Trevor Cahill Trade Went Completely Under the Radar
By Unknown author
A year ago, Trevor Cahill was seen as perhaps the best young pitcher in baseball. You’d think that a trade involving a player of that caliber would be major news. Well, in an interesting offseason…that wasn’t the case.
Heading into last season, the former A’s ace was coming off an 18-8 2010 that left many to predict that the right hander would be a dark horse Cy
Young contender. Cahill was so good in 2010 that he was seen as one of the untouchables in baseball. A 1.10 WHIP and a .220 average against were coupled with his 2.97 ERA all placed near the top of the American League. However, a sub-par 2011 and another Oakland A’s fire sale and Cahill finds himself in a new zip code. Honestly, one that he’s probably more than happy to trade up to as the floundering A’s likely won’t see the postseason for quite awhile. While Cahill’s 12-14 record and 4.19 ERA were unimpressive in 2011, he actually started out the year right up there with Justin Verlander and Jered Weaver as the early AL CY Young favorites–Cahill’s season started 6-0 with a 1.72 ERA. Of course that was before he hit his midseason slump–not much different than the rest of the A’s. However, there’s little to worry about in this deal as Cahill isn’t yet 24, never been injured and finished 2011 season going 3-1 with a 3.56 ERA over his final 5 starts.
To get Cahill, the Diamondbacks had to put up an impressive bounty that included top prospect Jarrod Parker and the underrated Collin Cowgill. Overall, though, it seems like a fair deal for a player considered to be one of the top young pitchers in baseball just 8 months ago. While you’d expect enormous headlines for the move, it surprisingly went through the wire with little fanfare outside of Oakland and Arizona. In fact, the A’s quest to deal the inferior Gio Gonzalez–who to me has Donrelle Willis written all over him–seemingly gained much more notoriety this offseason.
No doubt if the Yankees or Phillies had acquired Cahill there would have been national holidays declared in New York or Philadelphia, but Cahill ended up here instead meaning an ESPN Page 2 story. I’m OK with that and you should be too. The limelight doesn’t seem to fit Cahill or the workman like D-Backs either…besides, the Diamondbacks have every opportunity to get all of the publicity they want in October if they just play up to their ability.
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