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Gaudin To The Bullpen … For Now

The Oakland A’s made the difficult decision of what to do with their rotation when Rich Harden returned from the disabled list, and it appears that the decision has been made to move right-hander Chad Gaudin into the bullpen, at least for now. It is a little surprising to see Gaudin moved into the bullpen, given that I believe the A’s view him as a starter long-term and he had pitched well, for the most part, this season.

Unfortunately for Gaudin, one could say that about pretty much every A’s starting pitcher right now. The A’s starting staff has the best ERA in the AL at 3.31, so one could easily make the argument that there isn’t a below-average starter in the rotation. That being the case, the A’s had to base their decision on factors other than effectiveness. The A’s were obviously not going to send Joe Blanton to the bullpen, and it would have been hard to move Greg Smith to the minor leagues given that he is among the AL leaders in numerous starting pitching categories. Dana Eveland has some experience in the bullpen, but he is someone who, after a few struggles in the big leagues in previous seasons, is finally experiencing success as a major league starter. To move him to the bullpen now could hamper that development and shake his new-found confidence. Justin Duchscherer, like Gaudin, has lots of previous experience as a reliever. However, he has been pretty adamant about staying in the rotation and the A’s probably want to see what they have in Duchscherer as a starter anyway.

Gaudin draws the short straw because he is the easiest pitcher to move into the bullpen. He has experience and good reliever stuff. In addition, he is someone who the A’s have seen in a starter’s role for more than a season, so they don’t need 34 starts this year, necessarily, to make a long-term judgment about Gaudin’s future in their rotation.

Some might ask why the A’s don’t move Rich Harden into the bullpen. I think that is a good question. My sense is that the A’s wouldn’t mind moving Harden in a trade and it will be easier to build up his value as a starter. Plus, if he is dominant, even just for a handful of starts, it will be more beneficial for the A’s to get those few starts than a handful of relief appearances (especially when you consider the current strength of the A’s bullpen).

I don’t think Gaudin is long for the bullpen. Chances are that the A’s will either trade Harden or Blanton or someone will get hurt or will start to struggle over the next several weeks. At that point, Gaudin should be able to move fairly easily back into the starting rotation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under Transactions, Pitching, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.