Free agent right-hander Ben Sheets has signed with the A’s, CBSSports.com has learned.
Sheets agreed to terms on a one-year deal for more than $8 million. He passed a physical today, and the deal is expected to be announced this afternoon.
Excellent.
Interesting that he got more than Harden.
What exactly is Harden’s contract, because my searches are turning up different things in terms of the base salary, performance bonuses, and 2nd year option? The consensus seems to be
which could be significantly more than Sheets, depending on the incentives in that contract (and both men’s health).
Looks like 1/7.5 with a mutual option for 11MM. Didn’t know about the mutual option.
(Sorry – I added to my post post-posting).
What exactly is Sheets’ for that matter?
I’ll guess at $8 guaranteed + $2 performance, which would mean that they both get up to $10 for the year.
Now guess who will start more games next year.
I would have preferred Beltre (but then so would the A’s). After that, though, this is pretty much the most reasonable FA signing.
Disagree, I would definitely rather have Kouz + Sheets than Beltre + Hairston + Cunningham.
Although I suppose there’s the possibility that maybe you could have swapped H+C for a different pitcher, although we can’t know if that was even possible.
I think this year’s team should be better than Beltre/no trade/no Sheets, and I don’t think Beltre will be all that good in 2011-12. Also, Sheets should have excellent trade value if he stays healthy.
You could be right. I think he will be, but there’s plenty of uncertainty about him and Kouz is a pretty good fill-in.
We do, however, follow a team where “if he stays healthy” is what John Cole would call “magical fucking thinking” in that it never seems to actually happen. I hope Sheets is different, and I certainly like the signing.
I think in the A’s position (mediocre team) going for upside is the best strategy rather than spending the money on someone dependable. I probably wouldn’t want to spend this much money on him as the Angels or Mariners.
That certainly makes sense. I think “filling gaping holes for multiple years” is most important though. At the time Beltre was the best way to do that. Sheets doesn’t do that, but then Kouz already did. The closest thing we have now is SS, and Pennington’s probably on the low end of ok.
Any news on how much is guaranteed and how much is in incentives? And is guaranteed money insurable?
It would certainly be insurable, but I have no idea what the economics are. Everything is insurable.
… except people with preexisting conditions.
Yuck. We should fix that.
Finally the bride and not a bridesmaid.
It really is interesting that he got more than Harden. In thinking about that deal in hindsight I suppose I would have been more disappointed that the A’s didn’t go after Harden if I had known they had this kind of money sitting around. Which brings up the question- could the fact that the A’s have been so aggressive recently on the FA market have something to do with the fallout following the Marlins wrist-slap over revenue sharing money? Maybe a friendly reminder from Bud to Lew that we had better be helping to send smoke around that issue if we want to get our move to SJ approved?
You have a troll/admirer
Apparently. Of course mine is appropriately sized and doesn’t spell out the joke. His is [insert masturbatory style critique here].
TWHS
his got 16 rec’s. what’d you get?
There first.
if history has taught us anything, nm…
16 rec’s and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
you spying on me again, monkey?!
Actually I get (very marginally) less deep in debt every day. When I’m ready to retire I’ll be even.
Thumbs up.
Boy, would it have been frustrating and confusing if they’d lost Sheets and signed Damon.
< / Travis >
Of course we didn’t lose Sheets. Make good pitchers want to come here.
Well, they should.
When was the last time we lost out on a FA pitcher we made the top offer to? I can’t think of one, but I might easily be forgetting.
We play in pitcher’s fucking paradise. They should pay us a tax to play there.
Fucking pitchers.
Heard this: Even in the aftermath of the Sheets agreement, the Oakland-Damon dialogue is continuing.Damon wouldn’t get a lot of $ from(cont
I’ll take him at $3M
I probably would too, but it would make signing Crisp all the more baffling, and it’s not clear to me that he’s better than Rajai or Crisp…
Yep. I do not now, nor did I ever, understand the Crisp signing.
It would also be really weird because we’d have tons of (relatively high quality) OF redundancy, and still no real IF redundancy (with relatively low-quality front-line IFs).
Addressing the shortcomings of the infield has been the other-shoe-drop we’ve been waiting for since the 2007/8 off-season.
Hello…Eric Chavez?
I don’t know. Signing Damon makes re-signing Cust seem more redundant than the Crisp deal.
I hadn’t realized that the Giants could have avoided Lincecum’s current super 2 status if they’d just waited a week longer to bring him up in 2007 (he spent the first month of the season in AAA). Obviously hindsight is 20-20 and they didn’t know it was exactly a week at the time, but another month would have been conservative and saved them about $10 million.
The win-now brigade would have crucified them.
But he was only called up because Ortiz went on the 15-day DL … they should have taken a leaf out of the A’s book and just left him on the bench.
Sheets is #21
Very happy about this news.
However, if I was Gio I’d make sure my residence was on a month-to-month lease.
Although what are the odds that (i) Duke and Sheets are healthy simultaneously, and (ii) if healthy, Sheets is on the team after the trading deadline.
Pitching is fairly abundant right now, but it isn’t really medium term, and even for this year I think Gio is the strong favorite to get a rotation spot over Cahill and Mazzaro. Also, since real estate values have declined, maybe it’s a good time to buy…
If Gio can’t make it as a starter he could be a good lefty/swing man out of the pen. Of course that’s also what I see as Eveland’s likely role.
But I’m also strongly in the “send Cahill to AAA and wait for him to dominate that level before bringing him back” camp. I’d rather see Gio get the #5 slot outright.
I agree with all of you…I like the idea of what Gio can do (if not so much the actual results). Still, given the fact that his name has come up as trade potential this offseason, that Sheets now makes the overall starting pitching more solid, and in particular the distinct possibility that Beane perceives Gio’s trade value as exceeding the value of his actually pitching in Oakland, I think the signs point to departure.
We’ll see, his SO rate feels too sexy for him to not become a legit pitcher.
I think he’d be nuts to trade any of them, given the injury uncertainty with respect to Duke, Braden, and Sheets, and the suck uncertainty with respect to Eveland, Gio, Cahill, and Mazarro. It’s a pretty good bet that all seven of those guys (and maybe a few more) will make starts in 2010.
SHEET(s) YES!
And what would ** be without the obligatory Trainman anti-Eveland comment.
I win.
No. G-S wins.
I think Dave Cameron says “market correction” more than Peter Travers says “visually stunning”.
I heart Jeff.
That’s the most optimistic statement I’ve seen about the A’s in months!