Oakland and Texas completed their second trade of the off-season on Monday. The A's sent RHP Luis Vizcaino to the Rangers for RHP Justin Duchscherer. I generally like both sides of this trade.

Relief pitcher Luis Vizcaino has both the dominance and control to make him a quality candidate for future work as a closer or at least a top setup man. He was among the players to recently undergo an age adjustment; the fact that he'll be turning 27 in June rather than just 25 means that he's two years closer to the end of his career/prime, though it has really doesn't affect his current value.

The Rangers have more than enough starters to fill both the major league and AAA rosters; however despite the money spent by John Hart in the off-season assembling the bullpen, they were still short a hard-throwing right-handed reliever with significant upside. Vizcaino should step right in and fill the final bullpen position with Jeff Zimmerman closing, Jay Powell and Todd Van Poppel as additional right-handed relief and John Rocker and Juan Moreno covering lefty relief. Although due to the other potential relievers they still have in camp, Hart has refrained from saying that Vizcaino has a lock on a bullpen position.

He was out of options, and with the rest of the talent in the A's bullpen, Vizcaino was likely to be squeezed out. The chances of him passing successfully through waivers were slim to none, so Oakland did well to get something for him while they still could. Hart has said that if for some reason they don't keep him on the major league roster, they would likely attempt to turn Vizcaino around for something better than what they had to give up to acquire him.

Starting pitcher Justin Duchscherer relies on control rather than an overpowering fastball. However, he has still been able to put up impressive dominance numbers to accompany his quality control statistics. Last season at AAA, he posted a 52:10 K/BB in 51 IP. Despite the velocity deficiencies of his fastball, he's reportedly unafraid to throw it and has had success with placing his pitches to get outs. He complements the fastball with a curve-ball/slider and a change-up.

While Texas has over-flowing starting depth, Oakland really doesn't have much to fall back on in case of injury or ineffectiveness from a member of their rotation. Billy Beane acquired Allen Levrault off waivers from Milwaukee, and the A's were attempting to stretch out Mike Fyhrie as another potential starting option. They also picked up a couple of minor league veterans like Larry Luebbers and Rocky Coppinger, but Oakland also lacks space on their 40-man roster at the moment. Juan Pena is the closest starting prospect to the majors in case of injury, and he has yet to pitch at AAA. Consequently they were in need of additional options.

I have some concerns about the ability of Duchscherer's control to carry him at the major league level, especially considering the troubles he had when Texas called him up last September. Control pitchers usually have a much tougher time succeeding in the majors than prospects that can simply throw it past batters. However, if he can establish his other two pitches and avoid mistakes, he should be able to hold onto a rotation spot.

Unless someone in the rotation goes down before the end of Spring Training, I don't expect Duchscherer to break camp with Oakland. As he has options remaining, he will instead be sent down to AAA to gather more experience. I do think that unless they acquire someone else in the near future, that he will be the first person they call in case of injury. The A's have been fairly lucky recently in that they haven't suffered a severe injury in one of their starters, but all of them have been overworked to some extent so there is considerable speculation that they will lose at least one of the starting five to injury this year. Therefore, it is probably safe to bet that Duchscherer will be called up at some point before September.

On Wednesday, the Pirates released Warren Morris. They felt that with Pokey Reese, Jack Wilson, Pat Meares and Abraham Nunez, Morris was expendable and no team was interested when they attempted to deal him. Morris' lack of progress over the past few years seems to have frustrated the Pirates to the point that they felt he was no longer worth the time of their major league coaches.

Pittsburgh probably should have focused on riding themselves of Meares $3.75M contract, though I doubt they would have found many more takers considering that he's likely making ten times as much as Morris with comparable production and no upside. Cutting Meares would have been costly, but the Pirates would have retained a player in Morris who might actually develop into a quality major leaguer rather than someone already past an unimpressive peak. I'm quite uncertain as to why, at the very least, Pittsburgh did not attempt to merely send Morris back to the minors.

He signed a minor league contract with the Twins on Saturday and should compete with Jay Canizaro for the final roster spot. A change of scenery could do Morris some good, as he certainly wasn't making progress in Pittsburgh. Canizaro deserves the roster spot over Morris, since Jay has had more recent success and likely would have continued to progress if he had not missed all of last season with a knee injury.

Acquiring Morris was still a quality move by the Twins as they've added some injury insurance with a good deal of upside to their club at minimal cost. Unless needed as an injury replacement, I would expect Morris to spend the majority of the season at AAA, where with luck the coaching staff may be able to exhume his former production.