Ryan Dull, who was marvelous in 2016 and bad in 2017, will get his chance to start trying to find that middle ground come Saturday. He's been on the 10-day disabled list, so no 40-man move is needed, but the only relievers who aren't out of options are Blake Treinen, Ryan Buchter, Emilio Pagan, and Danny Coulombe. Pagan has been unimpressive so far, but it's hard to imagine any of those four being optioned. Slusser says the most likely course is waiving Liam Hendriks, who's been bad. Hendriks put up good FIPs the last two years, and DRA says it's not one of those weird FIP illusions. I think he can still be a useful reliever. My chosen course would be optioning Dull himself because he's not clearly better than anyone in the current 'pen, and the A's are apparently not quite ready to get rid of Santiago Casilla yet.

Next is the easy one: Chad Pinder will come back Monday and Franklin Barreto, who hasn't had a plate appearance, will head back down. Easy enough, though I might advocate for holding onto Barreto for just a few more days and sending down Mark Canha instead. On the other hand, if there's no room for Barreto to play as it is, there really won't be room with Pinder back, so better to let him get back to playing every day in Nashville.

Then on Tuesday comes the need for a starting pitcher. Slusser says the expected move is Trevor Cahill. He also will not require a 40-man move. Slusser says the most likely paired move is DFAing Trayce Thompson. Given that the team doesn't need to clear 40-man space, though, I would wish for an optioning of Mark Canha instead. The Boog Powell injury has created an opportunity to get a longer look at Thompson and see if he can help the team out, so I would like to see the A's take that opportunity, particularly since I think it's entirely clear what Mark Canha is, which is someone who's barely good enough to ride the shuttle, much less sit the major-league bench. Thompson may well prove himself, given the chance, to be a better right-handed bench option in the outfield than Jake Smolinski.