A's Shell Out for Ben Sheets

The A’s have reportedly reached agreement on a one-year deal with former ace Ben Sheets for $10 million plus performance incentives.  I don’t know if it’s a wise move for the A’s, given the cost, but you have to love the fact that they are confounding expectations.

I suspect that the A’s felt they had to pay a big premium to sign Sheets, the way bad teams usually do to acquire “top” talent.  The A’s have played poorly the last three seasons, not a whole lot is expected of them in 2010, and they play in the emptiest stadium in baseball (at least in 2009, although they didn’t do much better in ‘07 or ‘08).  If I had to guess, I’d say that the next best offer Sheets received was for no more than $8 million.

The money aside, it’s actually not a bad move for either party.  Sheets gets to attempt his comeback in one of the best pitchers’ parks in baseball, and the A’s suddenly have seven solid options to compete for five starting spots in 2010.  The other arms in the mix are Justin Duchscherer, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, Gio Gonzalez, Dallas Braden and Vin Mazzaro.

Duchscherer is an even bigger risk than Sheets, in terms of his ability to stay healthy and be effective, but the other five pitchers are all young, healthy and look ready to be productive major leaguers or better.  Even assuming that at least one of the seven contenders has a serious injury early in the season, the A’s should have a strong rotation with another young guy pitching in relief and ready to step in if another starter falters.  In other words, signing Sheets should help their entire pitching staff, which was looking thin until today’s move.

I also found this move interesting because it completely undercut the SF Chronicle’s Ray Ratto, who published an article today in which he quotes A’s GM Billy Beane as stating, “The way the system is right now, there really is no difference between a $75 million and $40 million payroll. I think a lot of small-market clubs look at that and ask, ‘Why pay $75 million when $40 million will buy me as many wins?’

I didn’t take that quote too seriously when I read it, because I just couldn’t believe that Billy Beane really meant it.  Some small market teams, including the A’s, have been able to field good teams for a period of years without huge payrolls.  In fact, it absolutely makes sense for a team like the A’s at present to rebuild around cheap, young players and keep payroll around $40 million, or at least as cheap as possible.

However, once that young team develops to a point where they’re almost good enough to be a play-off team, it absolutely makes sense to lay out some bucks to sign a few more expensive veterans to make a run at the post-season.  In other words, you might jump payroll up to $75 million from $40 million over a two year period and find yourself the league’s pennant winner.

Obviously, the A’s chances to make the post-season in 2010, even after signing Ben Sheets, aren’t good.  However, even without Sheets, the A’s were likely to be a better team than they were in any of the last three seasons.  Signing Sheets gives the A’s at least a reasonable shot of winning 85 to 88 games in 2010, which should do wonders for the A’s horrendous attendance.  If nothing else, it gives A’s fans some hope that the A’s are still trying to field the best team they can given their economic limitations.