Your Oakland A's No. 2 Starter

Well, Anderson is down again, and this time it might be for the count. However, it gave the A's an opportunity to plug in Vin Mazzaro, who they wanted to plug into the rotation anyway, until and if they can get Josh Outman back in the mix this year. His line:

3 1/3 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K

In Fenway, coming in in a spot start, that's actually pretty impressive. The thing with Mazzaro appears to be that he doesn't seem to have a strikeout pitch at the major league level, which is strange because he certainly had one at the minor league level. So long as he keeps his walks down, though, I can live with all the hits, so long as it doesn't make him change his approach such that he walks a whole bunch of batters to avoid contact.

You really look at a guy like Dallas Braden though, versus a guy like Vin Mazzaro. Braden pitched a couple of good games when he first came up and then got rocked pretty hard and was sent back down. He battled back and had a mediocre year, before having a breakout year this year. Mazzaro, on the other hand, has been a stud every place he's gone so far. He might not have the resilience Braden has shown, to be able to deal with not being given a fair shot. In terms of the Big Three of the early oughts, I think of Braden like Hudson, and Mazzaro like Zito.

Hudson could get rocked. But he was a guy that would give up a home run and then pitched five innings of shutout ball after that. Braden's the same way. He may get rocked, but you're not going to rock him, you're just going to make him more resolved to strike you out. Mazzaro, like Zito, is the opposite. You get to him and you shake his whole mental state. This was Mazzaro's best performance this year at the major league level, and he still took 82 pitches to get through 3 1/3 and gave up 9 hits. In the minors he had a nonexistent ERA with tons of strikeouts per nine and an above-average WHIP.

Mazzaro, like Zito, has the best stuff of any of the young starters. He should be taking the league by storm. But Mazzaro, like Zito, is never going to go out and take charge of a staff the way that Hudson did, and now Braden is. Look at Hudson and Zito now, after all. Hudson's busted through adversity and still manages to pitch effectively. Zito has cruised through his career injury-wise, and is still the biggest free agent bust of all time. Thus, Mazzaro is worth more as an idea than as a starter. Let's get value out of the idea before we find out he doesn't have much value as a starer.