What is Ben Sheets Worth?

Warning: opinion and reckless speculation follows, not seriously nerdy statistical analysis...

So Ben Sheets apparently is throwing for teams next week. You have to believe the M's will be there, and you have to believe that Jack Z has already spent a good deal of time on the horn with those who represent Sheets.

I don't have any clue how much the M's have left to spend, but what I do know is I don't like having some combination of Snell/Olson/Vargas/Fister/Petit/French/some-dummy rounding out our last two slots in the starting staff.

Ben Sheets hasn't pitched since 2008. His WAR, starting in 2002 through 2008: 3.8, 3.7, 8.0, 3.7, 4.0, 2.2, 4.4. That's pretty darn good. Ben Sheets had his elbow explode after 2008. That's scary.

His value is really tied to how healthy you think the guy will be - because when he's healthy, he's awesome and when he's not, well, you get to pitch Luke French or some-dummy. If you think he'll really hold up for 180 innings, he's probably a 4+ WAR guy, which makes his demand for $12 million bucks pretty fair.

But if you think he's going to be in and out of the rotation with a variety of ailments, give you about 130 Ben-Sheets-quality-innings, then he's probably something in the arena of a 2.5 WAR pitcher, in which case $9 million is probably about as high as anyone should go.

And then there's the whole possibility that he pulls a 2004 out of his ass and is just ridiculously good (10.03 K/9 rate and a 2.65 FIP. Yowsa.).

Jack Z knows and probably loves Ben Sheets. He could really make this rotation feared, and has the potential to push the scales of the AL West heavily into the M's favor.

I don't think the M's have the cash to get him, but I really would love to see him manning that "third #1 starter" slot in the rotation. Felix, Lee, Sheets? Hoo-boy...

Starter

Felix = yay
Cliff Lee = yay
Hyphen = uh, woo?

Then what?

Some very nice analysis over at Lookout Landing has the M's offense at about 40+ runs over last year's squad, which is just hoo-boy-dandy. But I continue to be real worried about who is going to toe the mound every 4th and 5th day.

Ryan Rowland-Smith is a lovely pitcher, but let's be honest with ourselves: if we can eek a 4.20 FIP out of the guy, we should be pretty happy. That's not bad, but when you have two giant TBA's behind him in the rotation, I'm not sure it's good enough.

If you can take a Doug Fister and replace him with a Bedard, Sheets, Wang, Myers, Davis, Smoltz, Pedro??? it allows Hyphen to become your #4 starter, and all of the AAAA guys can fight over the last spot in the rotation as they did pretty much all of last season (Vargas, Olson, French, Fister, Snell, etc.).

I doubt seriously that Smoltz or Pedro would sign here. Myers would have to come cheap because he's a health question and a major asshole. Wang, obvious health questions - but damn if his splitter/sinker wouldn't be well suited to this defensive-oriented team. Davis, kind of a Washburn prototype, just a tad better. Bedard and Sheets really emerge to me as the best investments due to their obvious upside(s).

Felix, Lee, Hyphen, Snell, Fister is not a rotation that will win the AL West with the offense we currently have. We need a guy to slot into that #3 hole.

Do it, Jack.