davell

We're evidently asking for both Sanchez and Stroman, plus a 3rd piece from Toronto for Shark according to The Toronto Sun. AA has said he's willing to move one or the other in the right deal. Guess that gives us an idea on what our asking price is at least.....

He evidently wants a regular 5 year deal, as if he's a FA, while the Cubs want to pay him what he's going to make for two normal arb years and three FA years. Shark wants the full pay of all 5 years, because it's not likely we'll contend for the first 2 and he wants to win. Maybe in a Mooney article from yesterday? Definitely in one of the myriad of Shark articles from then though. If the NTC IS an issue, it wasn't brought up yesterday in any of the articles anyway.

C Castillo, Kottaras 1B Rizzo 2B Barney Murphy SS Castro 3B Valbuena Olt LF Sweeney Ruggiano CF Lake RF Schierholtz Looking at that(can see Lake and Sweeney flipping), I doubt Murphy, even with a settled contract, is a guaranteed spot. Olt definitely isn't. In fact, I think his outcomes are starter or AAA. Brett, Vitters, and Watkins all will get a "chance" to make the Opening Day roster. My question though, is how many more guaranteed contracts will we give out on the position player side? Are we still looking for an OFer, since Ruggiano just replaces Bogusevic? Or a corner infielder perhaps? I could see Youkilis appealing to us for numerous reasons. I'm curious though, because it's possible we're looking at the Opening Day position player group being finished already. My honest guess is we'll add Youkilis, give Kalish a ST invite if he's healthy and let one of Vitters or Watkins have the inside track for the last roster spot.

No, they don't. They've got Alberto Cabrera's little brother, but he's a 3rd piece and they've got Christian Bethancourt, a C with a fair amount of hype, but he's never hit. Excellent defensively, he'll have a ML career, but he's probably a .650 OPS type, if he's a starter. Without Sims, who's in A ball, they're just not any sort of fit. Not a great one EVEN with Sims, but you could piece together a deal.

That would almost HAVE to mean Bradley is at least up for consideration, right? They can't possibly dream of putting together a package without him now, can they? Sure they could. Delgado/Davidson/Jose Martinez/Trahan or Shipley as a PTBNL/Gregorius or Owings.....Send one of those to a 3rd team maybe? They've got the pieces, Towers appears adamant Bradley is going no where. Is it a great group to choose from? Nah, but there's enough there to find a match. Honestly, what do other teams view Shark as? The guy that struggled in the 2nd half? An innings eater? A future frontline guy? A current frontline guy? A guy that's going to cost an arm and half a leg to lock in longterm? A guy that's going to be cheap for a two year window in which you may get his best production during that time? This one is a little different than Garza in my opinion. He had more of a track record and teams may have been more willing to give up more for him because they knew better as far as what he was. With Shark, I can see our FO selling him as a frontline guy and other teams just not buying in to that yet. Still think he gets moved prior to the season starting though, Tanaka or no Tanaka. High end of what I can see them getting is a top 50, a top 100, an org top 10 type and a lower level lottery ticket that fits into the Duane Underwood mold. Low end is a top 100 and 2 org top 10 types. Obviously the packages would also work with major league equivalents with control.

Wright. North just pissed all over any hope for Junior. :( We need some semblance of positivity. Give us reasons for optimism with Starlin though and North wins in a landslide. Well he did Rizzo already so that's good. Damn, missed that. OK, North over Wright. I think you might've seen it the first time around, but... http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2998900#p2998900 Ah, yeah that was a while ago. At any rate, North, welcome, glad you're here now, as well as there.

Wright. North just pissed all over any hope for Junior. :( We need some semblance of positivity. Give us reasons for optimism with Starlin though and North wins in a landslide. Well he did Rizzo already so that's good. Damn, missed that. OK, North over Wright.

Wright. North just pissed all over any hope for Junior. :( We need some semblance of positivity. Give us reasons for optimism with Starlin though and North wins in a landslide.

Where is this? A Mooney tweet.

Boras: "The baseball ops people, I know them and I think they want to win today. But they work for people."

So, the Boras comments were interesting......All the confidence in Theo and baseball ops, not so much for business ops. Comparing it to sucking on a lollipop as far as timetables go.

LoMo to the Mariners as well, for Carter Capps.

Rosenthal says Jays think price too high on Price and Shark, they want to deal Rasmus for pitching. Getting asked about Stroman and Sanchez obviously. I'm not THAT enamored WITH those 2, if neither is available, I don't see a fit with them at all.

I've thought about package deals too, but I think MLB would raise an eyebrow if we signed a million dollar bonus baby inside a 10 player package for 1.3. I don't think I've ever seen that actually, the more I think about it. Urias was paid around 20% of the 2 mill the Dodgers shelled out to his Mexican League team and only his portion counted against the cap. If a situation like THAT is out there next year, it's conceivable we could get a mill type value while still adhering to our 250K limit.

A while back Keith Law stated that a lot of teams would almost definitely claim Jackson if he were waived based on his athleticism and probably, just my speculation, because other teams might think they can help him fix his swing. Welcome! I'm assuming this is terencem from PSD, right?

Eddie Butler is a very good pitching prospect, top 70ish or so. My guess is he would have been in it. ABTY says Cubs will make last ditch effort to sign Shark tomorrow, if it doesn't happen, 80% chance he's dealt by Thursday. Arguello just said some industry speculation has him being dealt by end of tomorrow.

I can understand that, but why spend BIG money on a guy that's not likely to get enough chances to make a real difference anyway. I'd prefer to create a closer or to sign a cheaper type, like an Axford anyway. At any rate, I expect us to go into the year with a clear 9th inning guy and it won't be Strop or anyone else currently on the roster.

I'm still hoping for a few pop up signings for this year. Surely we'll sell off a decent amount of space next year though. Although the strength in numbers approach could work out well.

The Shark musical arms game for teams in need of pitching..... Solid Free Agents Left Arroyo Burnett Colon Garza Jimenez Maholm Santana Also available in Free Agency Baker Hammel Pelfrey Flier Group Capuano Floyd Freddie Garcia Hanson Hudson Johan Westbrook Jerome Williams Zito Posted or Foreign Imports Yoon Tanaka Maede Trade Market Boston could trade one of their group Price Hamels or Lee Reds rumored to be trading one of their group Masterson Shark Teams looking for pitching at this point Toronto Yankees Baltimore Atlanta Mets Phils Indians Royals Twins Pirates Reds?(if they trade one of theirs) Cubs Rangers Angels Mariners Astros Dodgers Padres Diamondbacks There are obviously more pitchers than teams in need, but the quality isn't there. And there are plenty of contenders or hopeful contenders out of those teams that want more than a flier or a Pelfrey in their rotation. Hopefully Burnett retires, Tanaka goes to New York, LA, us, or isn't posted, and the Twins, Mets, Angels, Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, and Rangers contribute to taking a couple of the 2 higher groups I listed off the market. It may take a while, but the scarcity, coupled with many teams not looking at giving out longterm deals, should net us a nice haul once some of the others fall off the market. I know I'm frustrated by how long this is taking, but the options will dwindle and someone will pay up for Shark eventually.

We've been linked to both Scott Baker and Jason Hammel today. Hoyer mentioned we may look to add multiple starting pitchers, in his recap today with beat guys. Said no trades or signings are close, groundwork has been laid, blah, blah, blah.

How high is Zunino's value? Would he be a guy who needs a player like Franklin or Ackley included or just him and a low level prospect with upside? Good question. He struggled a bit in his initial trial run, but value-wise, a one for one honestly seems fair. That said, it doesn't seem like a good fit. To me, he's not got that much more of an upside than Castillo does, he's just younger.

ABTY mentioned we could engage Seattle for Zunino, with Shark possibly....

I wonder if Lake could net us Almonte?

They are talking about Lorenzo Cain too, if my source is correct. Samardzija and Barney for Cain, Crow and 2 pitching prospects (no names given to me). Those better be really good pitching prospects. I think I'd be OK with Duffy and Almonte. Prefer that to Zimmer, would love to get Ventura though.

The good thing is both Emery and Trestman are very analytical. Plus, I really, really, really want to see BOTH Jay and Brandon playing for a contract at the same time, assuming Cutler gets tagged.