davell

Promotion for Happ announced a bit ago.

Matt Harrison or Martin Perez interest anyone? They're both back from injury. I wouldn't want either one if it's ALL we did, but if Texas would trade either, I'd be interested for next season.... Allen Webster seems to be pitiful in AAA this season, I'd take the proverbial "flyer" on him, if he'd be super cheap and I could definitely see Stewart giving him away basically. I know he wouldn't come cheap whatsoever, but I'd wonder what Seattle would want for Walker, since he's struggling.... Rubby De La Rosa still interests me too, no idea what Stewart thinks of him now. Just trying to bring up reclamation types for next year much moreso than counting on these guys now obviously. Tried not to mention Gausman or anyone else who's kind of been talked about somewhat.

I just googled it and found nothing. What was it about?

http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/7/71/819231/scott-kazmir-trade-astros-impact-cubs Wittenmyer brings up Teheran, Zobrist, rentals.....Seems to think Hamels is a long shot, same with Price.

If Fowler comes back to wind up near his normal numbers, we don't have a need here and he's been very solid since the break(8-24, 7 walks). I'm completely OK riding out the season with him myself. If we add a position player, I still want Zobrist. He can basically play 5 times a week just by giving guys an off day quite often. Plus, it'd keep him off the Mets or Giants who could both use him as well. Outside of a guy who can play multiple spots, I'm OK just addressing pitching.

I haven't seen anything on him as being a top 100 type. Kiley said top 150ish and that's the best I've seen. Seems pretty fair for Kazmir to me.

@JeffPassan: Sources: Cleveland has been willing to listen on pitching, particularly Carlos Carrasco. May be a match there with Toronto. They've talked.

Wait what? False alarm. Not in lineup, but there and on lineup card.

There's an idea.....Trade for years of control. If the target is 10 per each of our main guys, why not trade Hammel to the Dodgers(who are in the market for pitching!) for 2 extra pre arb years(those are cheaper than arb years!) of Zach Lee, Julio Urias, Corey Seager, Joc Pedersen, and Carlos Frias. This would give us 10 pre arb years to dole out to our best kids and it takes them away from the Dodgers! Those 10 extra cheap seasons then allow us to make the Padres trade concocted yesterday that we were all in complete support over!

As a known Javy guy, I think I'd give him up for Price.(but I'd be pissed if we couldn't find a way to extend him) Torres? Sure thing. Same with McKinney.(not both though) 1 plus an Underwood or CJ and I wouldn't blink.

There was talk of a promotion, but unless they're taking their time acclimating him, I've got no idea why it'd take 3 games.

I would agree but it needed to have Greyfer Eregua included in the deal to put it completely over the top for me.

I really think you should probably eliminate him getting traded for pitching out of that scenario. That bat plays somewhere for us under any condition.

I'm no scientist, but if there's a chance that 24 year old Matt Kemp was cryogenically frozen and we've checked to make sure there wouldn't be hard feelings throughout baseball when we unfroze his ass, then THAT part of the deal starts to make sense. Admittedly, I'm unsure of the CBA's stance on this, so it may be a no go. If that happens to be the case, we can always check to see if he was frozen in carbonite by a bounty hunter. I'm thinking PTR may have issues paying Jabba off though and if not, I'm not sure there's a clause inside our agreement with Zell that'd allow for it anyway. May be time to ask Gordo though. Because having a wookie around could create extra revenue streams we previously hadn't thought of.

It's looking like early September for Montero anyway. If that's the case, we'll have a much better idea than we do now on Schwarber's progress. At that point, you give him some time in LF and some games behind the plate too. Next year, my honest guess is we'll see Schwarber catch 50-60 games and play a bunch in LF. With the following season being the year he takes over full time behind the plate, if he's proved himself capable.(I think he will personally)

Dear WSR, I would sincerely hope that Theo, if given the option, would pay you the league minimum and keep you on the active roster for an entire season before inheriting [expletive] Matt [expletive] Kemp's deal. Signed, Anyone with a [expletive] clue

My honest fear with this class(again, I do think there'll be more than the 7 we've seen as signed) is that we added guys who were thought of more highly then they are now..... Meaning again, this group(at least some of them) have been signed for well over a year(committed anyway) and their stock has dropped since that time. That said though, a bunch of these kids quit going to showcases or show up and go at half speed to keep from risking injury and their already agreed upon payday.(kind of like getting early commits in college basketball at times-it seems those guys drop in rankings very quickly often) I've always thought of this as a numbers game at this age moreso than grabbing a few high ranked guys. Especially at this age. I just want the rest of the guys we're rumored with to sign and to get one of Gutierrez, Ruiz, or Sierra(preferred in that order). EJM would be icing on the cake, but I'd prefer Gutierrez or Ruiz to him based on what our needs are and the differing scouting reports on him as it is.

What makes this trade absolutely the greatest of all time is we're sending cash to THEM. And there's no doubt in my mind that some here didnt even get to the end of the proposal to see that wonderful nugget.

I don't think that the draft would eliminate handlers. These are dirt poor families that give their trust to the trainers for 10-20% of the eventual signing bonus. The handler takes over these kids at 12-13 years old and develops them from there, usually securing the deal far in advance obviously. It'd be like the MLB draft in lots of ways-The kids would still receive many more looks by teams that are on great terms with the handlers. Plus, it'd work the same way where trainers would be setting prices or just flat out telling teams not to draft their kids. It's going to be extremely complicated to implement a draft down there. They may try to, but if its not an utter disaster/joke I'll be shocked. And that's even if you've got smart guys in charge doing the best they possibly can.

They may not have had the option of sending Richard down. He had an option that required him to be offered to every team on a certain date if he wasn't already in the majors or wasn't being brought up. The contract could call for that again or something before being able to send him back down.

It's like JD said the other night, every line drive he hits....The better catcher he becomes.

There's definitely strategy involved. But it's got a zero chance of backing out of the commitments. It's likely due to us buying at the deadline and post dating these guys until later to give us more money currently for trading. I think they usually just have a couple of IFA announcements anyway. Cash flow is my honest guess here, staggering these guys and hopefully more out a bit. Fox wasn't an IFA until extremely late in the process, he didn't back out of anything, by the way. Had a disagreement of "he said, she said" type of confusion, it pissed off his camp and he went in a different direction. The handlers are way too important to piss off and change directions on, in all honesty. They're getting you private looks at these guys based on trust and you'd lose too many of them by trying something like that and you need all the looks you can get on kids of this age. It's not just Maitan that's gone next year either already. 3 of the top 5, tons more behind them, are already spoken for. As for the Cubans, there's some pop up guys that have defected that are supposedly very intriguing, but it doesn't seem to be any better than the guys that haven't been cleared yet for this period. As for EJM, my guess is he's waiting until after the trade deadline to sign, as some teams likely will be able to make him a firm offer then that they can't right now because of budgets depending on their deadline moves.

I go back and forth between that idiot and Aaron Lemming as which one I'd rather just punch in the face.

For Ross/Venable, I was thinking one of Torres or McKinney, Alcantara, Villanueva, Underwood or CJ and one of Sands/Steele....Too much or too light?

We don't truly know that though. We don't know if it's a per year calculation or a complete contractual outlay that the debt structure is calculated by.