A Little More on Trevor Cahill

Nico from Athletics Nation makes a similar point to what I expressed in my article on Trevor Cahill, but in a different way:

In his 17.1 IP, Cahill has walked 13 batters and allowed 12 hits. 6 of those hits are singles, 6 of them doubles. What that means is that Cahill is consistently allowing batters to reach base, where they go station to station until he can get an inning ending DP ball or third out…

…Sound familiar? Trevor Cahill, with his ability to turn the opposition into a .203 hitting, .305 slugging, .347 OBPing collection of Cliff Penningtons, Jason Kendalls, and Jack Hannahans, has taken the A’s offensive frustrations of 2007-08 and put them to work for us!

It’s true…nobody will ever have sustained success with a 13:5 K:BB ratio and Cahill is no exception. But there is something about Cahill that makes me think he’ll be able to limit his opposition to mostly singles to go along with the occasional extra base hit. Teams will have to string together base hit after base hit to score. Now, the whole point is moot if he continues to allow walks at his current rate, but the general point is, let’s say he’s able to improve his command to league average level…if he’s able to do that, scoring on Cahill will prove to be a very difficult feat, especially if he has a high level defense behind him.

Edit: Of course, the day after I write this Cahill gets blasted by giving up two homeruns…go figure. Commands the big thing for him.