Jeff Fletcher | March 31, 2009

The A’s co-closer is going to visit Dr. James Andrews next week, starting the season on the disabled list.

This can’t be too shocking, since Devine has had elbow problems for years, including missing two months last season and two weeks already this spring. He said he didn’t feel right at any point during Monday’s outing, which was the last straw.

“I could only get to 80 percent because there is a barrier in there,” he said. “Something was grabbing me and not allowing me to pitch at 100 percent.”

PURE SPECULATION ALERT: I’m guessing Devine is going to end up having surgery, since he said he’s had this problem for a while and nothing has made it go away. At a minimum, it seems like this is the kind of thing that the doctors might want to do a ‘scope and see what’s in there.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 31, 2009

The Giants optioned Kevin Frandsen to Fresno this morning.

This is a mild surprise, only because I figured that he’d had enough Triple-A experience that he wouldn’t really benefit from more seasoning. However, the Giants don’t really need him, either. If Emmanuel Burriss is going to be the starting second baseman and Juan Uribe and Rich Aurilia are going to be the backups, what’s the point of having Frandsen?

I’m not at Giants camp today, but I understand that Frandsen didn’t want to talk this morning.  I’m sure he’s not a very happy camper. Perhaps the Giants figured that if he was going to be disgruntled at not starting, they’d rather have him be disgruntled at Fresno than stewing in San Francisco. Mostly, though, it was probably just that he was redundant on the roster, and it’s better to keep him playing every day in case he’s needed to come up later.

If I were him I’d do my best to get hot and stay hot at Fresno, because Burriss is no lock to produce offensively in the majors. Frandsen and Burriss could be switching places a month from now.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 30, 2009

A few days ago I looked at how rare it would be if the A’s had two starters making their debut in the season-opening rotation, but I found an even better stat nugget today.

All five of the A’s projected starters are 25 or younger. (The oldest is Dallas Braden, who turns 26 on Aug. 13.) There has never been a team in baseball history (since 1901, anyway) to give the ball to five starers 25 or younger at least 25 times in a season. Here’s the list. (Remember that teams used four-man rotations up till the 1970s, so a team couldn’t really have five regular starters.)

Anyway, if you look at the list of teams that had three or four young starters, you’ll see that most of those teams were not very good, but they did foreshadow some good teams (like the 1989 Braves, 2002 White Sox and 2003 Tigers). The 2001 A’s are on that list, and they won 102 games.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 30, 2009

Two interesting developments this morning. Eric Chavez said he will “definitely” be ready for opening day. That’s not a shocker, because everything had been headed in that direction for a week or so. Still, it’s nice to hear Chavez say it, because he’s not always the most optimistic guy.

Also, Bud Selig has created a committee to look at the “Oakland” situation.  The guess here is that is the first step toward Selig removing the Giants’ territorial rights to San Jose.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 30, 2009

Jimmy Gobble got released by the Rangers this morning, just over a week after he was released by the Royals. Normally, I would say that anyone who has been released twice in two weeks — by those teams, particularly — probably doesn’t have a whole lot left.

But, he is left handed. And he is breathing. I assume.

The Giants and A’s are both looking for a lefty reliever, so I wouldn’t be shocked if either team took a low-risk flier on Gobble.

I endorse him fully, mostly because I like his name.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 29, 2009

The A’s are playing the Rockies today, and when Matt Holliday came up the Rockies put on a rare right-handed shift. It wasn’t a full-fledged shift like you’d see for a left-handed pull hitter, but the second baseman was playing about one step to the right of the bag.

I hadn’t noticed any other teams shifting like that against Holliday this spring, or when he played for the Rockies in past years. However, if there’s a team that knows how he hits, it would be the Rockies. It will be interesting to see if this catches on as word spreads.

By the way, Holliday still yanked a single through the left side, despite the shift.

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Jeff Fletcher | March 29, 2009

Plucked this out of the thorougly informative weekly feature, Baseball Brunch over at FanHouse…

San Francisco’s top two pitching prospects are Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson, and a scout who has seen both said they are intriguing and hard to project for opposite reasons. Bumgarner, a 19-year-old lefty, throws “an absolutely effortless 95 (mph)” but is “so trackable” — hitters can see the ball through his delivery. So can he add some deception? Alderson, meanwhile, is a 20-year-old, 6-foot-7 right-hander who is “funky, but with an average fastball.” He has a feel for pitching and “guts,” the scout said, and could wind up like San Diego’s 6-foot-10 Chris Young, using his height to offset his lack of velocity.

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