Promote the Bullpen

Considering the health problems in the A's rotation, it defies explanation that the organization is opting to go to the minor leagues rather than start some of their excellent long relievers. Jerry Blevins has been up and down, but a lot better than Trevor Cahill, Vin Mazzaro, or, in reality, Gio Gonzalez. Tyson Ross seems like a no-brainer. Except for one bad relief appearance (with inherited runners, mind you), he's looked dominant.

Especially considering Oakland seems to be fond of experimenting, why not experiment this way: do the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation like you would a long relief spot. Pitch a guy until he gets into trouble, replace him with another guy. He gets into trouble, replace him with another guy. While Blevins and Ross might not be able to by themselves to go seven, they can certainly effectively split seven innings between them.

In that way, you have a true system of promotion. The system of promotion currently goes like this. A starter goes down, so we're going to throw a guy in there and expect him, with little or no major league experience, or few or no career starts, to go six or seven innings. Why? Why not expect a guy in a spot start to go three, and be surprised if he lasts seven, rather than expect him to go seven and be surprised that he only lasts three?

Duchscherer is the perfect example of a guy for whom this worked. He came up in 2004 and was asked to do long relief. I remember one game his rookie year he pitched the ninth, ten, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth innings on the road (where a single run would have been the end of the game) for a win. They didn't do this by choice; it was at the end of a series and they didn't have anybody else to pitch extra innings. They were basically up and against a wall, and found a starting pitcher.

This is not to say that every long reliever will be a good starter, nor that every starter will make a good long reliever, but to say that chances are, a guy that is a good long reliever in the big leagues has as good or better chance at being a good starting pitcher than a guy with no major league experience whatsoever. Plus, it's sort of brutal to send a guy out, see three runs go up on the board, and hope he "settles down." I would love to see the statistics for the probability of giving up runs after having given up one, two, or three already. If he gives up three runs, yank him. Ben Sheets or no.