bullpen by committee

This alludes to the Kerry Wood situation more than a little, no?  Wood is a guy with dominant stuff who just seems to throw is arm out of his socket.  He has noticably poor mechanics, is notorious for resisting coaching to improve said mechanics, and was subjected to Dusty Baker's idiocy for a number of years (he very frequently went to 120 pitches in a start, hit 130+ on a number of occasions, and topped out at 141(!)).  This was all at a very young age.  Amazingly, his raw stuff hasn't suffered much, but he himself says that he begins to feel it when he pitches more than 70 pitches at once.  That's a problem.  All of his missed time has been due to serious shoulder/elbow injuries that require surgeries.

Sheets, also blessed with great stuff, has also missed a lot of time in the past three seasons.  Unlike Wood, he was not subjected to insane pitch counts: he topped out at 130, and, from 2002-2004, when he started 34 games per year, very rarely threw 120 pitches.  He did have shoulder surgery in 2005, but since then his injuries have been kind of freakish.  He missed some games when his scar tissue started "popping" -- the time missed was precautionary and it has recurred since.  He had that weird thing where he was dizzy for like three months and couldn't pitch (wtf was that thing again?), there was hamstring tightness that made him miss one start or so this year, and then there was that nerve-sheeth thing in his finger, which just seems strange as hell.  Most of these things are just fluky (or maybe Benny is cursed).  They could happen whether or not he works out of the bullpen, on a limited pitch/inning count.  

We could make the argument that fewer innings/pitches means fewer opportunities for some of these freak things to happen, which is true.  But then again, relievers warm up in different ways than starters -- most notably, they do it more abruptly.  There always the possibility that such a transition would jive with Benny's strange body.  Then again, it may be exactly what it needs.  

Like Wood, the stuff is still there.  Unlike Wood's scenario, it seems that keeping Benny healthy is a matter of luck more than a matter of pitchcount, coaching, and/or mechanics.  

Sheets as closer would not be the worst move ever.  If nothing else, it's interesting, and the Brewers might have the resources (7-8 starting pitcher type guys) and have the needs (no closer) to consider such a move.  Ultimately, I think that if we get lucky with his health, a dominant season from Ben Sheets in the rotation would propel the Crew into the playoffs.