Ben Sheets and the Astros

Without a doubt, this is going to be an interesting offseason for baseball. Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu are probably going to be allowed to walk from the Yankees. Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia, Jon Garland, AJ Burnett, and maybe John Lackey will all be on the market. The Marlins are likely to trade virtually everyone on their ML roster (except, of course, Hanley Ramirez). We're liable to see the first female GM in Seattle. Very interesting, indeed.

So, the conventional wisdom amongst Astros fans has been that the team needs pitching, and fast. I'm inclined to agree, but I think our hitting is pretty fucking awful, too. Tejada sucks. Pence sucked most of the year. Bourn, too. JR Towles and Q suck. I suppose the position that will get the most returns quickest will be catcher, but I don't know whom we'd be able to get. There was some talk about Gregg Zaun, but I don't know if he'd really be the solution. (Hey, did you know that Gregg Zaun has a website? And it's really overdone, featuring Zorro and - oh hell yeah, is that Rush? I think I'm in love). He's going to be 38 next year, but I suppose we'd only really need him for a year or two. Signing him to a one-season deal might be worth it.

A better, longer term solution would be trading for one of the myriad catchers in the Rangers system. That obviously creates problems if Castro ever makes it up to the Majors, but that's not really much of a problem. Having too much talent is a good thing. Of course, the farm system is so delicate right now that trading away what little talent we have at the AA and AAA levels would probably be disastrous.

Over at the Crawfish Boxes, there's a pretty interesting discussion of Sheets' arm issues. As we all know, Sheets problems are first and foremost a result of Ned Yost's awful staff management (Though Dave Lopez - Yost's predecessor - deserves a lot of the blame, as well). He has accumulated a startling number of Pitcher Abuse Points over the years. For a guy like Sabathia, that's no big deal. For Sheets, however, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

So when he went down with another arm injury, I immediately thought that Sheets was not a good option for the 2009 Astros. I'm not as sure of that now. He might be worth it, if signed to a one- or two-year deal. But anything longer is asking for trouble.

One of the funnier suggestions (from where I heard this, I'm no longer sure) I've heard is this potential Astros 2009 rotation: (1) Roy Oswalt, (2) Ben Sheets, (3) MARK PRIOR!, (4) Andy Pettitte, (5) Wandy Rodriguez/Brian Moehler/Brandon Backe.

Talk about a gimpy rotation! Shit, if that made it through the first month unscathed, I'd be ecstatic.

In short, I don't really know what the Astros should do this offseason. If more of our star players were available for trade, I'd say we should begin trading immediately. But since so many are locked up for another few seasons, we might as well begin getting talent. Sheets might be worth it, Jon Garland or Lackey would be great. Burnett would be cool. But I honestly don't know what they should do at this point. We'll see what's going to happen.