Without a doubt in my mind I would vote for 25-year old righty reliever Andrew Bailey of the A’s as the Rookie of the Year in the American League this season. He wasn’t even on the radar when this season began as Brad Ziegler was expected to close after Joey Devine’s injury. But, when the A’s got a good look at Bailey on the mound they knew he had closer’s stuff. He has pitched in 56 games (0 starts) this season for the A’s and he is 6-3 with 20 saves, a 1.90 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP. Bailey has whiffed 75 batters in 71 innings this season for the A’s while only allowing 43 hits which shows just how nasty his stuff is. Bailey made the All-Star Game this season and no other rookie can say that so I would definately vote for him as Rookie of the Year in the American League.

The Oakland A’s have been very pleased with righty reliever Mike Wuertz. Wuertz has pitched in 38 games for the A’s this season and he is 4-1 with 2 saves, a 2.77 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP. Wuertz has whiffed 45 batters in only 39 innings while only allowing 26 hits which shows how nasty his stuff really is. He could probably close on a team that needed one.

25-year old rookie righty reliever Andrew Bailey is pushing 29-year old sidearming Brad Ziegler for the closer’s job.  Bailey has pitched in 27 games (0 starts) for the A’s this season and he is 4-0 with 5 saves, a 1.93 ERA and a 0.91 WHIP.  Bailey has great stuff as evidenced by the fact that he has allowed only 20 hits while whiffing 44 batters in only 37 1/3 innings this season for the A’s.  Ziegler has pitched in 22 games (0 starts) so far this season for the A’s and he is 0-1 with 5 saves, a 4.07 ERA and a 1.64 WHIP.  It appears that the league is starting to catch up to Ziegler the second time around.   The A’s would be smart to stick with Bailey as the closer.

The A’s knew they were going into the season with a very young pitching staff but two of the rookies are really stepping up so far. 21-year old righty starting pitcher Trevor Cahill was the A’s #2 rated prospect heading into the season according to Baseball America and he’s showing why so far. Cahill has started two games for the A’s this season and he is 0-1 with a 2.25 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. He has only allowed 7 hits in 12 innings this season for the A’s but he has had some control issues walking 8 batters already. If he tightens up his control look out! 24-year old righty reliever Andrew Bailey was a starting pitcher in the minors until halfway through last season and he looks really sharp. Bailey has pitched in 4 games (0 starts) for the A’s so far this season and he is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA and a 0.23 WHIP. Bailey has only allowed 1 hit in 4 1/3 innings this season for the A’s and he hasn’t walked any batters while whiffing 5. The A’s hope both of the kids keep up the good work as they both have the talent to keep rolling along.

Rookie lefty starting pitcher Greg Smith deserved to have a better record than he did but the A’s just couldn’t hit this season. Smith has started 31 games for the A’s this season and he is 7-15 with a 4.07 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP. Smith had control issues as he walked 85 batters in 183.1 innings this season but he only had allowed 164 hits which has minimized the damage for him. Smith was one of the players that the A’s got in the haul for Dan Haren from the D-Backs and he looks like a keeper.