FanPost

Why I think Milone should be back.

Disclaimer: The large majority about what I know about baseball is from this site and reading Moneyball.

I think that we have a better chance of preserving our pitching staff and winning with Milone than without. Milone is a proven starter who may appear to be just "league average" but certainly plays on an above average offensive and defensive team. I believe that by playing Milone as our fifth starter, he will throw outs when it MATTERS, against MLB opponents, not AAA hitters. This reduces the numbers of outs, pitches, innings, etc. that our other pitchers have to throw and thus being worn out. A worn-out Otero, Chavez, Gray, or Kazmir is the last thing we want to see in the post-season. If there is a reasonable chance that by throwing less, a pitcher is less likely to become injured or throw significantly worse, we should do it. Pitchers are valuable; look at who we gave up because AJ Griffin and Parker had surgery.

To bring back Tommy, I believe we should encourage JJ to go to AAA before we force him to leave. With Milone in the rotation, I think we should send Chavez to the bullpen. Imagine how this game could have gone if we could have played a quality-starter pitcher instead of depending on five different pitchers to get five innings. That is not to knock on the bullpen. They have done an outstanding job so far. But they should also be rested. Tonight was only the first night of twenty-six straight games. There are no off days except the ones we can create for ourselves. And that is one of the best things about this team; it's depth. I believe that our platoon system for hitting and fielding is exceptional; a similar approach should be taken with pitching. We can give Norris a day off because we have Vogt and Jaso. We can have at least four players that can play 1st. We have at least six that can play in the outfield. We should also have options for who plays on the mound.

In twenty-six straight games, it almost seems certain that the A's will have more nights like this where multiple innings will have to be pitched after the starter leaves. In the event that two consecutive games require lots of relief, the A's may be at a considerable disadvantage in the following games. We can avoid this disadvantage by adding a quality long-relief pitcher at the cost of JJ (see you with expanded rosters JJ). I think Chavez or Pomeranz have proven their quality as back-ups and Milone has as a starter.

If you go through the rotation and you didn't need to pitch your super long-reliever, you could switch to a six-man rotation, and have whoever pitched the least be the next back-up. Or whatever. The point is to have options to provide you with the best match-ups. I don't want to waste a war of pitching attrition against sub .500 teams. Do you?