Maybe I just get excited too easily, but I was happy to see that Chad Harville was traded for Kirk Saarloos yesterday. You don't figure to get much for a potentially useful bullpen arm that's been designated for assignment, but Saarloos is a potentially useful guy to have around.

PECOTA figures that he'd make a slightly-better-than-league-average starter right now, despite apparently unimpressive stuff, and he's only 25. His PECOTA weighted mean, in fact, looks a lot like the guy who beat Harville out to make the team, Justin Duscherer. As I've intimated before, Duscherer's a guy I like because he can give you value in some different places, especially starting. He's been squeezed out by the Mark Redman trade, but if one of the starters goes down with injury, he would step in adequately.

Now, the A's essentially have two of those guys, which is not only insurance against losing games, but is also insurance against getting too distraught by some nasty rash of injuries and bringing up Joe Blanton before he's ready.