Q.  All you can go on is what he's shown so far, though, right?

A.  Nah.  You have to project where he's going next. 

This is not a quibble.  If you don't recognize that pitchers can and do change, and change radically, you haven't been watching baseball.  Just this year, Jason Vargas scrapped his lousy curve ball, went FB-change only, and completely transmogrified as a pitcher.

And it's not theoretical with regard to Texeira.  Tex wasn't an ML pitcher in the first place.  It is a genuine crapshoot what he'll do next.  He could become Trevor Hoffman, or (more likely) he could become Norm Charlton.

Wakamatsu didn't have any more time to see if Texeira was going to blow another 4-of-5 games.  Wok thought that he probably would do so.  That's all.  He's got the right to make the judgment.

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Q.  We know who White is, and he's not that good.

A.  I agree, but what he is, is a pitcher who won't beat himself.  

Wok wanted one of those, because two days ago he had two ML relievers and four imitations.  He swapped out two of the imitations for two legit ML journeymen who will throw strikes.  So sue him. 

It's a stoploss.

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Q.  And Colome?

A.  Tony Blengino (earlier) explained this move as, Colome has a special arm.  You never know if a change of context will turn the light on.

It didn't, so Colome's gone.  The M's don't have the luxury of blowing 7-2 leads in the division.  The priority changes AWAY FROM [maximize talent reserve] TOWARD [hold this month's 7-2 leads].

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Q.  Can you really afford to shed talent, long-term, for quick fixes?  That's a recipe for a long downard glide ratio and crash.

A.  I missed the part where Colome and Texeira became Strasburg and Chamberlain.

C'mon, you tossed out two tomata cans here.  They're more talented than some guys, sure.  But the PCL is crammed with pitchers as talented as Colome and Texeira are.

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Q.  You're the original Garrett Olson cynic.

A.  And as such, I'm tellin' ya that you can get an inning or two out of him in relief, if you're trying to cap a horrific oil gusher out there.

Olson does throw strikes with three pitches, and in front of a great D, against batters who aren't loaded for bear against him as a SP, he'll be all right.

As an SP last year, his gopheritis led to a .550 SLG against.  But as an RP, the SLG was only .385, the K/9 was up and the HR/9 way down.

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Q.  Bottom line?

A.  The M's shed volatile talent, and added predictability.

Considering where they are in the season -- about to start scoring runs for Felix, Lee and Fister -- it's probably the right thing to do.

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BABVA,

Dr D