Ned on Esteban

Q: How much can Loaiza contribute after only two starts this year?

Ned Colletti: Well, he's made another four in the minor leagues.  So we watched him in the rehab starts and we watched him in the last two starts.  He threw over 100 pitches both times; he got out of the seventh inning both times against Toronto (on Aug. 22 and 27, respectively).  He's also signed for next year, and looking at the free-agent market, or what looks like the free-agent market, the guys that are potentially free agents, it's a really thin group in our minds.  Hopefully he'll be better than going out and looking for somebody else. 

Q: How difficult is it to find pitching at this time of year?

A: I think it's incredibly difficult.  Maybe two or three starters were traded at the deadline and a handful of relief pitchers.  But when you look around at the rosters and you look at the rotations, it's obviously a part of a team that the season takes it toll.  There's a lot of clubs that are scrambling to find five starters.  Including us, for a while.   

Q: Is there a risk here?

A: There's a risk in anything you do.  We'll see how it goes.

Q: What does Loaiza bring to the table?

A: He's pitched a lot in the big leagues.  He knows how to pitch.  He's not a power guy -- he's more of a pitcher than he is a power pitcher.  I think he gives us some depth.  We're obviously thin right now.  He gives us some depth, and he's pitched in big games.  He's pitched a lot of time in the big leagues with a winning record.

Q: Since it was a waiver claim, did you have access to any medical information regarding his health?

A: We did.  We talked for the last day or so about potential trades, and the guys that they wanted back we weren't going to move in a situation like this because we thought we could get him on a claim if we waited long enough.  But the doctors spoke.  Our doctors and their doctors have all spoken. 

Q: A million dollars is quite a lot for five or six starts.  Did you pick up the rest of his salary?

A: He's got a million dollars -- a million and change -- plus $6.5 next year. 

Q: Were you more interested in what he could do this year or the fact he was locked in next year as well?

A: A little bit of both.  We obviously need as much pitching as we can get at this time of the year, and going back to the potential free-agent market, last year was thin.  This year, in my mind, is thinner.  Most of those free agents don't sign for a year.  Most are looking for two-, three- or four-year deals.  So if you believe it to be thin and you believe it's going to take more than one year to sign somebody, you're better off sometimes taking the one-year deal that we did rather than waiting for November, December or January to come around and being tied to somebody for three or four years that you're lukewarm on.

Q: Does this have any impact on the potential for picking up Randy Wolf's option for next year?

A:  It's too early to tell.  That's a good question, though. He still hasn't been able to overcome what he's fighting shoulder-wise.  We don't know if we're going to get him back this year or not.   Couple that with the free-agent market, couple that with our need in September for another arm, that's part of the thought process.  That doesn't mean we're not going to think about it, and we're looking into (picking up the option) and we're not going to try and figure something out, but we just don't have enough to go on to say we're going to go do that. 

Q: And you're assuming good health from Schmidt going into spring training?

A: There's still a long ways to go.  I think we've all seen that pitching in the big leagues is thinner and thinner and less and less.  If you looked at everyone's rotation maybe two weeks ago, where they started the season and where they are now, there's very few that have any resemblance to where they began.  Some, but very few.  And there's a lot of pitchers pitching today that show you how thin it is. 

Q: Do you worry that, given how thin pitching is around the league, why Oakland would let a guy go without getting anything back.  Why would you let a good arm go?

A: They are getting something back.  You'll have to talk to them for their thought process.  That (salary) is probably the reason that they did it, because they'll have $6.5 million next year to spend some other place.  They've got some young pitching.  I don't know for sure.  I'm not going to run Billy's (A's GM Billy Beane) team for him. 

Q: Sure.  But does it make you pause that a team is willing to give up an arm in a thin market just to save 6 million bucks?

A: Not really.  They're in a different place and time than we are now.