Kuzul

The saying has always been "pitching wins championships."Obviously, it takes a little more than just pitching to make the postseason and progress through the playoffs and into the World Series, but pitching is arguably the most important part of the roster to focus offseason attention for most teams.Although subject to slumps, just like their position player counterparts, pitching can be tailored to fit a team's strengths.Certain teams may fair better with fly-ball pitchers. Some teams will need to utilize ground-ball pitchers. All teams benefit from strikeout pitchers.Then there's whether the team lacks depth in the starting rotation, middle innings, specialty pitchers, setup men and closers.The point of this particular slideshow is to identify the pitching roster need of each team and speculate which free-agent pitcher the team is most likely to target this offseason.Begin Slideshow

For the first time this season, Brandon McCarthy tossed a complete game and won.Now, it’s not the first time this season that McCarthy has gone the distance; he’s done that four times. It also marked the second consecutive game that he has pitched the entire game. On this particular Saturday, though, McCarthy was masterful on the mound. He allowed just three hits while walking none and striking out ten Mariners without allowing a run. The shutout was only the second of his career, and first of the season. The A’s were able to secure the victory thanks to a two-run double by Cliff Pennington in the fourth inning and a fifth-inning solo homer by Scott Sizemore. McCarthy completed the game having thrown just 98 pitches, and he walked off with the victory to a standing ovation from the 19,732 fans in attendance ...

Any time a pitcher has a truly great season and warrants Most Valuable Player talk, there will be a debate about whether a pitcher should be included in MVP voting or not.Of course, everyone knows that there is an award for the most valuable pitcher in each league—the Cy Young award.The best everyday position players compete for the MVP award.It's a debate that rarely ever merits much attention since it is such a rare feat for a pitcher to win both awards in the same season.Since the inception of the Cy Young Award in 1956, only nine pitchers have managed to win both the MVP and Cy Young in the same season.As he leads the Detroit Tigers towards the postseason, Justin Verlander's 2011 season is once again bringing the issue to the forefront however.The Detroit Tigers currently have a record of 76-62, at 14 games over .500 and 5.5 games ...

Look ahead to 2012 if your an A's fan. Let's face it, that's the best way to remain positive about the results of this current season. With just over 30 games remaining, rookies Jemile Weeks and Brandon Allen stand out as the main reasons for optimism moving into another long offseason.True, the team has been hitting and scoring runs at a pace that would make any manager proud since the All Star break.What is also true is that the pitching through most of the first half of the season was the best in the American League, and looked like it was going to repeat its success from the 2010 season.Unfortunately, both have been wildly inconsistent when you look at the season as a whole.We likely won't have Brett Anderson in the rotation at all next season and both Trevor Cahill and Gio Gonzalez have been inconsistent since coming out of ...

The past three weeks of San Francisco Giants baseball has renewed the fabled "torture" theme that drove last year's surprising playoff run all the way to becoming World Series Champions for the first time since the team moved out West from New York in 1958.This year is different though. The "torture" will last well past the conclusion of the 2011 World Series, whether the Giants participate or not.August proved to be a difficult month for the Giants in 2010, when they managed only 13 wins. The 2011 edition has not been any easier.Players and executives within the organization are joined by the fans, who are holding out hope that this recent rough stretch the team has experienced—marred by injury after injury—will prove to be just another hiccup on the road to hot September and another lengthy postseason run with designs on defending their 2010 title.The Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks are each ...

The top players in Latin America officially became eligible to sign with Major League teams today.Some of the top names on the board have already come to terms on signing bonuses, locking up their services to join their new franchises.Baseball America's Ben Badler posted a list of the top 40 international prospects, including several videos of some of the top talent.Check back frequently as the list of players signed is updated.Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The risk of any trade is that the player leaving your team will wind up having the more productive future than the player that you received.Major League Baseball is full of these stories.Remember when the San Francisco Giants traded Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser for A.J. Pierzynski? I'm sure the Giants regretted moving those three.If you are an Oakland A's fan, the first two names that probably come to mind as players that got away are Andre Ethier (Milton Bradley came to Oakland in return) and Carlos Gonzalez (along with Huston Street and Greg Smith for Matt Holliday).Although Bradley did help the A's reach the American League Championship Series in 2006, you could argue that the A's would have benefited more from having Ethier in their outfield the following four seasons instead.The Pittsburgh Pirates are among a handful of teams that gave up on Jose Bautista before he ...

Jose Bautista's improbable rise to stardom in the Major Leagues is one of the best post-steroid era stories in baseball.Recently Yahoo Sport's Jeff Passan wrote a must-read piece (after you finish my article, of course) breaking down Bautista's path to the Majors and the Toronto Blue Jays.Bautista has his doubters, for sure, that just can't wrap their mind around the notion that a player who had never hit more than 16 homers in any season in his career could jump to 54 in a single season without the use of performance enhancing drugs.Bautista explains, and Passan eloquently describes, that he was unable to make the necessary adjustments to become the hitter he is now because any decrease in productivity would have jeopardized his career.Thus, he went through five teams before finding the stability he needed in Toronto. A team that would work with him and allow him to make the ...

It is getting harder and harder to justify keeping Daric Barton on a major league roster, especially one still struggling to find consistent offense.The Oakland Athletics showed Barton a lot of loyalty during the offseason and pegged him as their starting first baseman and a major part of the future.So far this season, Barton has not rewarded the team for their faith in his abilities.He has admitted that a potential contract extension is in the back of his head, and he is thinking and pressing too much while at the plate.The result has been a season-long slump that has him batting close to the Mendoza line at .211, without a single home run, and with just 12 extra base hits (all doubles). He set the record last night for most consecutive games without a home run by a first baseman at 64 games.Barton, still widely considered one of the better ...

It's a little bit rare for multiple mock drafts to have a consensus pick deep into the first round, but this year that seems to be the case for the No. 18 selection of the Oakland Athletics.Several sources have the A's targeting University of Connecticut's George Springer, a power-hitting outfielder with good speed.Springer, currently a center fielder, was originally drafted in the 48th round of the 2008 draft by the Minnesota Twins (1,437th overall) out of Avon Old Farms High School in Connecticut. He chose to attend the University of Connecticut instead, a decision that has propelled him into the first round, and have him ranked as high as the 11th best player in the draft by some experts.The Athletics used their first pick in last year's draft to select a center fielder as well, Michael Choice, currently one of the organization's top-five prospects.If the Athletics select Springer, they could ...