First, in non-A's news, I'd like to congratulate D.J. Short for using "jibe" where far too many writers incorrectly write "jive." Well done, sir. (The post is about Jon Niese, but it also mentions that Gio Gonzalez isn't going to be a Met because the Mets won't trade any of their (apparently) top six young players for him.)

Matthew Pouliot compares the Trevor Cahill trade to that of Mat Latos. He doesn't like it. It's a fair point, because after Jarrod Parker, the A's didn't get much, while the Reds managed to grab a pitcher with good performance in his past who won't cost much, two very top prospects, and a fourth guy. Still, given the ease of finding first basemen and the stagnation and injury possibilities that exist for anyone purporting to play catcher, I'm not sure I'd just cite Jarrod Parker's "flame-out risk" and leave it at that.

Also, stop citing win-loss records.

Lastly for today, David Wishinsky looks at Gio Gonzalez vs. Mat Latos and concludes, correctly I think, that Latos is the better pitcher, mainly due to a significantly better walk rate. Latos is also younger and not a Super-Two. Wishinsky concludes from this that the top-prospect packages the A's have been asking for are not absurd, but I'm not sure I agree. You might expect the RA/9 difference between Latos and Gonzalez to be as much as half a run, so I don't know if seeing Alonso + Grandal go west means we should expect to get Montero + Betances.