It was always going to be nearly impossible for Gossett to make the team out of spring training. He's not on the 40-man roster, so his arbitration and free agency clocks haven't started yet; in a season when the A's don't look like they're aiming for the top of the AL West table, that means he'd need about eight injuries and exceedingly impressive performance to make the Opening Day squad, and even then, you've got to figure the team would pull the Kris Bryant on him and start him off for three weeks in Triple-A before calling him up so that he doesn't reach a full year of service time by the end of the year, thus effectively giving the team seven years rather than six before free agency. (It sucks, but until some incentives are put in place to avoid this, it's how teams are going to operate.) You've got to figure Paul Blackburn, Ross Detwiler, Zach Neal, and probably Raul Alcantara were all ahead of Gossett coming into the spring, on top of the five expected starters and Jesse Hahn. But once the Super Two deadline passes (see last parenthetical), if Andrew Triggs has to be demoted back to the bullpen, or there's another injury, or Jesse Hahn hasn't recovered his form, or Jharel Cotton is struggling, we could see Baseball Prospectus' no. 8 A's prospect in the majors. I suppose I should add him to the list of Little Optimisms.