Chris Bassitt and Sam Fuld out with injuries

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski on April 29, 2016 at 10:36 PM

Jane Lee twote earlier this evening that Sam Fuld, who's already spent all year on the disabled list, will pass the rest of the year there as well: He'll have rotator cuff surgery. Fuld's on the 60-day DL, so this is likely the last we'll hear of him before he hits free agency this offseason―there won't be some roster move a few weeks from now to clear 40-man space for someone else, because that space was already cleared.

Fuld was going to have a tough time cracking this A's roster even if he'd come back at full strength―he's obviously not playing ahead of Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick and Khris Davis, and he really should not be playing ahead of Billy Burns either. Would the A's have optioned Mark Canha to keep Fuld? That seems unwise unless they want to commit to either Billy Butler or Yonder Alonso at first base against lefties, each of which options is unattractive for different reasons. I think the "hope," if you can call it that, is that Fuld's return might have coincided with someone else's injury. If, for instance, it's between Fuld and, say, Andrew Lambo or Jake Smolinski, then sure, keep the guy who's out of options and plays stellar defense and see how things go from there.

Anyway, it's all moot, backward-looking hypotheticals that are even more pointless than your average baseball blogging.

Much more fruitful is that we now also get to fret over Chris Bassitt, who hit the DL with a strained elbow and then revealed that he's had pain all year. The classic line is that soreness is normal and pain is bad. In practice, at the levels of exertion we're talking about for professional athletes, that distinction has to be difficult to pin down, so I can't really blame Bassitt for not speaking up before now. One hopes he's not headed for some serious surgery, but one way or another, elbows are no bagatelle, and Bassitt's stuff has reportedly been woeful of late, so here's hoping, more than believing, that he'll make it back at 100 percent, and soon.

In his absence, we'll see Jesse Hahn on Saturday. He had a blister issue that supposedly made the difference between calling him up and picking Sean Manaea instead, but that looks like a bit of a weird excuse now that he's coming up to pitch a mere day later.

What all this adds up to, with Sonny Gray being Sonny Gray, Rich Hill continuing to pitch, somehow, like one of the better starters in the league, and the exciting Sean Manaea, is that maybe Jesse Hahn and Kendall Graveman only have to be fourth-starter-level pitchers for the A's to sum up to a pretty dang good rotation. Pair that with a bullpen that has been quite nice (fourth in FanGraphs FIP, driven by an incredible 1.7 walks per nine) and an okay defense and you've got a recipe for run-prevention. The offense is... well, it's the A's. But if the AL West continues to scuffle, who knows what might be enough.

In any event, one last transaction: Andrew Triggs is back again (at least for one game―I'd assume he'll head back to Nashville for Hahn) and Matt McBride has been optioned. So all keeping McBride from Japan cost the A's is three days of major-league salary (and meal money) and most of a season of 40-man money. As I said, there are a lot of facts we don't know, but it sure looks, right at this moment, like McBride is losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars despite no legitimate chance to have an impact in the major leagues. That's great stuff. Just makes you feel really good to be a sports fan.

What really galls is the excuse-making from the writers initially about his call-up―oh a third catcher is going to help Bob Melvin get to use both Stephen Vogt and Josh Phegley in the same lineup? Neat! Neat how that works with that third catcher in Nashville! To leave behind the sarcasm for one sentence: I'm glad Susan Slusser got behind the story and told us about the Japan offer and the opt-out situation. There are moves behind the moves sometimes, and the teams sure as shit aren't going to be the ones telling us about them. Same as the reporters last year credulously telling us that Kris Bryant's defense needed work, if you're just a mouthpiece for the organization, there's no point―the team's already paying people to do that job.