Gary Sheffield’s Future

Gary Sheffield is just 313 hits away from becoming the fifth man in baseball history to have 3000 hits and 500 homers. He turns 41 this offseason, but he tells Danny Knobler of CBS Sports that he can still play every day. He wants as much playing time as possible and told Knobler that it will factor in when he's deciding where to sign as a free agent.

Sheffield has made close to $10MM every season since 1998, so an executive who knows him wonders if he'd be open to taking an eight-figure paycut. Sheffield makes $14MM this year, but no team figures to offer him that much. Sheffield has played in the field for the Mets, but teams may prefer him as a DH, which could leave him in competition with Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Hideki Matsui, all of whom are free agents after the year.