Rotation Left Still Waiting For Gaudin

The whole thing was orchestrated by the A's to give Nico an excuse to use the "Waiting for Gaudin" headline.

and he got his walks down sometime around mid-season.

"Yet a pitcher can weather spotty control better as a starter than as a high-leverage reliever."

• I think most sabermetrically-inclined people would disagree with this statement. A reliever can afford to have two-walk, 25 pitch innings far more than starters can. After all, they're usually done after that inning.

The main prerequisite for being a starter is the ability to consistently get at least 5-6 innings. And if Gaudin habitually is at 100 pitches after 4-5 innings (an exhaustive amount of labor, when you consider the studies that show that a few long innings wear a pitcher out more than several short ones), than we're screwed. A starter like that, who rarely finished five innings, would really tax our bullpen and wreak havoc on the staff.
As for the comparison to Bonderman...Bonderman's stuff is much better. And even his road to success as a dominant two-pitch pitcher was pretty rocky.

The A's have to sink or swim with what they've got, and the decisions they've made. I think it's early to panic about Kennedy. It's a very small sample size, and keep in mind teams barely even need a fifth starter in April. He's still got time to get himself worked out.

that they were too valuble in their current role to be promoted, it would almost certainly mean the CEO felt said employee couldn't handle more reposnsibility.

I think the same goes for Beane and his bullpen employees, Gaudin and Duke.

really lends something to our fifth-starter debate, too, and explains why Joe Kennedy is the ONLY choice really, even if he doesn't pitch well in spring.
Sackmann wrote an article in February that wondered why the Twins would commit 3.5 million to Ramon Ortiz, knowing that Ortiz isn't good and that the Twins probably have two pitchers who are better who won't be in their April rotation - Matt Garza and Perkins.
But Garza and Perkins have something far more valuable than Ortiz - minor league options.
Every major league team knows its going to have injuries, but the Twins are smart enough to know that they'll need seven pitchers (not five) that are ABOVE replacement-level quality in order to make the playoffs. This will help account for the natural attrition of a major league season. That extra few wins the Twins (and A's) get when they trot out a better 5th/6th/7th starter than other teams could be the difference in a playoff berth.

Take that same logic Sackmann used with the Twins, and just apply it to the A's, with Kennedy (who is out of minor league options) taking the place of Ortiz, and Komine/Windsor/Halsey(?) taking the place of Garza/Perkins - only with lower upsides.

You have to leave a few decent pitchers who have options down at the minor league level, just so that you have decent pitching available to bring up when MLB guys get hurt.
To me, that flexibility alone is a good reason to remove Windsor/Komine from the 5th starter competition. I think that's the A's logic.

Here's Sackmann's excellent article.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...

Oakland's best trade value lies in the big league bullpen with Calero, Duke and Street. Having Gaudin as the 4th in line is a luxury, however, should Beane trade one of his RH arms Gaudin becomes a necessity to keep the bullpen strong.

Right now the trade market seems to place more value in relief arms than 5th SP types. The A's traded Saarloos to Cincy and all they got was a AA arm. Last year at the trade deadline Washington traded a couple middling relief arms for Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez. At the start of the offseason San Diego traded their young 2B for an average 3B prospect and a bullpen arm with all of 10 IP in the Show.

So Gaudin may contribute more to the W-L column as a SP, he seems to offer the organization as a whole more value by coming out of the pen.

The "too valuable in the bullpen" line baffles me. All through last season, the way Gaudin was being used suggested to me that those in charge didn't see him with a future as a reliever.  That's why I was convinced they were planning to convert him to a starter for this year. Why that didn't happen, I sure don't know.

The argument that Gaudin has options and Kennedy doesn't makes perfect sense to me, but I still don't see why Gaudin isn't in the starting rotation in AAA or even AA.  I was sure that was the plan: to have him unlearn some bad habits and rebuild his technique.

I doubt A's brass is thoroughly impressed by 64 innings of decent, if not somewhat lucky, pitching. A 1.45 WHIP isn't sparkling, and his .249 BABIP will probably go up this season. I think that even if he does cut down on the walks he'll still allow a similar amount of baserunners via hits, not that he doesn't have potential.

He has nothing left to learn in AAA, where his stuff will get him out of any jam, but he needs to learn more about the art of pitching. Starting him now would most likely stunt his growth and be detrimental to team success– starting JoeK is only one of those (I'll let you figure it out).

Let him get a full year under his belt in the big leagues and see if he can top last year's performance in a similar role. He's got to better his K/BB rate (0.86). His career line suggests he can fan even more batters than last year and if he can even limit his BB/9 to 4, he might be ready for a bigger role in '08.

...the Four Hoarsemen of the Apocalypse?

You know, because they get pounded so much we all scream ourselves hoarse?

Or you could go with the Four (missed the) Corners.

Four on the Floor?

maybe there are Billy guys and there are non-Billy guys.  I imagine, as awesome as playing on the A's can be, its not as great if you are Kirk Saarloos or Eric Byrnes.  The Saarloos move just doesn't make much sense to me.  He is a proven 5th starter, positive clubhouse guy, and doesn't cost much.  He was moved to make room for Kennedy, a guy that Billy has coveted for a while, who was traded for a young, cheap, popular, 5-tool OFer.  Handing the job to Kennedy before ST seems to be a mistake.  Not to mention the 2 year deal for Witasick.  Now, Joe, in limited time surprised last season, so I would be happy for him to put it together for his last 3 spring starts, but he sure hasn't earned anything yet.

more than anything.  Gaudin has issues with his control.  And I think nothing drives the A's front office more nuts than a pitcher who gives up a lot of walks.  As much as the A's value the walk on offense, they dread our own pitchers who give up a lot of walks.  It's not a big deal to have a reliever who pitches an inning give up a walk, but if he's a starter giving up a walk every inning, then it could really kill them.

You combine that with the fact that I do really believe the A's thought they had perfect fifth starter material in Kennedy and a couple of choices of backup (with Windsor and Halsey), you wind up with unenviable conundrum they're in now.  Saarloos would be a nice luxury fallback at this point, but I still think that the A's are going to start the season with Kennedy in that spot.  The A's have been vocal about not really looking at spring training stats.

But I agree, if Billy really thought that Gaudin had the best pure stuff on the staff behind Harden, then why not give him a shot?  I think it just shows how much the A's mindset has reversed into really valuing relievers.

I still vehemently disagree with the assertion that a control problem is easier managed as a starter than in the 'pen.

A high-leverage guy needs to be able to strike people out. Top priority. If he can roll a double-play ball, that's great too.

Your hypothetical situation of runners on base doesn't hold water.
If a reliever comes in with runners on second and/or third in a high-leverage situation, what's the worst-case scenario?  He gives up hits (Saarloos).  If a huge run is on the line, the hittable guy is a major problem.
The guy who has a high walk rate and k's people (Gaudin) is a hell of lot better in that situation. He walks a guy (no damage yet), he gets a k, and you're out of it.
For obvious reasons, you don't bring him in with the bases loaded.
For that matter, as your fourth reliever, Gaudin's not your top choice in a high leverage situation anyway. He comes in to start the 6th or 7th inning. He can afford to walk people. He just needs a scoreless inning. He can exert maximum effort.

Much more disastrous is a fifth-starter who rarely gets out of the fourth because of control problems and constantly has your pen exhausted. Which is very likely what Beane and Co. believe Gaudin would be, at this point of his career.

I've already seen the phrase "track record" used enough to where it makes by eyes itch. Someone get a few quotes from some pitcher about "trying to be too fine" and I'll call it a season.

Zito moved across the Bay, you won't see that phrase on here any more unless he rubbed off on Haren or something.  ;-)

translating into strikeouts yet.  The 8K/9IP minor league record is decent but not spectacular.  Duchscherer for example had nearly identical totals, even at similar ages.  Gaudin's 5.1 K/9 last year in the bullpen doesn't give me great confidence that he can succeed as a starter.  If he can reduce his walks AND raise his K's this year, then I might give him a chance as a starter.

not because of the implications for the fifth starter spot, which are often overblown in mid-March, and which sometimes work themselves out anyway.

But it is important because Gaudin is an asset.  As a young, cheap, hard-throwing MLB pitcher, Gaudin is one of our assets at this point.  It is important that the A's have a plan for maximizing his value.  They probably do have such a plan, but to many of us, using the spring as a time to stretch him out makes sense.

I tend to trust the A's brass when it comes to making decisions on pitchers. They make mistakes sure (Bonderman, Rhodes, Cruz, Redman...), but they succeed enough on knowing the value of guys they have (e.g. picking up Duke, trading Harville for Saarloos, picking up Harang, trading Mulder for Calero/ Haren/Barton, trading Hudson, picking up Gaudin, keeping Lidle cheap and then parting ways with him, letting Rheinecker go, signing Loaiza at what turned out to be a good price...) that I give them more benefit of the doubt when it comes to managing their stock of pitchers than I give them for their evaulation of established MLB players (Kotsay contract, Kendall acquisiton instead of keeping Damien Miller, Hatteberg extension, using Lilly to get Kielty).

So is Gaudin a keeper for the A's, or is he  a talented but flawed thrower who works best in a controlled role?  That's the question to me.  

Someone's bound to go down with an injury and Chad will have his shot to prove A's brass wrong.