of the past two seasons due to a surgery to remove a bone
spur from his right elbow and a fluke case of appendicitis, probably needs to
both prove he's healthy and pitch his way back into the good graces of the
organization.
Olson and Patton are similar in that they're both command-and-control lefties
who have zoomed through the lower levels of their respective organizations.
Another arm that may have a case for a rotation job is southpaw swingman Brian
Burres, who performed admirably last season despite a constantly changing role.
It's a group long on talent and short on experience, a staff that yields more
confidence when fronted by a talent like Bedard. The Orioles are due for some
tough decisions, though, and one of them may mean banking on their host of
pitching prospects. For now, all that's sure is that nobody knows what will
happen next.
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