5th Starter Derby

you don't want to hurt their confidence by bringing them up too early

I've thought the same thing on more than one occasion. The only logical scenario I can understand for this is to hopefully buy low, then sell high. I don't know what Beane is thinking, but it would make sense to snatch these guys up off the scrap heap with little invested in them with the hopes of turning them into quality prospects at the deadline. Again, I could be way off base on this assumption, but it makes sense. Then again, it could backfire and all three of them stink it up. Even in that scenario, the team really isn't out much. I guess only time will tell though.

would you rather have (if i did the math right):
A) a 22 year old carlos gonzalez on the 2008 going nowhere a's
B) a 28 year old carlos gonzalez on the 2012 a's?

I don't think it's really a question about whether players develop better in AAA or the majors as much as it is the fact that all players are different and develop at different rates. There is no one way to handle prospects which is why in a rebuilding mode you don't want to let roster decisions dictate how a top prospect is handled.

As an example, going into the spring no one really knew if Carlos Gonzales was ready for the majors. The A's didn't want to be in a situation where he would be forced to play and struggle in the majors simply because there were no other options. By signing Emil Brown to a cheap one year contract, they can now let Carlos Gonzales determine his own development. If he needs to work on some things in AAA he can start there while Brown plays, and when he is ready the A's can call him up and move Brown to the bench or wiave him because the contract isn't bad.

I look at the other signings much the same way, they provide the A's with options so that they can make decisions about the prospects that aren't constrained by roster needs.

I've thought about this some. It's probably not a revelation to any of the good people on AN, but here's how I see it: Billy deals Haren and Swisher because he gets overwhelmingly good returns for them. Now, however, he's got a bit of a PR problem-- the A's traded away their best pitcher and position player, so they must not want to be competitive in the near future. So Billy figures, go with it. Agree with what all the experts are saying. Perpetuate the "rebuilding" buzz. This way, there are no expectations: Either the A's suck and it's just because they're going through some growing pains, or they contend for the AL West crown and Billy's more of a genius then ever before.

So he let's the talkers talk, quietly adds some no-risk-possible-reward veterans, and lets the under-25 crowd do some developing for 2010 or so. It's win-win.

I'd still rather R. Sweeney over E. Brown, though.

I didn't really mean all three of them would be traded but more like... 1 traded, one in the bully one on the DL... or something. Things will work out so that 1 or two of the guys who don't make the rotation out of Phoenix will be pitching in it in the second half.

What works against Smith is that he's not on the 40-man and Eveland is. The A's don't have to do anything special if Eveland wins the job, but if Smith wins it then somebody has to go. If they're neck and neck, I could see this being a factor.

That would clearly tip the scales in Eveland's favor.

since the only way that would be a factor is if he never gets a call-up, which he almost certainly would (unless he really, really sucked, in which case we really really wouldn't care). There's also the whole 40-man roster thing, which is probably a bigger deal.

Why would both be needed? Harden is temporarily healthy, so is Duke. Gaudin is expected to be ready by the time we need a 5th starter. Blanton'll be there. That's 4 ...

On a separate note, can you e-mail me, I need to ask you something? devinl (a) chccnet (dot) org