PHOENIX -- The baseball fraternity is so close that when a player changes teams, the traffic on the information grapevine is immediate.
The day the Diamondbacks acquired Trevor Cahill from Oakland, a player who spent time in both organizations sent a descriptive text to a friend in Arizona.
"He has a two-seamer like 'Webby,'" the message began.
"Only harder."
High praise.
Brandon Webb made his living with a sinking, two-seam fastball that played well at Chase Field, as he won the NL Cy Young Award in 2006 and finished second in each of the next two seasons. He once threw roughly 95 sinkers and eight or so other pitches en route to a complete-game shutout.
That was Webb, not Cahill. They are different guys. But while it is starkly unfair to compare Cahill to Webb at this point in his career, it is certainly encouraging for the D-backs inasmuch as Cahill appears to be in their rotation for the long haul.
Cahill, who signed a long-term contract extension with the A’s last spring, will earn $28.7 million through 2015, a very moderate price for a pitcher who was an All-Star in 2010 and who figures to slot in behind Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson in a starting rotation that rivals the one in San Francisco.
Among active pitchers, only Seattle’s Felix Hernandez had more victories before his 24th birthday than Cahill. Hernandez has 56. Cahill, who turns 24 on March 1, has 40.
“We believe we have a young star, to go along with Ian and Daniel and Josh (Collmenter), and some cost control,” D-backs general manager Kevin Towers said.
Cahill is looking forward to the prospect of pitching for a contender. After trading Cahill, Oakland also sent starter Gio Gonzalez to Philadelphia and closer Andrew Bailey to Boston in more Monyeball moves, and the A's don't figure to challenge two-time defending AL West champion Texas or the Albert Pujols edition of the Los Angeles Angels for the division title.
“I think the A’s are going in a different direction. It seems like here they want to win now, so it is definitely a good feeling,” Cahill said.
The trade, he recalled, "just happened all at once."
"I was pretty surprised. I heard a lot of other guys’ names bouncing around, but I never thought I’d be the first one to go. I definitely thought I’d be with them for a little bit longer.
“Their history -- they usually keep guys until they make too much money, and then they trade them off and get the prospects. That’s kind of the cycle they do. I think they just figured they wanted to rebuild because they are trying to get that new stadium" in the south Bay Area.
"Whatever is going on behind the scenes on that, you never know. That’s been tough for them."
Cahill has heard the comparisons to Webb and said that while watching film, he was impressed by the way Webb was able to bury his sinker inside against left-handed hitters.
At the same time, Cahill has his own style: His repertoire also includes a changeup that he uses as a second pitch and a curveball that he mixes in, the pitch that he said helped make his 2010 season, when he was 18-8 with 2.97 ERA and allowed just 1.11 base runners per inning. He was 12-14 with a 4.16 ERA and 1.43 ratio last year while throwing a career-high 207 2/3 innings. One thing to remember, though: It took Webb several years to master the control of his two-seamer.
Cahill, Gonzalez and former Diamondbacks prospect Brett Anderson were part of a young Oakland rotation that was counted on to lead the team into the future, and Cahill said he sees some of that while getting to know his new teammates this spring.
"They seem like a young group of guys who were pretty close knit, just like the A’s," Cahill said.
Like Kennedy, Cahill has pitched well in the NL West. Although it's a small sample size, he is 4-2 with a 2.66 ERA in seven career starts against his new division. He is 3-0 with a 1.30 ERA in four starts against the Giants, who won the division in 2010 and were the D-backs’ biggest challenger last season. He is also 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA in 12 starts against the NL in interleague play.
While with Seattle, Willie Bloomquist faced Cahill in spring training and also hit against him in the regular season with Kansas City.
"He’s an innings guy who knows how to pitch. You never seem to square a ball up on him. You are always a little out in front. He is always in on your hands. A lot of ground balls. Shortstops and third basemen better be ready when he faces a right-handed lineup. He’s a ground-ball machine, from what I remember," Bloomquist said.
"The good sinkerballers, you have to make them be up. But when he is down in the zone and getting his late movement, he is awful tough. He misses the sweet spot a lot of the time."
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