Arizona nabs Cahill and Breslow, send Jarrod Parker and others to Oakland

By Bill King
Updated: December 10, 2011

Billy Beane decided to essentially toss any hope for A’s fans out the window yesterday when he dealt young ace in the making Trevor Cahill and effective RP Craig Breslow to the Diamondbacks for SP prospect Jarrod Parker and two “prospects”. This move is significant for the D’backs as their outlook on 2012 takes a sudden jump by adding a ground ball specialist with the best sinker in the game since former D’Backs ace, Brandon Webb.

By adding Cahill the D’backs add a ton of depth in a rotation that was questionable at the end. I think Cahill is the best pitcher on the D’backs right now, and will likely continue to get better if he can command his sinker a bit better going forward. I tweet’d yesterday that I have been wary of Cahill’s health. While watching him in 2012 I noticed a slight difference in both his arm angle and the depth of his sinker. Although he regressed on a statistical end, which was expected, he also gave me warning signs on the eye test. If I’m wrong, which is quite possible, Arizona wins this trade in a vacuum. Reason I say that is because Parker will likely perform significantly better in Oakland than he would in Arizona. The ballpark factor cannot be denied here in Parker’s side, much less in Cahill’s due to his extreme ground ball splits. I would look to see Cahill back off of the slow breaking curve and use his power sinker a bit more, especially when pitching at home vs. teams with pop.

Parker is your typical scouts dream. He’s got big velocity, a change with depth and a slider that was much better prior to Tommy John surgery which may return but if not he can use it as a show me pitch. I don’t necessarily see how this trade really benefits anybody other than Arizona, as Cahill is likely to be better than Parker even if only by a small margin, and is cost efficient and we know what he’s going to make until 2017. If Parker develops into an ace, Oakland will almost certainly need to move him and move him quickly because they’re about the same age, only difference is that Cahill signed a team-friendly extension last season. The prospects given along with Parker aren’t of impact, unless Ryan Cook magically learns how to command his breaking ball.

Arizona fans have a lot to be excited about if Cahill is healthy, but I am one of the few out there who isn’t exactly sold on that fact. Time will tell.