ESPN rumor (untrue it appears): Harden shut down until after the break?

that Harden gets injured. The Cubs didnt trade for him to get hits and drive in runs. So why not reduce the chances of him hurting himself batting and just take the out unless its a spot where the out would cost them the game.

But I do believe it should be “You’re” not “Your”

Murton’s OPS puts him #2 on our team behind Cust. That is not irrelevant (especially since he’s got to be the callup if Swooney goes DL.

The catcher is a very real prospect who has had a bad half season. It’s waaaaay too soon to give up on him, especially since he crushed the ball in his first professional stint.

Patterson is the only one even colorably “irrelevant” and he has a SLG > .500 which is not too bad for a 2B (even one who, apparently, plays poor defense).

Finallly, Gaudin was born March 24, 1983. Gallagher was born December 30, 1985. Thats more like 3 than 2 years, and to say they are “indistinguishable in value” ignores the more important age difference: Gallagher is a 0+ player (basically free for the next few seasons while Gaudin is already making seven figure salaries and will be through his arbitration years by the time we’d have to pay Gallagher real money.

...I’m pretty bullish on Gallagher after a longer look. I still don’t like the trade, but I do like Gallagher-and they aren’t roughly the same age, Gallagher is almost 3 full years younger and is pitching well as a 22-year-old starter. Gaudin was getting lit up out of the pen at 22…at 23 he had a nice ERA but a very high WHIP-Gallagher’s WHIP is already pretty solid.

The other players are not irrelevant either, both are plus situational bats that figure to contribute more than what we have now either through a trade package or by playing. For example, if the A’s don’t/can’t sign Ellis they are completely void at 2B, even if Patterson sucks defensively, he might already have a better bat than Ellis. Ellis didn’t really hit in AAA, though his AAA numbers translated directly to his majors numbers. Patterson has actually hit in AAA, and almost well enough to overcome suckiness at 2B.

And Murton sliding into the primary RHB corner OF job is a nice upgrade.

There are a lot of positives in this trade, I preferred and still prefer keeping Gaudin and rolling the dice on Harden, but there are factors like money and injury that I’m not as qualified to pull the trigger on as Beane is. Gaudin might be very good, but the fact is he wasn’t starting and therefore was very expendable as far as this season’s performance goes as the A’s are loaded with RHP talent out of the ‘pen, so Gaudin can almost be deleted when weighing this season’s in-season consequences (Where he can be factored in is as Harden’s replacement when measuring Harden’s injury risk, which I believe was analyzed in one of the articles). As far as this season goes Murton+Gallagher+Patterson might produce a better run differential than Harden can alone for the Cubs—Of course the A’s take on risk if their rotation takes a hit from having dealt Gaudin (But in the future, we have a million Gaudin’s coming up anyways to replace him).

The problem with the above analysis is that even if Murton, Gallagher, and Patterson produce more runs in the season than Harden, in the postseason Harden’s value over Gallagher goes way way way up, especially vs. the lineups that they’ll be facing, and postseason experience factors etc. I’m was happy enough with the A’s this season that I felt they should have been playing to have the best PLAYOFF team this year.