Gary Sheffield Career Tracker

Hmm what is Gary doing at the Playboy mansion partying with Kendra, and Three Six Mafia??

Probably went there with "goodboy" Granderson!

GoGetEmTigers wrote:

Probably went there with "goodboy" Granderson!

:haha:

What's wrong with hanging out with playboy bunnies?

bobrob2004 wrote:

What's wrong with hanging out with playboy bunnies?

Well when you have a wife, and like 5 kids.....

mrsrabelo wrote:

bobrob2004 wrote:

What's wrong with hanging out with playboy bunnies?

Well when you have a wife, and like 5 kids.....

And they are so called "Christians" it does not jive with his "family values"!!!

Bad Sheff Bad.

Not good.

bobrob2004 wrote:

What's wrong with hanging out with playboy bunnies?

Looks like fun

He should be at home helping DeLeon with Christian

Arbitrator rules against Sheffield
Agent awarded money from '04
FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES • October 19, 2008

NEW YORK -- Scott Boras won a $550,000 decision against Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield when an arbitrator decided the agent should be paid for eliminating a 2004 option that allowed the DH to become a free agent.

Sheffield fired agent Jim Neader and hired Boras in the spring of 2001, and Boras represented Sheffield at the time of his January 2002 trade from the Dodgers to the Braves. Sheffield was due $9.5 million in 2002 and $11 million in 2003 in the final two guaranteed seasons of the $61-million, six-year extension he originally had signed with Florida in April 1997, and Boras negotiated the elimination of an $11-million option for '04.

Sheffield then fired Boras and represented himself in negotiating a $39-million, three-year contract with the Yankees covering 2004-06.

Arbitrator Jacob Javits ruled that Boras was entitled to 5% of the $11-million option Boras was able to eliminate.

"I shouldn't have ever introduced myself to him. Bad person," Sheffield said in February in Lakeland, Fla., spring training home of the Tigers.

Milwaukee: The club plans to make a strong offer for free-agent left-hander CC Sabathia. Sabathia, acquired in a July trade with Cleveland, was 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA. "It's hard to handicap our chances, but we're planning on making a serious offer," said owner Mark Attanasio, who also needs a manager. Right-hander Ben Sheets also is a potential free agent.

CC said he only wants to play on the west coast...... but I bet money will talk!

Poor Sheffy, it must cut him badly to have to pay Boras!

GoGetEmTigers wrote:

CC said he only wants to play on the west coast...... but I bet money will talk!

Poor Sheffy, it must cut him badly to have to pay Boras!

Sheff still has a boatload of money for 09

bobrob2004 wrote:

What's wrong with hanging out with playboy bunnies?

gdennis59 wrote:

Bad Sheff Bad.

Geez people, iots not like he is pictured in a naked pile.....

laprimamirala wrote:

Arbitrator rules against Sheffield
Agent awarded money from '04
FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES • October 19, 2008

NEW YORK -- Scott Boras won a $550,000 decision against Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield when an arbitrator decided the agent should be paid for eliminating a 2004 option that allowed the DH to become a free agent.

Sheffield fired agent Jim Neader and hired Boras in the spring of 2001, and Boras represented Sheffield at the time of his January 2002 trade from the Dodgers to the Braves. Sheffield was due $9.5 million in 2002 and $11 million in 2003 in the final two guaranteed seasons of the $61-million, six-year extension he originally had signed with Florida in April 1997, and Boras negotiated the elimination of an $11-million option for '04.

Sheffield then fired Boras and represented himself in negotiating a $39-million, three-year contract with the Yankees covering 2004-06.

Arbitrator Jacob Javits ruled that Boras was entitled to 5% of the $11-million option Boras was able to eliminate.

"I shouldn't have ever introduced myself to him. Bad person," Sheffield said in February in Lakeland, Fla., spring training home of the Tigers.

Milwaukee: The club plans to make a strong offer for free-agent left-hander CC Sabathia. Sabathia, acquired in a July trade with Cleveland, was 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA. "It's hard to handicap our chances, but we're planning on making a serious offer," said owner Mark Attanasio, who also needs a manager. Right-hander Ben Sheets also is a potential free agent.

Sheff said that after this trial was over he would "dish the dirt" on Boras, can't wait to hear all THAT mess!!

Maybe Sheff made an appearance there for one of his endorsement deals

tigersaint wrote:

gdennis59 wrote:

Bad Sheff Bad.

Geez people, iots not like he is pictured in a naked pile.....

I wouldn't mind being in a naked pile of playboy bunnies

I know we RAG on Sheffield and rightly so, but he has hit the 3rd most HRs on this team in the past 2 seasons. Imagine if he would have been healthy.....

1. Magglio = 49
2. Grandy = 45
3. Sheff = 44
4. Marcus = 43
5. Miggy = 37 (One Season)

tigersaint wrote:

I know we RAG on Sheffield and rightly so, but he has hit the 3rd most HRs on this team in the past 2 seasons. Imagine if he would have been healthy.....

1. Magglio = 49
2. Grandy = 45
3. Sheff = 44
4. Marcus = 43
5. Miggy = 37 (One Season)

I was hoping to see Number 500 of Sheff's career the last weekend at home

Sheff probably will do it on the road next year

....for another team??

Friday, February 6, 2009
Tigers' Sheffield recovered, relaxed and ready to rip
Tigers see big season from 22-year veteran just one away from 500 HRs.
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

In a sense, Gary Sheffield can relax, right from the get-go.

The Tigers designated hitter has a possible 162 games ahead of him in 2009 to hit one home run, which will be the biggest of his career, statistically speaking.

It will be the 500th home run of a 40-year-old slugger's big league career that now heads into its 22nd season. And yet, Sheffield, for all the obvious ways that the 500-homer realm was weighing on him at the end of the 2008 season, will have other goals in 2009.

He will fundamentally hope to stay healthy, given that an intact Sheffield, even at 40, probably bolsters a team that seems always to get a special bounce from his hot streaks.

"This guy's gonna have a good year for us," said Tigers assistant general manager Al Avila, who believes along with most Tigers observers that getting his 500th home run out of the way should make for a more relaxed and more devastating hitter once Sheffield connects.

"I'm hoping he gets that home run behind him in a hurry," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said last week. "I think he was pressing at the end of last season.

"I've just got a feeling he's gonna have a big year."

Sheffield didn't respond to Detroit News requests for comment.

If and when he reaches 500, Sheffield will become the 25th player in big league history to crash a threshold that almost automatically means a ticket to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But it will be other aspects of Sheffield's hitting that the Tigers will be watching closely from the first day of spring training.

Will he be long past the shoulder problems that wrecked what could have been a boffo 2007 season with the Tigers and then followed him deep into 2008?

Will his fearsome bat speed still be at full throttle at age 40? Will he retain the sharp eye that helps him reject borderline pitches and that just as keenly enables him during most seasons to have fewer strikeouts than walks?

"I didn't see his bat slow down at all last year," Leyland said. "If I saw his bat get slower, I'd be worried. But that wasn't the case. He was sometimes just an anxious player, because he was in pain."

The pain stemmed from a bad moment on a bad evening at Comerica Park in July of 2007 in a game against Kansas City. Sheffield at the time had been on fire. He already had smashed 23 home runs and that night went 3-for-4, including a double, to raise his batting average to .306. He had 64 RBIs and, because of his uncanny eye, had a .410 on-base average.

But that night, while playing right field, he collided with second baseman Placido Polanco on a pop fly. He aggravated an old shoulder problem that all but put the brakes on his bat during the season's second half and led to surgery in November.

Conventional wisdom is that a surgically repaired shoulder for a baseball player requires a year to heal fully. And that appeared to be Sheffield's timetable in 2008 as he struggled deep into the summer, finishing the year with a .225 batting average, 19 home runs and 57 RBIs in 114 games.

"I talked to him not long ago, and he feels really good," Leyland said. "He's got the same strength now in both shoulders.

"This is big-time surgery he had, and particularly when you're an older player like Gary, you just don't heal up as fast. He fought through a lot of stuff last year.

"But now this is the first offseason in a number of years where he hasn't had some kind of surgery he's coming back from. He's been able to work and to tone up. He's got his own trainer down there (Tampa, Fla.), and I really think he's gonna have a big year."

A big year in so many ways, perhaps: Five hundred home runs, not to mention a heavy role in a lineup that will desperately need his one-of-a-kind aggression and dual ability to get on base and to drive in runs.

And, just maybe, a full season of reasonable health for a man who the baseball gods might decide is due for a break.

You can reach Lynn Henning at lynn.henning@detnews.com

02/17/09 7:59 PM EST
Sheffield glad A-Rod came forward
Designated hitter says he won't judge former teammate

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield predicted Alex Rodriguez's big season two years ago when A-Rod had talked about his fractured relationship with teammate Derek Jeter.

Sheffield wasn't predicting anything about Rodriguez on Tuesday, the day Rodriguez talked with reporters about his admitted use of banned substances. However, Sheffield does expect Rodriguez to have some peace of mind after facing the media.

"I'm glad he did what he did," Sheffield said of Rodriguez's admission. "He can move along from that point."

Sheffield became good friends with Rodriguez during their time with the Yankees from 2004-06. Sheffield said he has talked with Rodriguez a couple times, but not since the Sports Illustrated article that reported Rodriguez had tested positive for a banned substance during Major League Baseball's anonymous survey testing in 2003.

Sheffield has had his own brush with the issue, testifying before a federal grand jury in the case against the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in 2003, saying that he was given a cream by the laboratory to treat a surgically repaired knee while he trained with Barry Bonds, who introduced him to BALCO, in 2001. Sheffield said he did not know that the cream contained a banned substance. Sheffield was named in the Mitchell Report in December 2007 as having obtained performance-enhancing substances.

When asked his thoughts on whether the revelation tarnishes Rodriguez's accomplishments, Sheffield stayed out of it.

"I don't have an opinion one way or another," Sheffield said. "God should be the judge on that. I don't judge a player's ability or what he accomplished. Everybody's accomplishments are special, and that's the way I'll leave it."

That was the extent of Sheffield's remarks on Rodriguez.

"I'm going to just be honest with you guys from the get-go: I don't want to [get] into the Yankees' situation," Sheffield said. "I want to focus on this team here. I'll leave that up to their players to answer those questions. The only thing I care about now is our players."

Sheffield has been known throughout his career as outspoken on many issues, but he seemed focused on himself and the Tigers in his first day at Spring Training. He also declined to comment on agent Scott Boras, who won an arbitration case against Sheffield last October worth $550,000 stemming from a past contractual dispute.

Few Tigers seemed to be keenly interested in the A-Rod situation as his news conference unfolded Tuesday afternoon. While a few turned to the clubhouse television and watched, most of them went about their normal business and headed out following the Tigers' first full-squad workout in the morning.

"Hopefully it's going to be some closure," pitcher Nate Robertson said. "I'm sure there's conviction involved, not just words spoken. Because it's not right, and of course, he came out and said that it's not right.

"When you get beyond that, for him, I think there's going to be some redemption. Because when you come clean the way you should come clean, and you face a problem or an issue, that's human nature how somebody deals with a problem. [Either] you store it up inside and it compounds into a bigger problem, or you say, 'This is something I did,' and admit that it was a problem, and it was wrong. And from there, it'll take some time, but I think there'll be some redemption."

Robertson does not know Rodriguez, he pointed out. But as long as the contriteness is sincere, Robertson doesn't believe the fault will be held over Rodriguez's head forever.

"This is the best player in the game," Robertson said. "For him to come out and say what he did was wrong and he's dealing with it, all he can ask is that everybody out there just show him a little grace, a little forgiveness."

Manager Jim Leyland and other Tigers officials have declined comment on the Rodriguez situation since the news broke more than a week ago.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Sheff still sucks, but I respect him a teency bit more.

02/17/09 11:15 PM EST
Healthy Sheffield wants focus on Tigers
Designated hitter hopes to get homer No. 500 out of way fast

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Gary Sheffield is healthy and surgery-free this spring for the first time in several years.

"Since probably my Dodger days," Sheffield said, going back almost a decade to his time in Los Angeles. "I think that's probably the best I've ever felt in Spring Training."

Yet that might not be the biggest surprise for fans as the 40-year-old Sheffield began Spring Training with the Tigers on Tuesday morning. While the body and mind are healthy, the tone is rather hushed.

Sheffield talked briefly about his good friend Alex Rodriguez, and his confession to using banned substances from 2001-03, but he cut off the conversation before long. He passed on a question about Scott Boras, the agent with whom Sheffield had a years-long dispute over a past contract that went to an arbitrator. That Spring Training tradition is over.

"Right now, I'm focused on this team and improving this team," Sheffield said. "Anything personally, I'm not going to get involved with it."

Asked if that's a new approach for him, Sheffield smiled and said, "I hope so."

He feels the same way about personal accomplishments. With the 500-homer mark a home run away, Sheffield is looking to get there with his family watching in Toronto when the season opens.

No more distractions.

"For the team's sake, I hope I just get it out of the way," he said. "That way, I won't have to worry about it anymore. I don't want to put the focus on my accomplishments or anything like that. It's about the team. That's why I'm here, to win a championship. Once I get this out of the way, I can move on to just playing baseball. "

The Tigers, in turn, hope Sheffield gets that 500th homer quickly -- and many more after that. His health gives them hope.

In all fairness, Sheffield has reported to Spring Training in past years feeling healthy coming off of surgeries, usually to his shoulder. The last two seasons, his shoulder started aching during the year and wouldn't let up.

After a torrid first half to the 2007 season in a Tigers uniform, Sheffield was hampered by shoulder issues for essentially a year until the tail end of last season, limiting his swing and hampering both contact and power. Not until last August did Sheffield seemingly emerge healthy, and he responded with 11 home runs over the final two months of the season.

Sheffield closed out the season eagerly anticipating a winter that didn't involve surgery and hopefully would involve a normal workout routine for the first time in years. Once he picked up a ball in December, he said he felt the difference.

"I think the first time I noticed the difference was the first time I went out to take batting practice and throw with the other guys," he said. "The ball started coming out of my hand normal, and I didn't have any limitations. It kind of surprises you mentally when it feels that good, and then all of a sudden, you say, 'I want to see how it feels tomorrow.' The next day, it feels the same. Every day just felt like that. So I just felt like, 'Now I'm back.'"

Why would something so simple be so significant for Sheffield? Because he normally doesn't even try to swing a bat in the winter. There's the difference.

"Normally, I don't hit in the offseason, and I hit this offseason," he said. "The swing was there. Everything was there. I never had the opportunity [in the past] to hit and do these things. This year, I was able to do everything."

If, in turn, Sheffield can merely approach the stats he would put up when he felt healthy in those years, the results could be big for the Tigers. When he was last injury free in the first half of 2007, Sheffield hit .303 with 21 homers and 58 RBIs in 82 games. He has batted .218 with 23 homers and 74 RBIs in the ensuing season and a half.

The first casualty to his game was the ability to drive the ball with authority when he made contact. Then went more of the quickness that allows him to turn on pitches and make contact. He had to swing sooner at times to try to get ahead of pitches, and it cost him. By last season's end, he had more strikeouts than walks in a year -- with at least 40 games played -- for the first time since 1993.

If that quickness is back, and the strike zone judgment remains, the result could be more than run production, but also baserunners for the bottom third of the order if Sheffield bats sixth, as expected.

Sheffield's at the seemingly contradictory stages of newfound health and advancing age, having turned 40 years old last November. He says he hasn't yet thought about whether he wants to play past this season, the final year on his contract, but he seems to be setting this up to be his one good shot if he decides this is it.

It's way too early to tell which side of the health and age balance Sheffield's on, but his first batting practice was encouraging for Tigers manager Jim Leyland.

"Outstanding," Leyland said. "He just looks like he's in great physical shape, and you can pretty much tell that he feels healthy and he's not concerned. That's good."

That doesn't mean Leyland is expecting Sheffield's numbers from their days in Florida again. Nor does it mean that the Tigers need them. Simply an improvement towards normalcy could make a big difference. Only Oakland and Seattle received fewer total bases from their designated hitters among American League teams than the Tigers, and only the A's had fewer RBIs. Detroit's .218 average from its designated hitter ranked last.

The Tigers clearly don't need Sheffield to carry the offense, and Sheffield isn't looking to. They're both looking for him to hold up his role. A pair of strong shoulders should help.

A strong mind-set could be just as big. Even when he's asked about being a designated hitter, he puts forth a new approach.

Instead of saying that he's an outfielder who plays at DH, Sheffield paused, then laughed.

"I'm a DH," he said with a huge smile. "Sometimes it's the cards you're dealt."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

02/24/09 4:50 PM EST
Sheffield fine after getting hit by pitch
Tigers slugger should be ready for Grapefruit opener

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Tigers nearly had their first injury of Spring Training during their final day of live batting-practice sessions. Gary Sheffield said he'll be OK, however, after he was struck on his left elbow by a Chris Lambert pitch, cutting short his Tuesday morning of swings.

The pitch wouldn't have been such a concern except that it struck Sheffield right on the top of the elbow, irritating a nerve. The Tigers training staff attended to Sheffield, and he sat in the clubhouse near the end of the workout with ice wrapped around his elbow.

The injury was not at all related to Sheffield's shoulder injuries over the past few years.

Sheffield said he expected to be fine by Wednesday, and manager Jim Leyland agreed. The Tigers open their Spring Training schedule that afternoon with a 1:05 p.m. ET game against the Braves at Joker Marchant Stadium. The Tigers are expected to field something close to their regular lineup against former Tigers pitcher Jair Jurrjens.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

GO TIGERS GO

I still dont like Sheff.

Elbow keeps Sheffield out of opener
Tigers designated hitter struck by pitch during batting practice

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield was held out of Detroit's Spring Training opener Wednesday as a precaution after he took a pitch off of his elbow during batting practice Tuesday.

Sheffield said Wednesday morning that while his elbow had swelled up a bit overnight, it wasn't feeling too bad. Still, the Tigers don't want it get to any worse than that. Manager Jim Leyland said earlier this week that he would use the extended spring schedule to his advantage and rest players when they have minor but nagging injuries.

Sheffield will likely make his Spring Training debut on Friday, when the Tigers visit the Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.

Marcus Thames started Wednesday against the Braves in Sheffield's place, batting sixth in the order between left fielder Carlos Guillen and catcher Gerald Laird.