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Is Bedard Baseball’s Next 300-K Pitcher?
By Jamie Mottram | August 14, 2007
When you’re an O’s fan, you enjoy the little things, like lollipops in your mouth and Erik Bedard sitting on the cusp of his first 200-strikeout season. This is thanks to one of the best K/IP ratios of the past five years, and he’s pacing towards one of highest strikeout totals in the past 20 years. But can he reach the epic total of 300?
With nine starts left, he’d have to average 11 per outing to get there. Not impossible, but improbable. What’s likely is he’ll finish in the 275 range, which is still a big deal, as evidenced by the group of dominators with 275-strikeout seasons dating back to 1987:
Randy Johnson (nine times), Curt Schilling (four times), Pedro Martinez (three times), Roger Clemens (twice), Nolan Ryan (once, but six times career) and John Smoltz (once)
What do those six have in common? They’re all Hall of Famers, or at least will be. And while that fate doesn’t await Bedard — he’s already 28 with just 39 wins — each of his four seasons have shown significant improvement.
So while he may not get to 300 or Cooperstown, at least he’ll shatter Mike Mussina’s club-record of 218 strikeouts in a season, thus erasing another traitorous name from Baltimore’s history books. And that’s something.
Update: My old soul brother Dave Pinto at Baseball Musings uses something called math to ascertain that “the odds of [Bedard reaching 300] is .00066.”
Topics: Erik Bedard, Orioles | No Comments »