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Around Baseball: Free Agent Sheets Ponders Season-Ending Surgery
By Administrator | February 6, 2009
In November of 2007, Curt Schilling signed a one-year, $8 million contract with the Red Sox… two months later he advised the Red Sox that he would require shoulder surgery. Eventually, he would have surgery and pocket the Red Sox money without ever having thrown a pitch in anger during the 2008 season.
Three weeks ago, reserve 1B/OF Mark Kotsay signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Red Sox without ever disclosing that he would need surgery on his lower back. Two weeks after signing the deal, he had surgery to remove disk fragments from his lower back (he will likely be sidelined until sometime in May).
Now we learn that free-agent pitcher Ben Sheets has been shopping his wares around Major League Baseball this winter while needing elbow surgery. He had agreed to a two-year deal with the Texas Rangers when he was asked to submit to a physical examination… the Rangers learned of Sheets’ injury through the exam. Sheets will need to have surgery to repair the torn flexor tendon in his pitching elbow… it’s the same injury that kept him from pitching in the NLDS last year.
[The normal recovery time from the procedure is nine to ten months, thus he will miss the 2009 season]
Can ballclubs depend on players to be honest? Does the money provide too much of an incentive to expect players to be honest about injuries?
Kotsay assuredly knew he needed surgery. But did Sheets? He almost certainly did not know about the injury in November when he turned down an offer of arbitration from his old club (the Brewers). Like Jason Varitek, Sheets would assuredly have received an award in the $10 - $12 million range for 2009 but wanted more… like Varitek, the decision will end up costing him millions of dollars. ‘Tek will now make $5 million this season while Sheets will not have a contract at all.
The question is: did Sheets learn he needed surgery after his arbitration decision but before the exam administered by the Rangers? Did he get caught with his hand in the cookie jar?
Topics: Around Baseball |
