Ben Sheets Signing Means No Risk, Solid Potential
July 1, 2012 at 5:52 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves, Transaction Analysis, Transactions
As reported prior to the game Sunday, the Braves signed Ben Sheets to a minor league deal. He will make his first start Wednesday for Double-A Mississippi.
Frank Wren said Sheets could potentially be a rotation member within a few weeks. This is a bold statement for someone who hasn’t been on a mound since 2010. Sheets underwent Tommy John surgery after 119 innings for the Athletics that year, and the right-hander has been on the disabled list seven times in his nine-year career.
However, the move comes with no risk. As a minor league deal, the Braves are not guaranteeing Sheets anything, and if he doesn’t return to form, they can cut bait with no loss.
And if he does return to form, the Braves get a 33-year-old that once posted a 28.2% strikeout rate over 237 innings. Sheets has recorded a strikeout rate over 20% three times while earning a career 3.65 FIP and 20.1% K-rate. He has always displayed great control with solid strikeout stuff, working off a low-90s fastball and a curveball that profiles as a true out pitch. Sheets also ramped up his changeup usage at 16.3% while in Oakland, so we’ll see whether he goes back to the fastball more or remains changeup-heavy in his return.
In the meantime, Sheets will work in the minor leagues as he attempts to regain his stamina and feel. Look for him to make several starts between Double-A and Triple-A, and monitor his progress, because his walk and strikeout totals could tell a story on how he responds to the elbow surgery.
If all goes well in the minors, Sheets could take a spot occupied by Mike Minor or Randall Delgado. If Sheets blows the Braves away in his return, the younger pitchers could even find themselves involved in trade rumors. We’ll see how it goes.
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“Quality start” is a really stupid “stat”, but Lord knows the Braves could use a few of them. Here’s hoping Sheets brings some stability to a rotation that, at the start of the season, appeared to be a strength of the team…
It wouldn’t take much for Sheets to perform as well as Minor and Delgado, like say limiting the opposition to only 2 HR per start.
It’s not a stupid stat–incomplete, but not stupid.
this is the kind of move that separates the smart fans from the ,well, not smart (or should I say ignorant) fans.
Smart fan see this as a no risk/high reward pickup that can’t hurt the team and costs virtually nothing. The potential gains of a very good starter for peanuts is just a huge ceiling.
Ignorant fans go “Ben Sheets sucks, he’s hurt all the time and Frank Wren has gone cheap and ruined the team” think I’m wrong? heard the latter on DOB’s blog today.
same thing going on the official site… a bunch of ‘fire Wrens’ for making cheap moves like this
Nick, I totally agree with you. This is a smart move for us to potentially give a big boost to a struggling, young rotation. Low risk/high reward.
Does this make me smart fan?! haha…Best yet, we don’t have to trade an arm to get him. I really do hope that Delgado and Minor come around, there’s still some time.
Good pickup for the Braves. Sheets wasn’t pitching great before his injury with the A’s, but, if he can come close to his form from 2004-2008, he could really boost the Braves’ rotation. With the few prospects the Braves have to offer, picking up Sheets for basically nothing is a good move. Depending on how Sheets pitches, the Braves could look like geniuses in a couple weeks time.
Much of Sheets’ “struggles” in 2010 was more than likely due to the impending injury. We’ve seen time and time again that pitchers come back just as good, if not better after TJ surgery. I love this move for all the reasons already stated.
To me, it becomes an even better move if the Braves still go after Grienke/Garza. I assume they could package Minor along with a prospect position player and have a damn strong rotation if Sheets does return to form. That would also allow for Delgado to get another year of AAA ball to fine tune his stuff.
I remember that CG, 18k game a few years ago…
Yep. I will always remember this because the very next game we got perfecto’d by Mr. Randy Johnson. That has to be up there with worst all time back to back offensive team performances.
It’s an interesting move, but I have to wonder if Sheets has anything in the tank at this point. My impression was that Sheets had retired prior to last season. I will be pleasantly surprised if he turns into a productive member of our rotation at any point this season.
It is no risk, but this isn’t the type of move that the Braves need to contend. This is a band-aid at best.
“At best” Sheets is substantially better than one of our two (or three) worst starters, and the team takes a big step forward. Solid move.
They are contending right now – 4.5 out of first in the East and 1 out of the second wildcard spot (that starts this year, right?). If Sheets is able to join the rotation and pitch consistently after the all-star break, it is far more than a band-aid. And as Stephen C. says below – this doesn’t stop additional moves (but I don’t see a way they get Greinke to sign a $15 mil a year extension as DOB suggests would be neccessary).
I honestly can’t understand why anyone would take issue with this move. As explained clearly, there’s absolutely no risk. It also doesn’t mean the Braves won’t make additional moves. I’m interested in seeing how he pitches. I like in Jackson, where the AA team is (for another month, at least, before I move to Rangers territory). Unfortunately, I’m out of town on the 4th. But I’m definitely going to try to see him pitch some time soon.
*live, not like
I am much more into the sabermetric stats, but still look at stats like RBI, AVG, quality starts, pitcher wins and other similar surface stats. If there is something abnormal about them, it is a telltale indicator that more investigation is warranted to see what the hell is going on. That’s usually more true though when I am in casual fan mode and not diving deep into detail. There are times during 162 where you don’t have time to do anything but look at the standings, boxscore and surface stats in the morning. If there is something abnormal about the surface stats, i don’t automatically think the guy stinks or is doing great like i did 10 years ago. I just keep it in the back of my mind that when i get some time, i am gonna have to dig deeper to find the root cause
I did have to chuckle at the radio broadcast during yesterday’s game. It seems not only do our fantastic duo of TV broadcasters completely denounce the use of SABR metrics, but our marginally respectable radio broadcasters have now jumped on the bandwagon.
There was a comment made about Chipper chasing down the all-time RBI lead for primary 3B players and that was a stat that Chipper truly cares about and not much else. The announcers went on to say that “those in the SABR community may not care about RBI’s but Chipper does.” Then, they went in for the jab…
“Are any of the guys that study SABR in the Hall of Fame?”
“No.”
“I think I’ll follow Chipper on this one.”
“Good call.”
Why is there such a hatred toward those of us that choose to follow SABR stats? Just like you said, it’s not as if we’re completely ignoring the standard stats or saying they are useless. We’re just looking behind them to see if there’s any trends or reasoning.
SABR is useless, I follow the WIN METHOD.
http://winmethod.blogspot.com/
I just puked in my mouth…
I have followed the WIN METHOD for several years now. Gabes response is one of the very few sane comments. Stats to a great degree used to determine a players value is fools gold and near worthless. Using stats as basics is a reasonable approach, using sabr convoluted man-made stats are only for the most foolish of baseball fans. The http://winmethod.blogspot.com/ is pure genius and defines baseball and why it is played. The best players and teams win the most often and the most wins gets you to the playoffs, pennants, and World Championships. Have at me stat frauds.
I am a casual reader of this site and almost never comment but I can tell you why there is such a hatred of the SABR community. I have a degree in mathematics and was able to get as high as 2 years of college baseball. I’m not bragging, just providing a little evidence that I understand both fields fairly well – baseball and statistics.
Back to the hatred – there are so many things that go into baseball that is not picked up in statistics. There are a lot of things going on in the clubhouse that the manager may be aware of but the general public may not that goes beyond looking at stats. There’s also the psychologiclal issues. Yet, in my experience with the SABR community, it is frowned upon and made fun of if your opinions aren’t backed up with 100% concrete quantitative proof. The SABR community doesn’t just disagree; they crap on people who have a different opinion.
IMO, it’s also the reason more and more businesses are starting to place more emphasis on organizational behavior management. They are starting to realize that everything cannot be solved with quantitative analysis and good results sometimes go beyond statistics. Quantitative analysis is a wonderful compliment and even the majority reason for making a decision but it should never be looked at in a bubble for making those decisions.
I come to this site because I enjoy reading opinions about braves baseball. I once commented another another name and any time the opinion wasn’t pure 100% sabrmetrics I usually received an off-handed comment from someone who, IMO, probably hasn’t played an inning of baseball beyond dizzy dean
Just my .02 cents, adjusted for inflation.
I’m having trouble believing this is truly a “no risk, high reward” signing. I can’t find the financial details anywhere, but I have to believe that either a) most teams view Sheets as so unlikely to pan out that they don’t care if the Braves signed him for nothing or b) the Braves didn’t sign him for nothing and have had to make some kind of non-trivial financial commitment (or at the very least have promised a substantial major league salary if they decide to use him in the rotation). There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Well… no one is saying it’s a “free lunch.” There’s no risk in that they didn’t have to give him a major league contract nor guarantee him a major league call up. All they had to do was offer him a minor league contract.
If it doesn’t pan out, then he remains in the minors until he hangs it up or we offer him as a trade in the future. The upside is just as everyone stated. A once dominant pitcher that has had NO mileage on his arm for nearly two years.
The potential upside to the deal basically nullifies any risk involved.
If you read DOB’s article, it’s not so difficult to understand why Sheets might have picked the Braves rather than shopping around longer for the highest bidder. In the first place, the fact that he missed the entirety of last season and has historically been plagued by injury concerns means that he was not getting to get any significant contract guarantees from any team. This was not a Roy Oswalt situation, and so in that sense, your first concern is probably reasonable. The probably that Sheets makes a significant impact in the majors is probably low enough that contract offers remain minimal and secondary factors (location, playoff potential, roster space) take on greater importance for Sheets. That doesn’t exactly mean that that he is not a “high reward” player though – just that the likelihood of realizing that reward is not particularly high. Second, the article clearly implies that Sheets was interested in the Braves for non-financial reasons. How many other teams (a) have a strong likelihood of making the playoffs; (b) have a serious need for a veteran starter; (c) have multiple rotation pieces that could easily be demoted to make room for him; and (d) play near Louisiana? It actually sounds a lot like this was a poor man’s Roy Oswalt signing – location concerns give the Rangers, Cardinals, and Braves a leg up on the competition, roster construction makes the Braves particularly appealing, and injury concerns make financial terms somewhat of a negligible concern.
First of all, there was competition for Sheets’ services so let’s give some love to Wrennie for getting that done with Sheets’ sig on the dotted line? Second of all, when you’re looking for ways to win, when is it not a good idea/plan to look under every rock in the quarry?
That said, I’m still thinking that Teheran will blossom and be a force, as early as this season. No way a kid with his kind of electric arm can not tweak something here and there and find himself? On balance, a good light at the end of the tunnel with the Sheets acquisition.