With Sheets' walk year in full effect, there are numerous debates about what the Brewers should do with their ace right hander. Some say trade, some say let him walk, and some say sign, and there's a lot of in-between.The issue is often complicated by comparing Sheets' production to a position player's, or pointing out that we need to keep our position players (perhaps more than we need to keep Sheets).

So, I dove into Sheets' post-breakout game logs, and asked myself this question: how many batters does a pitcher that pitches better than 2/3 quality starts face during those quality starts throughout a season.

Here's what I found:

2004: 23 QS, 641 PA

2005: 16 QS, 473 PA

2006: 11 QS, 297 PA

2007: 14 QS, 381 PA

Quality starts: 64 QS, 1792 PA

Total: 97 GS, 2592 PA

The value in Sheets, I take it, is that in a full season he is likely to pitch well over 20 quality starts, and during those quality starts he will face almost as many batters as an everyday player that bats 1-3 (ex., Prince Fielder went to the plate 681 times in 2007).

So, not only does a starting pitcher face more batters in an entire season than an everyday player accumulates PA; a high quality start pitcher like Sheets will face almost as many batters in his quality starts alone as most  batters face in an entire season (or very near that number...)