Albeit Ken Rosenthal, but:

Ben Sheets — Arguably the best starting pitcher in the entire free-agent class, but the question remains: Is he healthy?

Sheets missed all of last season while recovering from elbow surgery. Teams likely will want to see him throw before deciding whether he is worthy of an investment.

He still makes the most sense for a high-revenue club that can absorb the risk, but the Yankees and Red Sox do not figure to spend more on starting pitching.

Prediction: Cubs.



Yes, please. Do your due diligence etc then offer him the most heavily incentive laden contract in MLB history per innings/starts/years etc If he's right he becomes the best pitcher on the staff and all of the sudden our 1-5 is the best in the division/NL

I do not see the risk especially if there is only 3-4 million guaranteed? If he seems right the risk/reward is a no brainer. I hope him and his agent realize that he'll need to be signed for the cheap until teams see he is healthy.

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Team Cutler.

I said it about both the Cubs and the White Sox last year, and I'll say it about the Cubs this year. Sign him to a one year, incentive laden contract, and hope to catch lightning in a bottle. Can't hurt, but if he does get hurt, it won't cost you much.

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Second City Saint

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I agree. And I fear if we don't, somehow the Cards sign him and he wins 20 games and is the cy young.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

This could be a great signing, the best part would be how pissed off Milwaukee fans would be. Can you imagine Sheets going to the mound up in Miller Park in a Cubs uniform? Their heads would explode.

The big question is, does Sheets challenge Woody's record of simulated game victories?

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This smacks of a Cubs type signing. They love reclamation projects. Sometimes it pans out, sometimes it doesn't. If you can get him for a very heavily weighted incentive deal, there is very little risk and high reward.

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Does your cat make too much noise? Try KITTEN MITTENS!


Charlie: Oh shit. Look at that door dude. See that door right there? That door marked 'Pirate'? You think a pirate lives in there?
Dennis: I see a door marked 'Private.'

Wood? Prior is like 36-2 with 2 no decisions in towel games. Hall of Fame

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Team Cutler.

Actually, he's 35-2. One of them was changed to a no decision after the game.

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Second City Saint

Him and his perfect form could quite never catch a break.




But yes, Sheets please with no expectations

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Team Cutler.

After a shower,I have a towel game with my crotch!

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Holy fuck man there are some things about you we do not need to know!

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Does your cat make too much noise? Try KITTEN MITTENS!


Charlie: Oh shit. Look at that door dude. See that door right there? That door marked 'Pirate'? You think a pirate lives in there?
Dennis: I see a door marked 'Private.'

How does one actually lose a towel game?

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Im sure Kevin Gregg could find a way.

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And that piece of shit Heilman too.

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Second City Saint

Finally a player is pursued by the Cubs and Jim Hendry specifically, that is truely a top tier (when healthy) player. With Rich Harden gone and Lilly likely unavailable early in the season, they NEED to get a good starter. Ben Sheets is a bit of a risk, but I say HELL YEAH!!

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Go Cubs!!!!

If you can get him in touch with Clemens pharmacist then definately if not then no thanks. This guy makes Harden seem like Greg Maddux in terms of durability.

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ben sheets has averaged WAY more starts per season than rich harden could even dream of in his career. he just missed an entire season last year which harden has yet to do. even though hes come close


harden has started over 20 games twice out of 7 seasons. sheets has only pitched under 24 games in a season once in 8 years. and in 4 seasons he started over 30

Not sure where you are getting your numbers but he pitched in 22 games in 2005 17 games in 2006 and then 24 in 2007.

He hasn't pitched over 200 innings since 2004 and he is coming off elbow surgery and is 31 but I am sure he will only be getting more durable with age.

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ok so hes pitched under 24 games twice in his career. i missed one year. but hes had 4 years of over 30 starts. harden has never had a 30 game season.

my only problem with sheets is the cubs need pitching now with lily out and an unknown back of the rotation. sheets probably wont even be ready until july if that

The surgery he's coming off, generally takes 1 full year to recover from. He will be at that point prior to spring training, so he should be ready to pitch prior to the seasons beginning, but even if he took a bit longer, as long as the doctors say his recovery is on a good track, the gamble would be better than betting on Carlos Silva or Tom Gorzelanny. They have Zambrano, Dempster, Wells and when he gets ready to pitch again...Lilly. But they NEED another top of the rotation guy in that Z did not pitch like one for most of 2009, Lilly may not be able to pitch like one to begin 2010 and Dempster was not a guy you could depend on much, since the 2008 regular season concluded. it's reasonable to expect Z and Dempster to rebound, but adding an All-Star Caliber starter, would really be nice. Better to have him, with his shaky injury history, than a healthy Gorzelanny or Silva to depend on.

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Go Cubs!!!!

I dont disagree that Sheets might be worth taking a look at but it all depends on the contract he is being offered. Hendry could always bid against himself and give Sheets 4 years with a player option for a 5th. All that being said I agree the Gorzellany/Silva/Marshall/Smardzjilla options all kind of suck. The more arms the better. I just am not counting on much from Sheets and am expecting a Kerry Wood level roller coaster ride if the Cubs do sign him.

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As Ken Rosenthal guessed last week, the Chicago Cubs are reportedly set to make a run at free agent pitcher Ben Sheets, the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan reports.

According to Sullivan, Cubs GM Jim Hendry contacted Sheets' agent during the Winter Meetings. Sheets is reportedly asking for two years and a guaranteed $10-12MM, though the Cubs believe Cubs "they have a good shot at landing him with an incentive-laden deal."

It is hard to imagine Sheets getting anywhere close to that kind of guaranteed money, considering he missed the entire 2009 season.

Sullivan sees Sheets slotting in nicely in front of Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly in the Chicago rotation, with Randy Wells and newly-acquired Carlos Silva also serving as starting options.

With Lilly coming off of arthroscopic shoulder surgery, and little recent success from Silva, it is hard to imagine the Cubs want to roll the dice with Sheets. However, they did acquire Rich Harden in July 2008, so high-risk, high-reward pitchers may just be how the Cubs roll.




Signing Maddux and giving Sheets an incentive laden deal is actually signs of intelligent baseball life from the Cubs front office! Who knew?

Starting rotation of

Z
Lilly
Dempster
Sheets
Wells

If Sheets could give us like...20-25 starts. All sorts of false hope.

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Team Cutler.

for 6M a year, no way. 2M with incentives, then your talking. i would guarantee him as little as possible. damaged goods.

If they were willing to commit that much money to Sheets why not just resign Harden?

Why aren't they looking at doug davis? His numbers are average and he is usually on bad teams. He reminds me alot of Lilly before he got to chicago. His numbers looked similar and when he got to an above average team his w-l numbers improved alot. He is usually solid with his innings pitched as well.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

I thought arbitration for Harden would have been around 10-12 million per year? I hope that Sheets isn't getting anything close to that per year. When healthy, Sheets is just about as good as a pitcher and he'll give you a lot more innings. Obviously between the two of them, expecting to get 25 starts is beyond ambitious until they start doing it again.

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Team Cutler.

That doesn't mean they couldn't resign him. What did Texas sign him for, $7.5M? They could have matched that. He said he wanted to stay.

The Cubs doctors had plenty of info on Harden. My guess is that's why they decided against bringing him back.

Davis always seems to pitch good against the Cubs for some reason too.

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I agree they should have made a better attempt at resigning him, unless there is some medical issue that prevented it. But what's done is done, and hopefully Sheets can be a better options for less money

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Team Cutler.