Oliver Perez and Ben Sheets are probably the only two starting pitchers left in the current free agent market that Mets fans can realistically live with in our rotation for next season. Honestly, if Omar finds a way to begin 2009 without one of these two guys, we might as well just fire him right now.

Of course we'll likely only end up with one of them, so the question becomes who would you rather have? This is the case for Ben Sheets.

First off, when he's on the field, Ben Sheets is arguably one of the most dominant and consistent pitchers in baseball. He's had an ERA under 4 each of the past 5 seasons, he has great command over his pitches, he has an amazing strikeout to walk ratio (better than Johan Santana's last year), he pitched five complete games in 2008, which coincidentally was as many as the Mets entire pitching staff had. Plus he's been an all star each of the past two seasons.

The combination of Santana and Sheets would give the Mets one of the best 1-2 punches, and overall one of the best rotations in all of baseball. Imagine a 3 game series with the Phillies where the Mets can throw out Santana, Sheets, and Pelfrey... that's a thing of beauty.

Of course, Sheets does come with some baggage which cannot be ignored, he has had his share of injuries the last few seasons. I'm not terribly worried about these injuries with Sheets, and here's why. Sheet's injuries have been relatively unrelated to one another. He had a finger injury, a shoulder injury, and now an elbow injury, none of which have caused him to miss a prolonged period of time. He pitched a full season in 2008, and had 24 starts in 2007. So although hes had a few short stints on the DL, it's not like he's re-injuring his shoulder over and over, or had major surgery which kept him out for 18 months.

In fact, the injury issue plays better for the Mets. With Sheets, the Mets wont have to offer a 4 or 5 year deal worth 12-15 million per season like they would have to with Perez. They could presumably sign Sheets to a two year deal worth 12-15 million with a vesting option for a third year.

As for Perez, I still don't buy into the idea that he'll break out the next few years into an ace pitcher, it seems like they've been saying that about him for a few years, and it hasn't really happened. He has some serious control issues, and he struggles to pitch more than 5 innings half the times he goes out there. We cannot afford to give Perez a 4 or 5 year deal with all the control questions surrounding him.

I think Ben Sheets in the better choice, he's got the better track record, and he's probably got more upside than Perez as well.