It's been the unlucky 13 for the Oakland Athletics in 2008.  The A's have had 13 different pitchers start at least one game for the A's this year.  You ready for this list?  Joe Blanton, Rich Harden, Justin Duchscherer, Gio Gonzalez, Kirk Saarloos, Lenny DiNardo, Chad Gaudin, Dan Meyer, Josh Outman, Sean Gallagher, Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland and Greg Smith.

Some of those guys were traded, some were injured and some didn't perform up to expectations.  Yet when I look at that list, I see several pitchers who make me excited about 2009.  Gallagher, Duchscherer, Outman, Eveland and Smith could very well be the opening day rotation for our green and gold next year.

And that doesn't even take guys like Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson into account who very well could prove to be ready by the end of spring training next year.  Gio Gonzalez could also very well bounce back and have a stellar spring training.  And Dallas Braden has probably at least put himself in the conversation with his pitching performances of late too.

Now it's probably going to take one or maybe two pitchers to possibly get a bat if that's the route Billy Beane and company want to go.  And with the A's history of having injured starting pitchers, the truth is that the team could probably use as many starting pitchers as possible. 

But it's going to make for a fascinating spring training and the good news is that even if the starting pitchers are all healthy, a few of them will be excellent additions to the bullpen.

Now that you've pretty muc h seen all the A's starters at least once this year, who do you think wind up being the starting five on opening day next year?  Course it won't matter much if Beane can't significantly improve this offense this offseason.  But I'll just pretend for a moment that our offense could somehow approach league average and therefore pretend that the starting rotation will matter.

SportsBlogs Nation is really fortunate as we have John Sickels writing the best minor league blog on the Web in Minor League Ball.  Sickels does excellent work at that blog and I suggest you make it part of your daily reading.

I figured it was a great time to check in with him since that's what most of us A's fans have done with 2008, and that's look forward to 2009 and beyond.  Oh and make sure you pick up Baseball Prospect Book 2009 when John releases it next year.  It will be chock full of A's prospects.  Hope you enjoy.

Blez:  - The A's got Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher and Josh Donaldson back for Rich Harden and out of all of the Billy Beane deals in recent years, this one seems to get the most heat.  You gave Patterson a B, Gallagher a B and Donaldson a B.  You're also a notoriously hard grader so a B is a very good prospect.  What do you think the A's ultimately will have to show for a pitcher who couldn't stay healthy?

John Sickels:  Well I like Gallagher a lot, he has been a personal favorite for some time. He is erratic, yes, and he needs to get his walk rate down closer to what it was in the minor leagues, but as long as he remains healthy I still think he's going to be a solid number three starter, an inning-eater type. Patterson isn't really a .195 hitter, I think he's more of a .260-.270 hitter with flashes of power and good speed. He's not terrific but he should be useful. I might have stuck with him a bit too long as a Grade B prospect. Donaldson was having a bad season before the trade, but seemed to get back on track at Stockton after it. Granted, that's a better place to hit than the Midwest League, but still, the Cal League is a level higher than the Midwest League and at least some of the improvement is real. I'd rate him a Grade C+ right now. If everything pans out, they will have a number three starter, a speedy guy who can cover a couple of positions, and power hitting catcher.  

Blez:  Many minor league experts talked throughout the year about the A's young pitching in their system as being the envy of all of baseball.  Of Cahill, Anderson and Mazzaro, which do you think can make the jump right into the rotation next year?

Sickels:  Tough question. I like Cahill and Anderson better than Mazzaro at this point since they have been more consistent. I suspect that Anderson will be ready the soonest, but that Cahill will end up as the best pitcher of the group in the long run. Mazzaro was great in the Texas League obviously but got hit around in the PCL. That's hardly damning of course, but I'm not quite as sold on him given the entirety of his track record. I want to look at more scouting reports as I write my book before I grade him.      

Blez:  Are you higher on Sean Doolittle now?  You gave him a B- in this year's Prospect Book due mostly to his lower batting average.  He was up over .300 this year. 

Sickels:  I was actually more worried about the lack of power in his first look at pro pitching in 2007 than I was about his batting average. He slugged .560 in the Cal League, but reverted to .388 in the Texas League with much worse strike zone judgment and a high strikeout rate. I might go with Grade B now, but I haven't decided yet.

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Here is the conclusion of Athletics Nation's four-part interview with A's managing general partner Lewis Wolff.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you.

In case you missed earlier parts, part I is here; part II is here; part III is here.

I do want to thank Nico, baseballgirl, notsellingjeans, monkeyball, louismg and taj for offering help with crafting several of these questions.  This was an incredible experience for me especially since I could've probably continued the interview.  Lew never gave me any indication that he was short on time or rushed.  He clearly understood the value of sitting down with this community.

Without further ado, the end of AN's interview with Lew Wolff:

Blez:  What's your favorite seat at the Coliseum?

Wolff:  What I like to do is to go to the diamond seats at the beginning of the game and people say I do that for the free food, but I like to see how the pitchers look after a couple of innings.  Then I prefer to be closer to where the players go to the dugout.  Not that they give a damn, but it makes me feel good.  I don't like the box at all.  We have a big box but I don't like sitting up there.

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Only it wasn't hitting with the bat, it was hitting batters with the bases loaded, which scored two runs for the Blue Jays.  A third came across on a wild pitch by Sean Gallagher who was wild for his three innings.  And it wasn't against a great offensive club.  The Jays didn't have Vernon Wells.

Regardless, Gallagher is still learning how to pitch and be consistent and I'm not going to throw in the towel on him because he has some very, very good stuff.  He kept getting himself in trouble by not throwing early strikes which is why he wound up with 94 pitches in only three innings.

The positive on the pitching side was that Dan Meyer looked very good in his four innings of work.  Meyer only allowed four hits and no walks in that time while striking out three.  What was the most impressive to me is that his slider must be extremely deceptive because the Jays hitters kept swinging and missing at pitches that weren't strikes.  Meyer isn't throwing 94-95 like he once was when he was one of the top rated pitching prospects in all of baseball, but I'm anxious to see if he can prove to be a good major league pitcher.  It was interesting that they decided to use him tonight instead of someone DiNardo.  It makes me wonder what is going to happen on Thursday.  Will we be seeing Gio Gonzalez?  It's currently listed as TBD.  And if Gio does come up to pitch, could we possibly be seeing Meyer taking Gallagher's next turn in the rotation?  I'm not sure but that's kind of what I'd like to see right now.

There really aren't any positives right now about the A's offense.  I mean both on and off the field as Eric Chavez is having surgery on his shoulder again.  At the same time, it's just best that he do it now.  Get it done and have plenty of time to see if you can get right in time for 2009.  Crosby did spoil Roy Halladay's day of making A's hitters look like little leaguers with a homer, but that was really all the A's could muster all night.  It's not really a shocker and I think it's something we'll have to get used to for what remains of 2008.

A's are down 5-0 thanks to Sean Gallagher's issues with control and I'd say facing Roy Halladay, but with the A's offense lately, it doesn't matter who is pitching.

We do get to see Dan Meyer for a few innings, which should be interesting.

LET'S GO A'S!!!!!