Sheets having a down year? (Latest: Is Sheets worth another big deal?)

[lukevan]

The way I see it, small and mid-market teams probably can't afford high ceiling, low risk veteran aces anymore, so they've got essentially two choices when it comes to investing in veteran pitching:

 

1) Low ceiling, low risk (e.g. Suppan). Someone who shows up for all his starts and is unlikely to be terrible in a whole season worth of them, but whose chances of a Cy Young caliber season are essentially zero.

 

2) High ceiling, high risk (e.g. Sheets). Might give you 20 wins, might give you 20 IP. Anybody's guess.

 

I'd prefer the latter. Particularly if we could somehow give Suppan back, and sign another pitcher of variety two. Most of the HOF-related research I've read suggests that you end up with more "Pennants Added" with a guy whose season over season WARP goes 10-0-10-0 than with a guy whose WARP goes 5-5-5-5. Roll the dice, take your chances, and when they come up craps don't beat yourself up.

 

Agree 100% A contending team has to have Sheets since it's unlikely we'd be able to replace him with anyone even close to his ability without overpaying by a lot.

[sheethead]

The way I see it, small and mid-market teams probably can't afford high ceiling, low risk veteran aces anymore, so they've got essentially two choices when it comes to investing in veteran pitching:

 

1) Low ceiling, low risk (e.g. Suppan). Someone who shows up for all his starts and is unlikely to be terrible in a whole season worth of them, but whose chances of a Cy Young caliber season are essentially zero.

 

2) High ceiling, high risk (e.g. Sheets). Might give you 20 wins, might give you 20 IP. Anybody's guess.

 

I'd prefer the latter. Particularly if we could somehow give Suppan back, and sign another pitcher of variety two. Most of the HOF-related research I've read suggests that you end up with more "Pennants Added" with a guy whose season over season WARP goes 10-0-10-0 than with a guy whose WARP goes 5-5-5-5. Roll the dice, take your chances, and when they come up craps don't beat yourself up.

 

This is a very good post. I do like option 1 a little more because with the offense the Brewers have put together, they should be able to win more with a consistent 6 inning, 3-4 ER starting pitcher. Where if the high risk does crap out, and you are stuck with AA pitchers making 20-30 starts a year, the chances of a winning season are dismal. Ben Sheets has not earned his current contract to date, so what's to say he will earn his next one. 2 years/$22M - he doesn't really deserve a raise, and his market value should be shrinking a bit due to 3 straight years of injury plagued seasons.

[rluzinski]

I can't see the Brewers being offered enough in a trade to get rid of Sheets in a year that all the pieces might be coming together. The Brewers could be very good next year.

 

2) High ceiling, high risk (e.g. Sheets). Might give you 20 wins, might give you 20 IP. Anybody's guess.

 

What some people don't see to appreciate is that you don't just label a pitcher "injury prone" or "innings eater" when trying to assess future, potential risk. You need to consider not only the chance of a pitcher getting injuried but also how many innings he might miss as a result. Sheets is probably more of a "medium risk" type player, IMO.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

What some people never seem to realize is that you don't just label a pitcher "injury prone" or "innings eater" when trying to assess risk. You need to consider not only the chance of a pitcher getting injuried but also how many innings he might miss as a result. Sheets is probably more of a "medium risk" type player, IMO.

 

I actually tend to agree with you (and with posts of yours I've read in the past) on this matter. Sheets's string of bizarre, non-elbow, non-shoulder injuries shouldn't give a GM nearly the pause that throwing injuries should.

 

I guess my point is that, however high a degree of injury risk you assign to Ben's future, I'd rather extend him if his price remains remotely reasonable (think Buehrle instead of Zito) than get another sure-fire mediocrity for a couple mil a season less.

[logan82]

What some people don't see to appreciate is that you don't just label a pitcher "injury prone" or "innings eater" when trying to assess future, potential risk. You need to consider not only the chance of a pitcher getting injuried but also how many innings he might miss as a result. Sheets is probably more of a "medium risk" type player, IMO.

 

Good point. Even in his worst recent injured year he still made half his starts. It isn't lie he missed almost a whole year. Like others have said before, he hasn't had any chronic shoulder or arm problems.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

If we could get Carl Crawford for Sheets sign me up, but why would the DRays want a high priced pitcher like Sheets when they can't afford him?

[MoneyballMan]

I suppose there is zero chance DM would consider trying to extend him early at a clear discount. And I guess just as likely Sheets' agent wouldn't let him do it anyhow. Or?

[Ennder]

I can't see the Brewers being offered enough in a trade to get rid of Sheets in a year that all the pieces might be coming together. The Brewers could be very good next year.

 

2) High ceiling, high risk (e.g. Sheets). Might give you 20 wins, might give you 20 IP. Anybody's guess.

 

What some people don't see to appreciate is that you don't just label a pitcher "injury prone" or "innings eater" when trying to assess future, potential risk. You need to consider not only the chance of a pitcher getting injuried but also how many innings he might miss as a result. Sheets is probably more of a "medium risk" type player, IMO.

I still feel zambrano is more of an injury risk than Sheets. Pitchers get hurt and zambrano has been abused over the past 3 years and shown signs of being regression while Sheets has been hurt but not abusing his arm. I don't want a long term contract for Sheets but if we can get soem incentive laden deal for 2-3 years I'd be very happy.

 

The thing with pitchers is IP is actually about as strong a predictor of injury as previous injuries are. A healthy slightly overused pitcher is due for an injury as much as a recently injured pitcher is due for one.

[Bruce Ciskie]

As frustrated as I am with Sheets' inability to be consistently healthy, I'm not about to advocate a trade. He's a lower risk for less money than Zambrano because Z is psycho. Sheets' bad starts don't happen as often and they're not as bad. With his mechanics as they are, he's a low risk to throw his arm out.

[rluzinski]

Here's some sabermetric analysis about what Sheets might be worth. It was from before the current season but I think it's still pretty relevant:

 

http://rluzinski.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-will-ben-sheets-be-worth.html

 

Free agent value of about $47 mil for a 3 year extension, assuming an average of 125 IP from 2009-11. Way too much for the Milwaukee Brewers.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Free agent value of about $47 mil for a 3 year extension, assuming an average of 125 IP from 2009-11. Way too much for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Here's the thing though, if teams actually do assume that Ben's only good for 125 IP a year for 2009 and beyond, and if Ben's lack of that special Jack Morris brand, proven veteran, just-knows-how-to-win quality plays into his actual market value at all (which it certainly would for at least some GMs), wouldn't we have to argue (based on the nature of Sheets's previous injuries and based on the fact that the aforementioned Jack Morris quality is totally imaginery) that Sheets is a collossal bargain at 15 mil/per and that the team would be foolish not to re-sign him?

They probably do have to start thinking about how much all of these good young players are going to cost in arbitration, but what's the point of a contention cycle if you're not going to bother spending any money to try to contend. My worry is that if they do conclude that Sheets isn't worth 15-17 mil/yr, they'll probably still want to spend some portion of that on a "veteran ace to anchor the rotation", and I sorta doubt given the current market that whoever they would elect to pay 12 mil/yr could come anywhere near matching that description, much less matching Sheets in production over the course of the contract.

By the way, interesting stuff at that link. I'd seen the 2 mil/ marginal win figure before (and lots of people using it) but I'd never read Tango's short-short version of an explanation of why this figure makes sense.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

As a clarifying note, part of what plays into my thinking on Sheets has to do with risk-averseness in general. I'm thinking specifically of this article, from this spring:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-new-inefficiency/

Generally, Sackmann's talking about cheaper, riskier players than Sheets. But the logic can be extended to a Sheets vs. Cordero discussion, for instance. And I think that this offseason, that might be the real choice facing the Brewers front office. They could obviously choose "neither" but I don't really think they can likely choose "both". I'm for "just Sheets" if I'm right about the budget constraints.