Dempster Traded to Texas for 3B Villanueva & RHP Hendricks

[davell]

Dempster and Russell for Gould, Tolleson, and Rubby. Make it happen.

[waffle]

awefully nice to be in the cat bird's seat for once. And Garza not looking too bad (so far) today

[tgkimmel]

From a "confidence in the FO" point of view, I love that they don't allow any leaks. But when you're on the edge of your seat waiting for news is can be awfully frustrating.

[XZero771679666304]

Isn't Olt major league ready? I thought he would have been up by now but he's being blocked by Beltre.

 

Olt is in AA, and could probably use the rest of this season and the beginning of 2013 before he'd get a call-up.

 

If the Cubs were to acquire him, I'd think the eta would be early next summer.

 

(somebody correct me if I'm off base here).

[Guest]

Isn't Olt major league ready? I thought he would have been up by now but he's being blocked by Beltre.

 

Olt is in AA, and could probably use the rest of this season and the beginning of 2013 before he'd get a call-up.

 

If the Cubs were to acquire him, I'd think the eta would be early next summer.

 

(somebody correct me if I'm off base here).

 

Ideally, yes. But if he were in an aggressive organization or one with a hole at third base, he could easily be up in the big leagues and I think he could hold his own.

[Clem Fandango]

I REALLY want Olt in the system. To have Rizzo and Olt manning the corner infield would be so insanely awesome for the future of the franchise.

[Magnetic Curses]

Isn't 23 a tad old for AA? I mean, not average age, but average prospect age.

[Guest]

Isn't 23 a tad old for AA? I mean, not average age, but average prospect age.

 

He missed half of last season at high-A ball (his first full season in pro ball) because of a broken collarbone from a collision at home plate.

 

Either way, he's probably ready for AAA.

[tgkimmel]

I REALLY want Olt in the system. To have Rizzo and Olt manning the corner infield would be so insanely awesome for the future of the franchise.

 

Not to mention Castro at short.

[Clem Fandango]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

[Magnetic Curses]

Isn't 23 a tad old for AA? I mean, not average age, but average prospect age.

 

He missed half of last season at high-A ball (his first full season in pro ball) because of a broken collarbone from a collision at home plate.

 

Either way, he's probably ready for AAA.

 

oh, ok, thanks.

[Magnetic Curses]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

 

with all due respect, we need a large infusion of pitching into our system.

[KingCubsFan]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

 

with all due respect, we need a large infusion of pitching into our system.

True, but I feel like having strong pitching in the minors is more of a numbers game. If the Cubs implement the same strategy in the draft that they did this year, enough will stick and become legitimate prospects. Getting hitters like Olt, Rizzo and Baez is much more difficult.

[ctcf]

Hmmm, just caught this on Bleacher Nation, building off of the George Ofman tweet of a day or two ago:

 

George Ofman reports that the Cubs have at least two offers on the table for Dempster, from the Tigers (which he suggests is for lefty Casey Crosby (23-years-old, number 47 prospect in baseball according to Baseball America before 2010 season, great K numbers, elevated walk totals, pitching well at AAA right now)), and from the Dodgers (which he previously suggested was for Chris Withrow and Garrett Gould).

[El Duderino]

casey crosby? ew

[Magnetic Curses]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

 

with all due respect, we need a large infusion of pitching into our system.

True, but I feel like having strong pitching in the minors is more of a numbers game. If the Cubs implement the same strategy in the draft that they did this year, enough will stick and become legitimate prospects. Getting hitters like Olt, Rizzo and Baez is much more difficult.

 

but i don't think we have the time to draft and wait, we need to get near-major league-ready pitchers if we're going to be competitive by 2014.

[Magnetic Curses]

casey crosby? ew

 

i like crosby but i'd also want something else for him. he obviously needs to work on his control, but his stuff is certainly there.

[El Duderino]

i'm probably too hard on crosby, but i just get a reverse boner from a 5 per nine walk rate

[davell]

Crosby would be fine as a 1st piece. He'd take over as our reigning top pitching prospect, if just for a bit. He's probably top 150ish or so overall. Bigtime stuff too.

[Fro]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

 

with all due respect, we need a large infusion of pitching into our system.

True, but I feel like having strong pitching in the minors is more of a numbers game. If the Cubs implement the same strategy in the draft that they did this year, enough will stick and become legitimate prospects. Getting hitters like Olt, Rizzo and Baez is much more difficult.

 

but i don't think we have the time to draft and wait, we need to get near-major league-ready pitchers if we're going to be competitive by 2014.

 

Luckily we have free agency and the ability to trade for pitching as well.

[PackLandVA]

I REALLY want Olt in the system. To have Rizzo and Olt manning the corner infield would be so insanely awesome for the future of the franchise.

 

Not to mention Castro at short.

 

But Steve Stone says Castro is not a MLB SS. I heard him say it several times. [-X

[XZero771679666304]

Crosby would be fine as a 1st piece. He'd take over as our reigning top pitching prospect, if just for a bit. He's probably top 150ish or so overall. Bigtime stuff too.

 

What if Demp and Barney were packaged to Detroit? Do you think there would be any chance (perhaps with the addition of a third piece) we could get Crosby and Castellanos? I'm just not seeing much outside of Turner/Smyly/Crosby/Castellanos that are all that appealing.

[NewUserName]

Brett Taylor ‏@BleacherNation

RT @Buster_ESPN: Cubs are going to push the Dempster talks in next week, partly to clear decks for Garza talks later.

 

Makes sense... having both Theo and Jed is gonna help but we're still going to need to make at least one move in the next week to ten days so we can get everything done we need to get done by the deadline.

 

While the more rational Cubs fans eagerly await the commencing of the sale, I'm very curious to see how the, for lack of a better term meat headed fans react to a fire sale when the team is finally starting to play well for an extended stretch.

 

What? Dempster and Garza have been talked about as being as good gone for a while now. The meatballs are well versed.

 

There were a couple call ins after the game yesterday on WGN who couldn't be convinced that trading Dempster was a good idea. "Sign him long term and he will still only be old when we get good again and he can help teach the younger players how to be funny" Either Kaplan or the other guy(not sure which one) didn't have enough guts to just call them stupid. Their response was "it certainly wouldn't be bad to have him, but he can probably get a key piece or two for building the future." I am paraphrasing in both cases but you get the drift.

[Clem Fandango]

Well yeah, but I was speaking more along the lines of having two young corner infielders who are a) both great all around hitters and b) have a strong fielding reputation. Would have the potential to be the best corner infield in the majors years down the line. Also helps that they'd be under team control for a very long time before they even hit their prime years.

 

You can dream a few years down the line of maybe maneuvering the infield to have Baez/Castro up the middle, too. Olt, Baez, Castro, Rizzo? Sexy.

 

with all due respect, we need a large infusion of pitching into our system.

 

I understand that, and I agree with you, but I think we have some nice extra pieces to be able to swing for pitchers in other deals, honestly. We'd likely need to deal Garza to land Olt. I'd imagine we could adjust the deal to add one of their pitchers to the deal from their Top 15 as well to get some pitching back. Dempster will likely yield a nice return for pitching (i.e. Gould from the Dodgers, or more now that he's become arguably the premier pitching target on the market right now). If we eat a large portion of the Soriano contract we should be able to get a nice prospect in return. If we were to land Olt (which I admit probably isn't likely), Vitters could possibly be swapped for a pitcher of equal value now that he's become expendable in that situation and he's made improvements. Vogelbach is never going to make it to the majors as long as Rizzo plays well so he could become a good bargaining chip in the future provided he keeps mashing the ball.

 

I don't know. I know we need to get better pitching, but as someone else suggested, we could add the second tier guys in the offseason via FA (i.e. Jackson, McCarthy, etc.) to offset the loss. I think adding a Mike Olt type of bat to the system can be equally as important as adding pitching depth.

 

Also, does anyone get the feeling the Cubs might try and resign Dempster in the offseason to a short term deal with option years? Just a baseless hunch, but I get that feeling they might try and do that.

[craig]

Olt over Castellanos every time for me. Even if they both might be pipe dreams.

 

Olt has a K-rate of over 29%, and is only in AA. So he's worse than what Brett Jackson was prior to the more challenging breaking stuff of AAA. So he's basically a good-fielding 3B version of Jackson?