If Ben Sheets really has impressed clubs to the point that he’ll be too expensive for the “low-risk, high-reward” label, then the Mets may be willing to turn their attention to another injury-prone option for their rotation: Chien-Ming Wang. Alan Nero, one of the righty’s agents, says Wang is in the best shape of his life, has been throwing for nearly seven weeks, and could be ready to pitch in the majors by May 1. Of course, he’s his agent, so he would say those things, but still, it’s newsworthy that Wang has a functioning shoulder and can physically throw a baseball.
The catch is that Nero says the Mets are just one of fifteen teams interested in Wang. And if too many of those teams stay interested, his price will go up, too. The other catch, of course, is that Wang damn near pitched himself out of professional baseball last April before two separate stints on the disabled list. (It was his second-straight season cut short by injury.) Did his subsequent shoulder surgery fix him so that such an implosion will never happen again? Perhaps. But with the free-agent pitching landscape as barren as it is, the Mets have no choice but to take some chances and be creative. And considering they might be thinking about Fernando Tatis as an option to platoon at first, we’re comfortable saying the Mets are familiar with the concepts of taking chances and being creative.