Sheehan: Go for Bedard

What's yr take on Erik Bedard? Genius?...Misogynist? Risk worth taking? or pass? Joe Sheehan thinks the Yanks would do well to take a chance:

The Yankees, with a healthy appetite for risk and Sidney Ponson  and Darrell Rasner  in their rotation, would seem ready to take a chance on Bedard. Even discounting Bedard to 12 starts and maybe 75 innings, he'd be expected to allow a 3.75 RA/9, or about 31 runs.   

Ponson and Rasner are replacement-level talents, five-inning starters who have allowed five runs per nine innings and who can be expected to be closer to 6 RA/9 going forward. Even if the Yankees get Phil Hughes and Chien-Ming Wang  and back down the stretch, Bedard would have a positive impact on their run prevention, on the order of 20 runs. That's worth two wins.   

Can the Yankees get Bedard? Assuming the Mariners aren't looking for the package they traded away six months ago, yes. With Bedard not eligible for free agency until after 2009, the Yankees could better justify including an Ian Kennedy -- but not Hughes -- in a trade, and they may be ready to give up on Melky Cabrera . The Yankees' top trade chits over the winter have mostly had lousy years, which means a package that would have looked great not long ago isn't as attractive now. Then again, the same can be said of Bedard.

A bold proposition, but in desperate times (are these times desperate, my fellow Yankees fans?), courage is needed. Courage.