Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Ben Sheets Question

I keep hoping my schedule will clear up enough to take a detailed look at Ben Sheets (statistics, win share, injury history, recommended value), but it never seems to. I will continue to hope, but we'll see.

I was enjoying my morning coffee (mmmmmm hot) to take the chill out of my bones (it was FORTY EIGHT DEGREES this morning! My GOD that's cold!) and surfing around the Cardinal web. Something C70 said today caught my eye:

"Ben Sheets apparently wants a guaranteed contract. Of course, we can't always get what we want, as some obscure rock group sang. That said, if he'd go with an $7-8
million guarantee with some incentive clauses built in, I still think it makes sense for the Cardinals. Even if he goes down, the odds of getting their money back on the contract are pretty high."


$7 to 8 Mil for Sheets? That would be a pay cut; he hasn't been paid that little since 2005 (you'll have to scroll down to find Sheets, the link is in alphabetical order). Even given the current state of the economy, and the slow free agent market we've experienced this off-season (101 free agents still out there, some really good players with out a home yet), I'm not sure Sheets would be happy taking that little.

Then again, I'd be very happy if my employer compensated me for my time with a Seven Million Dollar salary. Especially if I'd made upwards of Forty Million Dollars so far in my lifetime playing baseball for a living. But that's me.

A modest pay cut has got to be better than sitting on the sidelines all year with nowhere to play. Maybe Mo is playing poker again, like he did with Lohse; that worked out pretty well for us last season.

So who knows what will happen.

I will say this, though: Ben Sheets' injury history remains a big red flag for me. However, IF we could sign him for less than Joel Piniero is going to make ($7.5M to suck - God Bless America) that's a win in my book. And something that should be seriously pursued.

1 comment:

Cardinal70 said...

I said that range because of the earlier MLBTR report that said he was looking for $18 million over 2 years. If that drops at all, he's got to be on the radar for the Cardinals. He should be even at that rate, I think.