I wonder how long he’d be out if he has the surgery now. If we’re paying for the surgery, DM might as well let him rehab here too and pitch for us later in the year.

he might be out for the whole year…if this comes to be the case and he doesn’t sign with anyone until 2010 would we get an picks?

…the Crew is right there in the mix at the beginning of September and a healthy Sheets emerges? Wishful thinking, I know.

here’s the link to the story: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090205&content_id=3801488&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp&partnerId=rss_mlb

bummer for sheets. and bummer for agent casey close, who presumably gets fired now, right?

Holy crap. So if he accepted arby, we would have given him $14 million dollars in 2009, and he might not have pitched one inning?

It’s hard to fathom how that might have devastated our already tenuous 2009.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark says the surgery Sheets is considering has a standard 9-10 month recovery time, jeopardizing his 2009 season. Stark adds that “some teams that had pursued Sheets this winter seemed to be more concerned about his shoulder than his elbow.”

Sheets had probably 70 million dollars coming to him had he stayed healthy at the end of last year…

I wonder how much was him pushing through the injury knowing it was a contract year, and wanted to prove he could pitch a whole year, that will end up contributing to him possible not getting any money this year, and sitting on his couch.

Was reading that Jason Jennings had the same thing, and it took him 2 years to get back…

Is it possible both the brewers and ben knew about the injury… and were hoping it would sneak past other teams…

so the brewers offer the arby, and sheets turns it down knowing the brewers could cut him like vargas last year, and not be on the hook… so took the chance someone else would sign him and pass the physical…. which he couldnt

Why didn’t he just get surgery in September of last year. Sure it would tank his value for this year, but he could have at least signed a one year deal and pitched for a part of the season. If he misses the whole season, he has no value this year or next.

Maybe he thought he could just rest/rehab it.

I highly doubt Sheets actually knew he was going to need surgery and just tried to sneak into a contract regardless. If the injury is that severe then there’s no way any team misses it in their pre-signing physical – obviously Houston didn’t – and if he knew he was going to miss 2009 it would have been to his advantage just to accept arbitration in Milwaukee. Not to mention the very real possibility of such an attempt leaking out and his being blacklisted by every team in the major leagues.

On a side note, Will Carrol released the matrix for his Annual Team Health Reports. While the explanations aren’t given yet, the Brewers are the only team in the majors to have one of their projected regulars* to be “in the red”. That player? Rickie Darnell Weeks. They also only have one player in the yellow—Manny Parra.

Gallardo is in the green. Will Carrol from the comments section:

Gallardo kind of broke the system. His arm is fine, he looked good before and after the broken leg[sic], and that’s not the sort of thing that should recur. The question is what his workload should be before he gets too risky and PECOTA’s projection for him isn’t that high, so …

*-Lineup, Projected Five Starters, Closer, Second Reliever (in the Brewers’ case, Villanueva)

… now it might be (financially) one of the worst decisions made by an MLB player in the free agency era. Maybe there’s no way they could have known he would need surgery at the time he turned down arbitration, but he’s just lost millions he’ll never get back.

Assuming he would have cleared 12 million in arbitration and assuming the best he can do now for this year is 5 million with incentives, and probably a lot worse, he’ll never make up that money before he retires. Maybe 7 million+ doesn’t mean all that much in the end if he gets healthy and makes another 30 million or more before he retires. But it’s just as likely that he loses the year or most of it, goes into next year’s free agency as damaged goods and pulls down a couple million plus incentives in 2010 and ends up out of the league in 5 years or less. That’s a pretty big hit to take.

At least now the events of the last few weeks (the near total lack of interest, the Rangers flirting, then backing away, and the apparent bad feeling he has toward Milwaukee) makes some sense.

Poor guy. I don’t see how anyone signs him before the June draft now. Does the MLB preclude the Brewers from kicking in for his rehab (which he’d never do in Milwaukee) in the hopes the goodwill it generates might make him look their way if he’s healthy late in the year? If we can’t get the picks, it would be nice to have a shot at getting him back if he can pitch late this year or next.

next thing you are going to tell me is that Andrew Bogut is hurt.