Trevor Anderson

Before Spring Training began I figured that if there was one young pitcher the A’s would risk putting in the starting rotation it would be Vince Mazzaro. My logic was really quite simple.

One. Mazzaro had the most professional experience of the trio. Sure, not a whole lot more, but at least he’d spent an entire season above A-ball.

Two. Relatively speaking, Mazzaro is the least valuable prospect of the three. Which is to say that if for some strange reason one of these guys were to just so happen to implode, suffer a serious loss in confidence and never again regain their 2008 form, I’d prefer it be Vince. It’s not that I have anything against Mr. Mazzaro, but just a simple matter of ceilings. Vince’s is by far the lowest, and I don’t think that it's really a debate.

And up until about 1:05PM on March 17 it looked like that just might happen; that Mazzaro would force his way into the Opening Day rotation. But then the game happened. And then this game happened. And then Gio got hurt. And then Duke got more hurt. And then Gallagher sucked.

And suddenly Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill had pitched their way into the rotation. Well, not really pitched so much as to be the only guys who were healthy and hadn’t been totally awful.

Having all of one’s limbs attached, and being better than Edgar Gonzalez, however, are hardly compelling justifications for rushing two of the organization’s most prized prospects to the Major Leagues. But I swear, I’m not utterly horrified of the possibility that Anderson and or Cahill could have their development curve permanently retarded.

I mean, come on. This is Billy Beane we are talking about. Dude knows pitching. He would never take such a foolish risk. However, there have been conspiratorial whispers that the promotion of the pair of 21-year-old’s hasn’t been purely a baseball decision, but rather the result of a mandate forced on Beane from above.

I don’t really buy this theory and let my explain why. As a fan, I would certainly hope that Lew Wolff would want to field the most competitive team possible. The thing is, I’m not convinced that starting the year with Anderson/Cahill on the team is the surest way to go about doing so. If Lew really wanted to field the best team possible then Beane surely would have explained to him that it would make more sense to add a few millions dollars in payroll to sign/trade for a veteran innings eater and slide Gallagher into the final spot, then it would to risk the development of the kids.

That way you give Gallagher the month of April to see if he can straighten things out, Anderson/Cahill get some more minor league seasoning and you probably even gain an extra year of club control by holding them both back.

So how are you feeling with the Trevor Anderson Era set to begin tonight? Terrified? Bullish? I think I’m somewhere in between. I see Cahill going six innings and giving up one run. Either that, or he doesn’t make it out of the third. Predictions below please.