Celebrating the Career of Ben Sheets
October 2, 2012 at 7:13 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Ben Sheets is calling it a career. Mark Bowman broke the news today that Wednesday will be Sheets’ final outing. He is expected to throw two innings before handing it over to Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado.
And how fitting that is. It wasn’t long ago Sheets was in those two youngsters’ shoes, throwing gas and expected to be an anchor in a team’s rotation.
Now, he just wants to throw a couple innings and go home to his family.
Sheets was the 10th overall pick in 1999 out of UL-Monroe. He reached as high as No. 5 on Baseball America’s Top 100, tossing a combined 2.40 ERA in 153.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in 2000. Baseball Prospectus wrote this on Sheets in 2001: “We heard he pitched pretty well in an international tournament last year. Ben Sheets doesn’t get tons of strikeouts, but he throws hard, pitches inside, and gets a lot of weakly-hit balls. A low strikeout rate is often a danger sign, but in Sheets’s case, we’re not worried at all. He has a good chance to be the NL Rookie of the Year.“
Of course, before that, he became an Olympic champion by throwing a shutout against Cuba in the 2000 Games, winning a gold medal and sitting himself right up front in the baseball world.
Sheets plugged away in 2002 and 2003, recording ERA’s of 4.15 and 4.45 with good strikeout rates and an improving walk rate. But he was labeled as an innings eater at the time, not having yet turned a corner.
That changed in 2004, as Sheets recorded a 2.70 ERA and 2.65 FIP over 237 innings, including a 28.2% strikeout rate and 3.4% walk rate. Sheets finished second in the league in FIP, third in ERA, third in K%, second in BB%, first in K/BB and fifth in LD%, all while throwing the third-most innings. The man finished eighth in Cy Young voting. If you ever need another reason why award voting is nearly meaningless…
And the Brewers simply ran him into the ground. Some pitchers are able to withstand a lot of innings early in a career and some can’t. Sheets never had the shoulder, back or arm for 215+ innings between the ages of 23-25. It doesn’t help when you throw a curveball 30% of the time in your career.
The result was four trips to the disabled list between 2005-07 and nine total in his career. That includes shoulder inflammation, a shoulder strain, another shoulder strain, more shoulder inflammation, Tommy John surgery, and eventually more shoulder inflammation with the Braves this season. He never reached 200 innings again.
Sheets’ injury history isn’t just a loss for him, it’s a loss for baseball. He had a talent for getting strikeouts, particularly with the curveball, that deserved a long career. We all wanted Sheets. We wanted to see him punch out 10+ every outing. When it came against other teams, we could do nothing but watch in awe and applaud it. When it came against the Braves, we did the same.
When the Braves signed Sheets this season, we all agreed that even one good start from him would make the signing worthwhile. He gave the Braves 48 solid innings before his shoulder said no more. As a Braves fan, you can’t ask for any more out of the man. As a baseball fan, you can’t help but want more.
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That’s one other advantage of not playing for anything these last 2 games (besides resting most of our lineup and starting pitchers). We can send Sheets off in style rather than a quiet press conference overshadowed by the hunt for a division title.
this is really sad. For the games that he played in Atlanta, we the fans fell in love with his competitive drive and good personality. He will be missed.
This is well written.
He’s a hell of a pitcher, and one of the unsung heroes of this season. He really stepped in and gave the rotation some stability when it was sorely needed. Glad to see him go out in style, and I’m even more glad we got the privilege of seeing him in a Braves uniform.
Very good piece of writing, and many thanks to Ben for what he did for our team this season. As Chris said, he contributed when we really needed it.
Great post. Sheets was a huge help to the Braves this season. I’m really glad that he can go out like this.
Glad to see Sheets is getting one last start in a Braves uni. He really did boost and stabilize our rotation when it was needed. Enjoy retirement!
Sheets provided a timely shot in the arm when the rotation was still in shambles. Thanks, and enjoy your retirement, Benny.
I had the opportunity to catch a Ben Sheets start in Milwaukee in 2004 over the July 4th weekend. He was absolutely dominant – IIRC double digit strikeouts with just a few baserunners allowed.
nice, 2 K’s in 1 IP. glad he went out that way :)
Pretty cool to see him go out throwing 94/95 too.
Is Sheets going to stay with the team for the postseason?
My brother met Ben at a baseball tournament in East Cobb as he was hosting the team that Ben was coaching. They talked a lot and Ben casually mentioned that he was going to have a tryout with the Braves and a few other teams the next day to give it one last chance.
While carrying equipment, he would groan because of pain in the elbow and shoulder. My brother asked him about his injuries and he said that it hurt to even move his arm, but he wanted a chance to go out on his terms.
He had that tryout, was picked up by the Braves, and went out on his own terms.