rawaction

1st pitch groundout to pitcher in his 2nd AB.

Soler groundout to SS.

Blackburn gives up just a single in the 2nd. 2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K

Was just posting that pic. Thanks CT for the heads up.

OK, who do I need to follow on Twitter to update me on Soler?

He was also a college football player as recently as 18-months ago.

15-20

He's not called up, but he's making the trip to St. Louis to meet the team there.

What the hell happened to Peoria's Gameday?

That can't be right can it?

Are you saying Olt or Buckel or Olt & Buckel? If it's both of them, then yeah, I'd be pretty happy with that, too. Besides the possible package the Blue Jays could put together, and it's increasingly doubtful that they will be buyers this going around, that's the most intriguing haul I can imagine for Garza. Olt, Buckel and possibly one of Loux or Grimm with maybe a short season guy like Abel De La Santos as the cherry on top. If the Cubs have to sweeten the pot with a prospect coming back, I'm good. Question is, how motivated are the Rangers to get this done? If you want a lottery pick out of the Rangers' system, take a look at: Rougned Odor SS/DH – Age 18 – The 5’11″ Venezuelan jumped onto everyone’s radar last season with his feisty play in the NWL. Having Andrus, Profar, Alberto, and Odor at the same position in the same organization is just wrong. Odor his hitting .297 with 8 HRs, 3 Triples, 19 Doubles, 35 RBI, 45 Runs, and 12 SB to go with a 40/16 K/BB ratio over 266 at bats on the season. His .184 ISoP for a 170 pound 18 year old kid in the SALLY is pretty remarkable and suggests there may be more power yet to come (from baseballinstinct.com) Roman Mendez SP 06/25/90 H:6’2” W:180. Acquired by way of a trade from the Boston Red Sox, Roman Mendez makes the Texas minor league system even more pitching-rich. Mendez is a hard-throwing Dominican that has been brought along in a deliberate manner, not skipping through levels very quickly. He rewarded that patience with a 9-1 win-loss record and a 3.31 era last season in the Sally league during the 2011 season. His arsenal consists of a mid-90’s fastball, a slider that shows plus potential and a developing changeup. That “stuff” was good enough for a sparkly k/bb ratio of 130/45 in 117 innings pitched. After playing for 4 seasons, the last of which was single A ball, it seems that Mendez needs to be challenged a bit. (from baseballinstinct.com) - I acquired for Salty Rangers would be the ideal trading partner, because they have a lot of solid prospects blocked by long-term contracts at the majors. I think you could get Olt and Buckel and maybe throw in a Miguel De los Santos. Odor's not really a lottery ticket though, he's easily in their top 10 prospects, probably top 5 at this point with a shot at top 100 at the end of the year. Mendez is also one of their top 10s at this point too.

Detroit's been good 1 time in the last 15 years and they're fans are annoyed they're not considered favorites?

Take out the 2-16 to start his season, and Baez has hit .356/~.418/.636 over the last 2 months.

Man, the top pitching prospects in this organization have just been plagued with injury - Maples, Wells and now Rosario. Terrible. That "all hitting" approach idea is looking genius right about now.

Maybe they're scouting the Tigers? Or maybe their scouting Baez in the impending trade for Matt Kemp to the Cubs?

Why is this in the 7-17 thread? Is this from yesterday and he's playing today? Or wrong thread?

Yep, which only adds to the hilarity. Meanwhile, from CBSSports preview of the Bears... http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/19602791/chicago-bears What's funny about these is that Marshall and Cutler are being labeled as guys as being capable of "imploding", but there is nothing to suggest that will be the case. First of all, it takes a whole lot of slants and angles to call Cutler's wanting out of Denver "imploding" when the team he just threw for 4500 yards for in his 2nd full season as their starting QB, at 26 years old was basically pushed out of town by his new head coach wanting to bring in an older, less experienced QB, drafted in the 7th round just because the coach was familiar with him. Secondly, if that's considered imploding, then when has Cutler ever imploded before or since the day after his meeting with McDaniels which caused him to request a trade? As for Marshall, he has had several run-ins with the law. And we can go ahead and call those "implosions". But what has the man done since leaving Denver? He's been in the news for negative publicity 2 times. Once he was stabbed by his wife, there were no reports or charges filed that he did anything wrong in that incident. Secondly, was the incident before the trade to the Bears where an investigation revealed no reason to bring charges against Marshall for the incident of the woman being punched. I'm not going to excuse him of the most recent 2 incidents, because where there's smoke there's fire and he seems to have smoke consistently following him. But implosions they are not. And he talks about the Lions being so stable at QB. Very stable with a guy that has only played 6 games more than 1 time. And he does mention that people think the Lions are capable of imploding, but he doesn't? If Marshall is an implosion OFF field risk? Then what are the Lions? They have had 5 players actually arrested AND charged with real things this offseason. They have had players implode on the field. They had a player kicked out of OTAs for punching a teammate. They have a coach that has glossed over everything.

His July numbers are just freaking stupid so far. Actually if you take out April, his numbers the last 3 months are: .399/.452/.757/1.209. That's 2/5 of a season's worth of plate appearances, so it's not some little hot streak. Plus, I have watched a lot of Pirates game the last month or so and he has almost completely stopped swinging and missing at pitches.

I agree and understand all of that. But this isn't a Castro we're talking about, where he's super cheap and under control on a pure upswing in his career. This isn't Miguel Cabrera in Florida a few years ago, going to get too expensive for his team and already an established consistent 5-6 WAR player. Upton isn't guaranteed to continue to improve like Castro. Upton isn't guaranteed to get back to the 5-6 WAR numbers of 2011 (the only year he's been in that range), especially with the shoulder injury, and I'd think I'd want that if I'm giving up a lot of assets, including a ML player and a top 25 prospect (Barney, Olt)

Reasoning? He's really good at baseball. He's not this year. He's an average player this year and only really has 2 good seasons of his 5 so far. With the shoulder injury, that makes it even more iffy that he ever takes that next step. His age and team friendly contract make him very attractive, but I question whether that makes him more attractive than a package of a productive major leaguer (Barney), and prospects, including at least 1 in the top 25 in all of minor league baseball (Olt/Castellanos)....especially for a rebuilding team.

Reasoning?

What's the point of getting Olt/Castellanos and then trading him for Upton? I understand Upton is good with a chance to be one of the best players in the MLB, but I'd imagine the Cubs would rather have the cheaper player, under control for 6 years, at a harder position to fill over Upton.

Martin's hot streak coincided with him getting to play everyday as Dunston was demoted. Cubs obviously saw something that they picked him to stay at Boise over SDJR.

Just hope it isn't too close to the head or hit his hands. He smoked that ball though.

I doubt they care if a guy throws flyballs vs. groundballs as long he's an actual good pitcher. They don't even have a GB pitcher in their rotation, and they just paid a lot for 2 of them. Garza is likely the best pitcher they could trade for this year to make a run at the WS. And Olt is a player that is blocked by Beltre.