Astros in the Ben Sheets Sweepstakes?

[Silfam]

From Foxsports - citing the Boston Globe:

"The Brewers might undergo major upheaval if they don't hold on to win the NL Central, according to multiple baseball officials. CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets are likely heading elsewhere as free agents. The Angels and Dodgers may have a tug-of-war for Sabathia, while the Astros, with some heavy lobbying by Roy Oswalt, could land Sheets. There will be no shortage of suitors for shortstop J.J. Hardy, including Detroit and Baltimore. And the biggest shock of all might be the team's willingness to deal Prince Fielder for a starting pitcher. -- Boston Globe"

http://msn.foxsports.com/rumors/mlb#4

Never even knew Oswalt and Sheets were friendly. While he is injury prone, I don't know what other options we have - we really need front line starting pitching and he can be dominant at times. Oswalt and Sheets is a top line 1-2 combo (assuming Sheets' health of course, which is HUGE assumption). He won't command Sabathia money because of his injury history, maybe we actually can get him. Who knows?

Thoughts?

[hoopgod13]

From Foxsports - citing the Boston Globe:

"The Brewers might undergo major upheaval if they don't hold on to win the NL Central, according to multiple baseball officials. CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets are likely heading elsewhere as free agents. The Angels and Dodgers may have a tug-of-war for Sabathia, while the Astros, with some heavy lobbying by Roy Oswalt, could land Sheets. There will be no shortage of suitors for shortstop J.J. Hardy, including Detroit and Baltimore. And the biggest shock of all might be the team's willingness to deal Prince Fielder for a starting pitcher. -- Boston Globe"

http://msn.foxsports.com/rumors/mlb#4

Never even knew Oswalt and Sheets were friendly. While he is injury prone, I don't know what other options we have - we really need front line starting pitching and he can be dominant at times. Oswalt and Sheets is a top line 1-2 combo (assuming Sheets' health of course, which is HUGE assumption). He won't command Sabathia money because of his injury history, maybe we actually can get him. Who knows?

Thoughts?


I believe Roy O and Sheets were Olympic teammates in 2000. We know Peavy and Roy are real t1te, but i didn't know about this either.

[JayZ750]

I would just be very cautious about the deal. He can be dominant, but as mentioned can also be injury prone and, hard to believe, will be on his 9th season and past 30 next year - obviously, good pitchers can go way beyond 30 and be dominant and effective, but just things to keep in mind.

you have to get pitching somewhere, somehow, though, so worth a shot for sure.

[leroy420]

I believe Roy O and Sheets were Olympic teammates in 2000. We know Peavy and Roy are real t1te, but i didn't know about this either.

Yes, they were good friends since the 2000 Olympics. Also, Sheets might like the chance to play closer to home (Baton Rouge).

That said, the guy is injury prone and will be looking for a deal in the 5yr range. There is no way I'd give him more than 3 with maybe a team option for a 4th.

By the way, what the hell does "t1te" mean?

[Oski2005]

Oswalt and Sabbathia are also friendly. When CC was struggling at the start of the year, he got a text from the Wizard.

[leroy420]

Oswalt and Sabbathia are also friendly. When CC was struggling at the start of the year, he got a text from the Wizard.

True, but I believe the Yanks have something like $120 million coming off the books for 09. You know they're going to throw tons at CC...especially moving into the new park.

[rrj_gamz]

We definitely need another starting pitcher...Is it sheets, maybe, but don't throw him Kaz money...I'm just saying...

[bobrek]

If Sheets makes one more start this year, it will be the first year since 2004 he has pitched over 200 innings. 2005 - 2007, he wasn't even close.

[Storm Surge]

why not go after CC Sabbathia he is much more dominant.

[The Cat]

We definitely need another starting pitcher...Is it sheets, maybe, but don't throw him Kaz money...I'm just saying...

Kaz money? :confused:

Matsui is making $5 million a year for three years. With Sheets, you'd be talking $12 million a year for four years, minimum I'd guess. If you don't want to spend Kaz money ($5 million) for a starting pitcher, then you'll have a rotation of Brian Moehler's and Dave Borkowski's.

[SamCassell]

That said, the guy is injury prone and will be looking for a deal in the 5yr range. There is no way I'd give him more than 3 with maybe a team option for a 4th.

Unfortunately, there's no bargain shopping for a pitcher in Sheet's league... not in the current market, where pitching is at a premium. If you limit yourself to 3 year deals, you're telling Sheets to go elsewhere. Because someone is gonna make him a 5 year offer. Yankees and Dodgers and every other big spending club are in the market for good pitching, even at the risk of injury.

The only other way to get a #2 type pitcher is to find someone willing to trade one away, and the asking price there isn't going to be cheap either. The farm system doesn't look like it's going to produce anyone like that anytime soon.

[Smokey]

By the way, what the hell does "t1te" mean?

Tite or tight...as in close.

[bobrek]

why not go after CC Sabbathia he is much more dominant.

Because the Astros could offer him 6 years for $120 million and the Yankees would offer more. The Astros could offer 7 years at $150 million and the Yankees would offer more.

Perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but the general premise is true.

[BrooksBall]

We definitely need another starting pitcher...Is it sheets, maybe, but don't throw him Kaz money...I'm just saying...

We would be lucky to get him for twice what we paid Kaz, even with consideration to his injury history. The bigger issue is length of contract. You are right, though - he is the Kaz Matsui of pitchers.

That being said, an Oswalt-Sheets 1-2 would get me excited for 2009.

[HAYJON02]

I'm glad we have a team that never goes fire sale mode ala Florida/apparently Milwaukee. What do they expect? Randomly have a dominant season and their FAs sign for peanuts? Bunch of Ebeneezer Sterlings if you ask me.

Then again I've met the occasional Marlin fan. I have never in my life met a Pirate fan but I'd respect the hell out of them. They've never even had a fair weather fan or heard of a bandwagon. Bandwagons cost money you know. It's too bad. Pirates are cool.

If we sign a top pitcher, we are right back in the hunt after a whole ZERO years of rebuilding/reloading. Ah, the life of a Stros fan. We really do have it good. How many late season rallies have we had in the last few years? It really does take the edge off of the late NBA off-season.

[Oski2005]

Kaz money? :confused:

Matsui is making $5 million a year for three years. With Sheets, you'd be talking $12 million a year for four years, minimum I'd guess. If you don't want to spend Kaz money ($5 million) for a starting pitcher, then you'll have a rotation of Brian Moehler's and Dave Borkowski's.

Maybe he meant Kazmir :confused:

[BrooksBall]

Maybe he meant Kazmir :confused:

It would make even less sense in that case:

Scott Kazmir 2008 salary: $3,785,000

Kaz Matsui 2008 salary: $5,500,000

[htownballa23]

Maybe he meant Kazmir :confused:

Maybe he meant overpaying for an injured player.

Injured Kaz - not worth $5.5 million

Injured Sheets - not worth $12+ million

[Major]

Unless the price comes down substantially, the Astros need to stay away from Sheets. His ERA and health this year is substantially better than the past several years. This would be the classic case of paying for a career year.

[Landlord Landry]

isn't there supposedly a plethora of pitchers available this offseason?

I'd like to have Sheets, but not for $12 mill per.

[A_3PO]

I don't have a good vibe about Ben Sheets. He is much too injury prone. Someone is going to overpay and regret it big time. May as well not be the Astros.

[bigtex76]

I don't have a good vibe about Ben Sheets. He is much too injury prone. Someone is going to overpay and regret it big time. May as well not be the Astros.


I say do it. The guy played for Ned Yost who was notorious for pitching his starters very late into games even if they had a sizable lead. This is why alot of their starters are always doing stints on the DL and the reason they have ran out of gas at the end of the past two seasons after coming out the gates quick. The Astros don't really like to push their starters too late into games.

[bobrek]

I say do it. The guy played for Ned Yost who was notorious for pitching his starters very late into games even if they had a sizable lead. This is why alot of their starters are always doing stints on the DL and the reason they have ran out of gas at the end of the past two seasons after coming out the gates quick. The Astros don't really like to push their starters too late into games.

Roy Oswalt has averaged a whopping 1/2 pitch per game started less than Sheets over their careers.

Yost had been riding Sabbathia, but I don't think he is "notorious" for riding any of their other starters.

[br0ken_shad0w]

If it wasn't for the aging roster and "win now" mentaility, I would have just waited for Peavy, Kazmir, or Halliday in 2010.

Some guys we could look at if Sheets and Sabathia price themselves out of our reach:
AJ Burnett
Ryan Dempster - most likely re-signs with the Cubs
Jon Garland
Derek Lowe - hmm didn't know he's 35.
Brad Penny

[CometsWin]

Sheets is the righthanded Greg Swindell. No thanks.

[bobrek]

Sheets is the righthanded Greg Swindell. No thanks.

I thought Doug Drabek was the right handed Greg Swindell.

[CometsWin]

I thought Doug Drabek was the right handed Greg Swindell.


Nah, Drabek was actually pretty darn good for a while.

[bobrek]

Nah, Drabek was actually pretty darn good for a while.

Drabek had that Houston curse. A reasonable ERA (3.88) but a 9-18 record his first year. He followed that up with a nice ERA in the 2.80 range and a 12-6 record. His next 2 Houston seasons were not good.

I suspect Sheets could go at least 9-18 (provided he was healthy enough to start 27 games) :)

[redgoose]

Penny and Dempster are staying put if they have to be overpaid. Burnett and Garland will be Yankees. Book it!

Their overhyped farm guys aren't exactly the new building blocks for a title team other than possibly Jabba. That gives them one farm developed pitcher Brian Cashman can brag about how he saved money while Hughes flopped and ends up in Toronto to help get at least once pitcher now. They're also dying to get Halladay more than AJ, so it just might be a 2 part deal to rip the Yanks so called farm system to shreds.

Cabathia is still a mystery to me as it will be a huge silent bidding war between West Coast and East Coast teams and someone other than Boston will get raped. They've overcome their stupidity bidding vs either NY team. Meanwhile Milwaukee is tearing Sabathia's arm to nano shreds like Baker did to Prior and Wood. I think we'll be hearing that reasoning when he goes on the DL at some time next season while making 120 million.

A healthy Sheets is our only option to give us a fighting chance for the Wild Card.

[Spacemoth]

Why oh why do Astros fans still believe that this regime has a chance to win it all? Have we developed ANY young pitching lately? What about hitters besides Pence? What was the last team you could think of that did not have an up-and-coming collection of young players that boosted their rotation and bullpen?

There's a right way and a wrong way to go about contending people. Look at the Yankees the past 7 years. Their championships in the 90's all came from development with timely acquisitions of (albeit expensive) veterans, but still, they don't do anything without Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte et al coming up the pipeline. Soriano didn't win any championships but he was part of it too. Same with Wang and Cano. Now that their farm system has dried up so has their playoff run.

Getting Sheets is the wrong answer. Let's stick to the Rockets until the Astros finally "get it", which I'm afraid may be many years away yet.

[DaDakota]

There is no right and wrong way to win it, it is a matter of whatever works for any particular situation.

Some do it through minor league development, others through free agent acquisitions....

Whatever works.

The Astros would be contenders with one more top of the line starting pitcher and one 2nd tier starting pitcher.

DD

[H-townhero]

Possibly, but their offense goes into extended periods of stagnation and it really hurts them. Scoring 5 runs in 5 games (Cubs/Marlins) is not acceptable. The batting order still needs a few kinks to be worked out as well.

The Astros were in a ~8 game over .500 position earlier in the season as well and fell into a similar funk, dropping them from 2nd to the BOTTOM of the division.

[msn]

Why oh why do Astros fans still believe that this regime has a chance to win it all? Have we developed ANY young pitching lately? What about hitters besides Pence?
Wanna maybe give "this regime" at least, I dunno, two drafts before pronouncing them dead?

Purpura (and Gerry the Great's last two or three years as well, to be fair) were failures.

I wasn't a fan of Ed Wade being hired, but he's here. Let's see what become of his draft picks in the next 2-3 years.

[DaDakota]

Possibly, but their offense goes into extended periods of stagnation and it really hurts them. Scoring 5 runs in 5 games (Cubs/Marlins) is not acceptable. The batting order still needs a few kinks to be worked out as well.

The Astros were in a ~8 game over .500 position earlier in the season as well and fell into a similar funk, dropping them from 2nd to the BOTTOM of the division.


They had just gone through a Hurricane, I think Ike had more to do with a late season slump than anything else.

DD

[H-townhero]

They had just gone through a Hurricane, I think Ike had more to do with a late season slump than anything else.

DD

Can you blame the hurricane from the similar situations throughout earlier in the year? I think not.

[bobrek]

Can you blame the hurricane from the similar situations throughout earlier in the year? I think not.

Earlier in the year the offense was indeed stagnant for no apparent reason. After the all-star break, the offense started producing much better. As of that Sunday night in Milwauke, the Astros were essentially tied for the wild card lead (they had the same number of losses as the Brewers and Phillies). Unfortunately, their offense went south for 5 games. There were a lot of contributing factors. Part of it was perhaps the loss of a healthy Lee, Matsui and Wigginton finally caught up to them. Part of it was Berkman's career long slump. Part of it was the pitching getting battered early and putting tremendous pressure on the team in an already pressurized situation (hurricane, travel arrangements, wild card race, family, etc.). Part of it was facing some pretty good pitchers. Part of it was the hurricane and all the ancillary stuff.

It is hard to compare their offensive failures of thse 5 games to their offensive failures earlier in the season.

[msn]

It is hard to compare their offensive failures of thse 5 games to their offensive failures earlier in the season.
But it is not hard, given the season as a whole, to come to the very plausible conclusion that for whatever different factors at different points in the season, this team is damn streaky. Streaky as hell.

Now would be the time for a good 19-gamer. :D

[bobrek]

But it is not hard, given the season as a whole, to come to the very plausible conclusion that for whatever different factors at different points in the season, this team is damn streaky. Streaky as hell.

Now would be the time for a good 19-gamer. :D

Yep they have been streaky and during the non-hurricane part of the season (by observation and not any statistical analysis), it seemed to be tied to the top of the order.

In hindsight, Cooper batted Bourne at the top of the order way too long. They seemed to do much better when Erstad was there (before he had appeared to wear down). They started winning once they got better OBPs from 1 and 2.

It appears to be the same as in the past, when Biggio got on base, they tended to have good offensive production, but for too long they have had an OBP hole at the top.

They struggle because they are a poor OBP team (with a few exceptions - Berkman most notable). Until they fill that OBP hole, unless everyone else is clicking, they will continue to be offensively streaky.

[BrooksBall]

Help me out here...

Here is a list of the Astros' guaranteed contracts for next season:

Carlos Lee: $18.5M
Lance Berkman: $14.5M
Roy Oswalt: $14M
Miguel Tejada: $13M
Kaz Matsui: $5M
Brian Moehler: $2.3M
Darin Erstad: $1.75M
Oscar Villarreal: 1.6M
Geoff Blum: $1.25M

Total = $71.9M

I assume we are planning on re-signing Valverde, Pence and Rodriguez so that brings us to 12 players (4 pitchers since Villarreal is just owed money) and around $80 million. We will need to sign/re-sign several additional pitchers just to have a complete rotation and bullpen. We will also need a couple of catchers and a few more position players. That will bring our starting point for looking at FAs somewhere around $85-95 million.

This is a list of what McLane has spent over the last 9 seasons:

Opening Day payrolls for 25-man roster
(salaries plus pro-rated signing bonuses):

2008: $ 88,930,414
2007: $ 87,759,000
2006: $ 92,551,503
2005: $ 76,779,000
2004: $ 75,397,000
2003: $ 71,040,000
2002: $ 63,448,417
2001: $ 60,897,667
2000: $ 52,400,000

So, unless we make trades to get out from under at least one of our bigger contracts (Tejada?), even if Drayton is willing to spend $95-100 million for 2009 (his most ever as owner), we probably wouldn't even have enough to sign one top-tier pitcher like Sheets. We may be best off trying to get a non-Type A FA starting pitcher and holding onto our 1st rd pick. We may not be able to afford a Type A starting pitcher anyway.

[BrooksBall]

I forgot to include the in-season signings of Clemens and stuff in the previous post. Those payrolls are opening day numbers only.

[Refman]

I forgot to include the in-season signings of Clemens and stuff in the previous post. Those payrolls are opening day numbers only.
If you add things like that in, it shows that Drayton is willing to spend the extra $10-$15M a year if he thinks it will put us over the top.

In this case, I believe it will...Drayton probably does too.

[BrooksBall]

If you add things like that in, it shows that Drayton is willing to spend the extra $10-$15M a year if he thinks it will put us over the top.

In this case, I believe it will...Drayton probably does too.

I agree... I should have considered that initially. He will definitely have to spend to get a top-tier pitcher unless we move Tejada. I don't see Berkman, Oswalt or Lee going anywhere with their no-trades. We can't afford to move a guy like Oswalt anyway if we are looking to beef up the starting rotation.

If we do sign somebody in the Sheets range, we will likely have the highest Opening Day payroll in Astros history.

[Landlord Landry]

I don't want sheets. period. not for his price.

I'd try to get Jon Garland and Derek Lowe. Ditch Backe, and put Mohler in the pen.

[SamCassell]

I don't want sheets. period. not for his price.

I'd try to get Jon Garland and Derek Lowe. Ditch Backe, and put Mohler in the pen.
John Garland's got a 4.79 ERA this season. Why would you spend money for that crap? I'd rather keep Moehler.

[Landlord Landry]

John Garland's got a 4.79 ERA this season. Why would you spend money for that crap? I'd rather keep Moehler.

because Garland is a workhorse. I don't think he's had an injury in 6-7 years, his ERA usually isn't really high(probably not very low either) but he does pitch in the AL. he's a perfect number 3-4 starter.

Moehler played out of his mind this year and still wound up with mediocre numbers.

[Refman]

because Garland is a workhorse. I don't think he's had an injury in 6-7 years, his ERA usually isn't really high(probably not very low either) but he does pitch in the AL. he's a perfect number 3-4 starter.

Moehler played out of his mind this year and still wound up with mediocre numbers.
Yeah because we just can't seem to get enough number 3 or 4 starters.

[msn]

Yeah because we just can't seem to get enough number 3 or 4 starters.
Well, LL's opinion is probably that the Astros have one #1 starter and a bunch of #5s or AAAA starters.

I'm intrigued with Wolf, personally.

[Landlord Landry]

Yeah because we just can't seem to get enough number 3 or 4 starters.

yea, but Derek Lowe wouldn't be a number 3-4.

1. Roy
2. Lowe
3. Wolf/Garland
4. Garland/Wolf
5. Rodriguez

thats not murders row, but it should be a hell of alot better than what we have.

[SamCassell]

yea, but Derek Lowe wouldn't be a number 3-4.

1. Roy
2. Lowe
3. Wolf/Garland
4. Garland/Wolf
5. Rodriguez

thats not murders row, but it should be a hell of alot better than what we have.
Derek Lowe isn't as good as you think he is. Not that I wouldn't take him, but look at his splits. He pitches in the best pitchers' park in the game. Outside of Chavez Ravine, he's 5 - 6 with a 4.57 ERA this season. Batters are hitting .295 off him. And he's already 35.

I'm not against getting Tier 2 pitchers like you've described, in principle. But I don't like the 2 that you've targeted.

[Landlord Landry]

I'm not against getting Tier 2 pitchers like you've described, in principle. But I don't like the 2 that you've targeted.

niether do I, but as opposed to Ben Sheets, I'd rather have Derek Lowe.