His GO/AO numbers were
2.19 in A+ and 3.06 in AA (2.43 overall that year)

Just like the other two young A´s, Mazzaro and to a lesser extent (because he´s already closer) Anderson, Cahill most of all needs a bit of time and pay his dues. He´s the type of pitcher who´ll be inconsistent for a year or two and suddenly break out in a big way if he stays healthy.
In a couple of years, the A´s could have one of the top 1-2-3 punches in Baseball with these 3.

they suck until they figure it out. he should be in the minors right now and if he was doing very well, call him up around now to see what hes got

Cahill just wasn’t ready for the bigs at the start of the year. Yeah, on the surface his numbers in AA looked really nice, but they showed a rise in BB rate, a slight decline in K rate, and a slight raise in HR rate. The problem was he had such a small sample size there, it really didn’t look that bad at first glance. What he could have used was a few months in AA to refine his control. His knuckle-curve was supposed to be his out pitch, but he’s thrown it very rarely—I only saw one or two of his starts and they were at the beginning of the year, so I don’t really recall how it looked, but I’d be willing to bet control/command issues are a problem here as well.

It doesn’t surprise me that Anderson has fared better, he’s a much more polished pitcher. I really didn’t understand starting the clocks for either Anderson or Cahill from the get go. Oh well, Anderson has pitched pretty well, and should be fine from here on out. Cahill…..I just hope this doesn’t end up causing him to struggle for a few years to get things figured out.

There was absolutely no reason to believe that he would be better than the AAA filler arms that you can find for a few hundred grand a year.

Cahill’s problem has a lot to do with pitch selection and command— he’s not getting strikeouts because he’s throwing nothing but fastballs, and he’s throwing nothing but fastballs because he’s constantly behind in the count. He really needs a reboot from scratch in AAA next season. Hopefully the A’s can put together a solid rotation without him so that they can leave him in the minors to start the year.

april- okay/decent in 3 of 4 starts…1 terrible start vs the Rays
may/june- despite not so great peripheral stats still maintained a 3.89 era during both those months
july- terrible
august- 2 lousy starts vs tex/tor, 2 solid starts vs white sox/orioles

he’s had a huge issue vs lefty hitters.
despite his well known great sinker, fastball movement his GB/FB ratio has been pretty much equal every month other than july. Maybe they were better off letting him start the yr in AAA for more progress , but other factors influenced this. They took that risk with cahill/anderson

1. They tried to add a veteran like Randy Johnson, that didnt happen
2. Duchscherer had missed the spring and now all of the season so far
3. The failures of eveland/gallagher
4. Gio was injured during the spring which put him out of the rotation competition

Would probably help him, though it is his first full MLB season.

It tells me that Cahill should have made 20 starts in AAA this season. And it also tells me that Billy Beane wasted a year of his eligibility.

but there is something to be said for adjusting to ML hitters, compared to AAA hitters. anderson seems to be a much more certain thing than cahill, though obviously, given a handful of his excellent starts, cahill has the potential to be a very good pitcher as well. i thought oakland should have sent him back down in july, when he was struggling, as his mechanics were off a little. i hope they shut him and anderson down in september, though, or at least go to a 6-man rotation if duke ever makes it back this year.