Ben Sheets has been one of the hottest potential targets to talk about for Seattle Mariner fans this offseason, but I’ve managed to go without mentioning him much on the site. But it’s time to broach the subject now that we know the Mariners were one of the teams in attendance for his Tuesday session.

“I was impressed,” said Seattle Mariners scout and former Major League catcher John Stearns, following Sheets’ outing. “Ben was free and easy, throwing the ball really well with not too much effort. He had good velocity. I was especially impressed with his curve ball. He’s got a plus Major League curve ball with a lot of depth to it.

“It looked to me like he was healthy, and health is the key issue here. I’m going to give him a strong recommendation to our organization.”

(Link)

Sheets, as you know, is a great starting pitcher.  He has one of the most effective fastballs in baseball to go with solid secondary stuff and he doesn’t walk a ton of hitters.  He was an 8 WAR pitcher in 2004 as a 25 year old and has been been among the game’s best ever since when healthy.  Of course, health is a major issue for Sheets as he’s missed significant time on the DL six times in his career and missed all of 2009 recovering from non-Tommy John elbow surgery in February.

These are scary injuries.  The elbow is bad enough, but he has multiple shoulder/rotator cuff strains and tendinitis diagnoses, which may be more concerning. Shoulder injuries are bad news. If you’re into mechanical analysis, Chris O’Leary took a quick look before the 2009 season, noting that Sheets may be suffering from the same timing problem as other long-armers and that there is some hyperabduction (high elbow) there as well.  But you don’t need mechanical analysis to know Sheets is in trouble.

Supposedly Sheets wants about $10M plus incentives and a second year player option.  Some fear he will indeed get that much given the amount of interest, but that is a ton of guaranteed money for someone with such a detailed injury history, and especially someone that didn’t even play last season.  How can he ask for that much after missing a whole season?  The answer is simple: there are enough teams interested that someone may be willing to pay it.  Still, it boggles my mind that a guy in his position could be getting so much.

That said, Sheets has been good enough that he can justify a $10M base salary even if he doesn’t make it through the year.  The guy was a 4 WAR pitcher in 2006 when he only pitched 106 innings!  That year he pitched for roughly half a season and still ended up high on the leaderboards surrounded by guys like Felix Hernandez, Greg Maddux, Dan Haren, Jake Peavy and Carlos Zambrano.  FanGraphs hasn’t valued his performance any lower than $9M since they started keeping track, despite pitching just 156, 106, 141 innings over a three year span. He’s very good, even if he can’t make 35 starts a year.  But that was all with the shoulder and other miscellaneous injuries.  Now we’re throwing his first elbow injury into the mix.

And I think he can get close to that.  Teams seemed impressed enough by his workout that I highly doubt they’ll treat him like a guy who just missed a whole season.  I doubt they’ll even treat him like Rich Harden.

Sheets is a gamble; no doubt about it.  But there is a decent chance that he can let Seattle at least get their fair share out of him, so that’s something.  And even if he gets hurt late in the year, missing the stretch and playoffs, at least he would (in theory) help them get off to a good start and into a position to be buyers at the trade deadline, so there’s that.  And, if you’re lucky, he takes his annual trip to the DL around midseason, so that he can help the team get off to a good start and help in the playoffs.  Again, a gamble.

Sheets would make for one helluva rotation.  Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Ben Sheets, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Ian Snell, holy wow.  Sheets would also– based on most estimates, and assuming he’s going to get close to $10M guaranteed– take up Seattle’s remaining payroll.  Could Seattle add an outfielder and sign Sheets?  That remains to be seen. Of course, there are other major issues, like would Sheets, a southeastern guy, want to come to the northwest?  There was some talk a while back that he wasn’t enthused about the idea, but he obviously has a relationship with Zduriencik and I’m sure Z could make a great pitch as to why Seattle is the premier place to rebuild value (though if he gets close to $10M, that may not be as much of an issue).

I’m not sure where this post is going.  It’s kind of all over the place, so I’ll cut it off short and sweet.  If the Mariners signed Ben Sheets for $10M I’d be okay with it.  More than okay with it, really.  I’d be very excited, just also very nervous.  The cheaper the better.  We’ll see.

• Should the Mariners be pursuing Ben Sheets?
• What is the most money you would be willing to give him?
• What kind of money do you expect him to get?