The domino effect of Sheets' injury

[Fear The Chorizo]

Talking with some non-Brewer friends of mine (living in Chicago, guess who they root for), they didn't seem to think that the Sheets injury has affected the Brewers too much, since Gallardo has been very good in his place (the exception being yesterday). Eventually they understood just how much it has hurt Milwaukee's pitching, after I brought this point up:

 

Sheets' injury before the trade deadline handcuffed Doug Melvin, and made it impossible to trade away any of the marginal starting pitchers currently on the roster - If Sheets stays healthy, Yo would have been in the bullpen until Melvin traded away either Vargas(whose value was probably highest right at the trade deadline, since then he's been, well, Vargas), Bush (would be the least likely to be dealt, unless Melvin could have landed an impact player in trading him), or Capuano (Brewers were praying he could show SOME promise in a start or two before dealing him - at this point is there any reason to believe that Parra won't be in Cappy's rotation spot next year?).

 

With Sheets not available to take the ball every 5th day, the bullpen got overworked, because the rest of the rotation is full of 5 and 6 inning pitchers - Yo is too young to go too much deeper in games at this point, and other than the occasional gem from Bush, the rest of the rotation's stuff isn't good enough to face a batting order for a 4th (or sometimes even a 3rd) time in a game. Sheets' presence in the rotation at least gave most of Milwaukee's relievers a day off, and more often than not the back end of the bullpen would be fine pitching in Sheets' games, because there was probably a save situation looming.

 

Because of Sheets' injury, Melvin is faced with a stable of pitchers that need to get sorted out this offseason, especially with young arms like Yo, Parra, and maybe Villenueva deserving of a fulltime rotation spot on the roster next season. If I'm not mistaken, Melvin always claimed that pitchers have better trade value during the season - Melvin probably won't be able to get good value on any deals involving Capuano or Vargas this offseason, because other teams are going to see that those pitchers probably won't have roles on next year's Brewer pitching staff.