Ben Sheets signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the A’s today.

Whatever. I didn’t want that chump on the Mets anyway. If he played for the Mets, he’d be hurt by May. You could mark that down. And he has no heart. Couldn’t handle the New York media. Wasn’t up to the pressure of the big city. Something something something.

Seriously, though, $10 million does seem like a lot for a guy who is such a huge injury risk. Of course, for the Mets, the danger in paying him so much is the chance he gets hurt, the team stinks, and you’ve flushed some payroll down the toilet.

And the Mets, without Sheets, seem pretty much destined to flush a whole lot of payroll down the toilet. It’s not my money, of course, but it was only a one-year deal — not the type of contract that would hamstring them down the road.

I advocated Sheets for the Mets because he was the type of gamble I hoped could yield a big enough return to launch the Mets into contention, even despite all the question marks in their lineup and the expected absence of Carlos Beltran.

And it doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot left out there that might make that difference.

Regardless, I wonder how much more on top of the $10 million it would have taken for the Mets to lure Sheets away from Oakland. After all, that club can also boast a park with a reputation for benefiting pitchers, something I thought could be a big selling point for the Mets.

And perhaps more importantly, the A’s lack that pesky notoriety — deserved or otherwise — for spectacularly mishandling their injured players.

Pure speculation, but I’d guess that factored into his decision. This is, after all, a guy who missed all of last season and parts of the previous four with injuries.

So maybe the Mets didn’t really have a shot at Sheets in the first place.

Whatever. What’s done is done. Ben Sheets is on the A’s and the Mets are still penciling Fernando Nieve into the back of their rotation. I’m still all for John Smoltz, and it seems like the Mets might be too, so, you know, good.

Every one of them¹ is beautiful and awesome:

¹– Sadly, not every one of them is contained in this video. I’m just assuming they were all beautiful and awesome, because Johan Santana threw them all.

Also, Kevin Burkhardt references Santana throwing a changeup and then yelling, “whatup!” which, sadly, is not contained in this video. I’d pay anything to watch that happen, especially in the midst of this long offseason.

I have no idea if it’s notable or if he’s just being nice, but Jerry Manuel said yesterday he’d be at least open to the idea of starting the season with Josh Thole behind the plate:

The one thing about Josh that is definitely different than Omir is that Josh kind of balances out the lineup. He’s a lefthanded hitter. We’ll take a look at him and talk to the people who saw him in winter ball and see how much progression he made and go from there. It’s not out of the question.

So that’s cool. Anyway, I figured a poll is in order:

[poll id=”3″]

I left the question intentionally vague. I guess I’m just trying to see how y’all¹ feel about Thole in regards to the other options, and in light of all the talk that he needs at least another year of Minor League seasoning.

Also, I didn’t include trade options, because it’s impossible to really judge a trade option without knowing what he’d cost in return. Granted, we don’t know exactly what Barajas or Torrealba would cost either, but it’d only be money.

¹– I really wish English had a word for the second-person plural, and it very much bothers me that Spanish does — vosotros — and most Spanish-speaking countries opt not to use it. I tried adopting it into English for a while, but it didn’t catch on, so instead I use “y’all” and sound like a dunce.