ESPN’s Buster Olney (via MLBTR) suggests that Seattle could choose to non-tender Erik Bedard this offseason rather than going through the arbitration process with him.  Bedard will probably get $2-3M raise through arbitration.

It all depends on how serious the shoulder injury is and what Dr. Yocum finds when he cuts him open, but for now I find the idea of non-tendering him ridiculous.  If Bedard can recover from surgery and be ready to pitch before or early in the 2009 season, Seattle can still get some innings from a very good starter and hopefully find a trading partner before the trade deadline.  The trade that sent Chris Tillman, Adam Jones and company to Baltimore for Bedard was a complete loss– we all know that– but recovering even a sliver of that value by flipping Bedard next season would be better than dumping him.

My perception changes a bit if a serious injury is discovered in exploratory surgery.  If for some reason he’s going to miss half of the 2009 season then I would agree with non-tendering him.  In such a case, bringing him back would only pay him about $10M to pitch half a meaningless season.  There would be no opportunity to trade him and there would be no compensatory draft picks collected for letting him walk at season’s end. 

Time will only tell.  What are everyone’s thoughts on the upcoming Bedard surgery?  How badly do you think he’s hurt?  (And please, none of that ”he’s faking it” stuff we’ve heard all season.  No one would go under the knife if there wasn’t something legitimately wrong.)