And so it contiues...

Tonight at 7:05 PT Brett Anderson makes his major league debut at home against the Seattle Mariners. I’d love to be there to watch it, hell, even to just catch a couple of innings on TV, but unfortunately, due to a prior engagement—my being asleep—I will be unable.

As I might have mentioned once or twice in the past, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson starting the year in the big league rotation. Out of the duo Anderson is the one I am less concerned about, but that's not to say I’m not worried about the young lefthander. Just that I think he has a slightly smaller chance of getting carpet-bombed out of Oakland.

I’m feeling good about Anderson’s start tonight. I really am. Seattle will be without Ichiro, and it’s only logical to assume that the Oakland offense will put up 14 singles, so Anderson should be good to go. But just for fun, let’s revisit why it should probably be an Edgar Gonzalez starter we are getting ready for instead.

The case against the young guys:

• Holding these guys back in the minors for the month of April would probably buy the team an extra year of club control
• Neither guy has pitched more than 37 innings in Double-A, and only Anderson has been to Sacramento
• Based on the number of innings they each pitched last season neither figures to eclipse 160 innings pitched in ’09, which would seem to suggest one of two scenarios:

1) Beane is banking on them not being very and thus not being around all season anyways, which begs the question: what are they doing here in the first place?

2) The team is planning to shut them down sometime around mid to late August, pennant race or not. That would be weird.

• The possibility of wrecking the development curve of two of the organization’s most valuable prospects. Of course, this might be a bit of an exaggeration. A few disastrous starts probably won’t permanently ruin Anderson/Cahill mentally, but I’d really prefer it was Gonzalez’s psyche that Beane was toying with

The case for:

• Billy Beane said so. I think.
• Edgar Gonzalez.

So how do you see ’09 playing out for the pair 21-year-olds? Will they spend the entire season in Oakland? I see Anderson winning between 10-12 games with a mid-4 ERA, but expect Cahill to spend at least two months in the state capital.