davell

Well, now that the new CBA is in effect, how would you approach the draft? There's no more overslotting basically. The pool we will be given is a strict allotment based on the exact value of all our picks. Granted, our 6th pick has a value of 3.3 mill or so. Our 2 supplemental round picks will fall somewhere in between 900,000 and 1.5 mill. Our 2nd rounder will probably be in the 750,000 range, our 3rd rounder around 500,000, 4th probably 300,000, 5th should be 200,000 and my guess is rounds 6 to 10 will all be in the 150,000 area. Rounds 11 to 40 all have a cap of 100,000 per pick. My guess is our allotment will be in the 8 to 8.5 mill area. So, do you make all top 10 round pick directly by slot? Or do you spend bigger on 4 or 5 guys and make the rest "signability guys who are probably just org filler? At any rate, I think I definitely lean towards 3 or 4 bigtime acquisitions and roll the dice we can spend some money wisely in rounds 11 to 40 to get a few other "real" prospects. My big issue with this new CBA is some of these high upside, top 15ish type picks will hold the drafting teams hostage, wanting the bulk of the draft allotment. It's a slippery slope, with lots of unknowns and this first year will have lots of trial and error most likely. But each pick becomes more important to sign inside the top 10 rounds or that value is taken away from your pool. With an allowance of up to 5% overage allowed with a 75% penalty on that overage, I figure we'll be able to overslot a total of about 450,000. Assuming we pay the extra cash, which I think we will.

Not sure we should read anything into it, but AZPhil has Jensen listed as a reliever right now on our org depth chart. On a different note, my guess is we'll take 3 pitchers this year out of our 4 picks in the top 70.

A package of Porcello/Smyly/Crosby/Paulino would probably provide us a return worth trading 2 years of Garza for. Personally, I think Porcello still has upside, but he'd only be under control for 3 years and he's not going to be the "meat" of the deal. I like Smyly a lot. Can he become more than a 4/5 guy? I think he could be a Ted Lilly type, of coursse, we already have Travis Wood, so counting on 2 lefties who are fairly similar probably isn't a great idea. The key would be the other 2 parts. Crosby has as much upside as Turner. Hard throwing lefties aren't that easy to find. Unfortunately, injury prone pitchers ARE easy to find. But, if you want to gamble, this is a guy that was a top 50 prospect in 2009, missed 2010 and last year was his first back and he did allright. Just didn't set the world on fire. It's much more likely he winds up as a pen arm, but he certainly has the ability to be a 1/2 guy. If, which is a huge if, he can hold up. Paulino is the highest ceiling arm they have in the lower levels. Last year, he was dominant in Rookie League, but lost his command once he was bumped up. Electric, upper 90's. Lottery ticket type that a team probably doesn't want to give up on yet, because he could really come back and haunt them. Or, he may never make it out of High A Ball. At any rate, the VALUE is there to make this deal. I wouldn't though, I want an upper level guy with TOR ability that doesn't have the question marks of Crosby. Basically, I want a guy just like Turner.

I have no idea why he decided to play honestly. I don't see how it could help his value, but I think it could hurt it possibly.

Since we haven't seen him pitch, other than a brief stint at Instructs, all we can do is go off the reports on Maples: mid 90's FB, biting curve and a below average change, but with potential. Needs work on his command as well. Still, if his change develops along with a little control, he's the best bet to become a TOR guy for us, including McNutt.

There's the new market ineffifiency Theo's been trying to find: Kidnap bigtime players from Cuba before they're ready to defect.

Soler is the must get for us. I don't care if costs us 25-30 mill. It'll be really interesting to see how the bidding does go with him too, because we'll kind of get a sense what a Bubba Starling type guy would get, if on the open market, instead of in a draft. As far as Cespedes goes, I'm certainly interested, but I don't really want to see us spending 60 mill on him either. If it's more like 4/32, as the latest report indicated, jump all over him. Soler's price may be overblown as well, for all we know. But, if we do get Cespedes, I wouldn't expect him to show up and give us an .800 OPS in the majors in 2012. I'll bet he spends at least a couple of months in AAA before he sees the majors. And I'd probably expect initial struggles once he gets there. But, it'd be cool to get them both, that's for sure. I wonder if he'll(Cespedes) stick in CF personally, but if he's a corner guy, I just hope the power is very real.

I can't help but think there's more to this than just the Nats and Marlins. Granted, I didn't even think the Marlins were involved at all, but I have a feeling this is getting delayed because the Dodgers bids are due within the next 10 days or so. If McCourt got permission from the highest bidder to go ahead and sign Fielder, I bet he'd do it. Boras lives in LA, has Dodger season tickets and certainly would benefit from having Fielder's marketing possibilities there. Kemp is one of Fielder's best friends, Magic Johnson has said he wishes this offseason had happened a tad later than it did and there are some other really heavy hitters in on their sale as well, because they've got their TV deal starting next year or the year after. Something tells me Boras is holding off on everything with Fielder to see if this can become a reality. It's too close at this point, not to.

I'm starting to suspect Greinke's the best FA pitcher out there next offseason. But, I can see Felix, Timmy, and David Price being shopped. I still think Garza needs to be dealt for a pitching heavy package, including a guy who's as solid abet as a prospect can be anyway, at being his replacement. I also expect the Cubs to draft a pitcher at 6th overall in the draft and probably 3 by the time the 2nd round is over. Probably sign a high ceiling IFA or two as well, before the cap comes into effect.

The price for obtaining middle relievers/set up guys will go down, because of the new CBA. No comp whatsoever. The prices for ANYONE in the last year of their deal, getting dealt at the deadline will be going down actually, since there's no comp unless they've been on your team all season.

Well, it gives you a much better chance to have a couple of guys giving you excellent production at a very cheap salary. It also gives you a much better ability to go out and trade for young, established guys who can give you the same thing. Of course not every guy on a top 100 list is going to pan out. Far from it. But, they have a much better chance than guys who aren't on them. Prospects are the best currency a team has. Aand the more good ones you have, the more flexibility you have to make bigtime moves as well.

Without looking at any data, I'd say Angelo was definitely bottom half, maybe even bottom third as far as GM's go, if looking at their histories. To me, that's enough to want someone else, by itself, considering how important the draft is. I just want Cutler to have time to throw the ball and have him a guy or two that's consistently going to get open for him. If not for that, I could have lived with Angelo a tad longer myself. But I don't trust him with offensive picks whatsoever.

I want no part of having another one, but some teams still do.......What keeps Campana from turning in a Juan Pierre season, if given the at bats? Lesser hit tool, but better discipline. Hell, Pierre had some 3.5-4 WAR seasons. If he could put up a .270ish BA, the OBP and the steals would take care of themselves. Some team would fall in love with that, I would think. We certainly gave up enough for our "leadoff" hitter back in the day.

Yeah, he's definitely legit. Only reason I scour through things over there is to see if he's popped in with anything. Evidently, he's gotten lots of stuff right. Contract details, prospects coming over in trades, draft picks being made, who we're signing as far as overslots go, he's the real deal.

I wanted Angelo gone(just didn't give Cutler weapons, in my opinion) but agree with everything else you said for sure.

With us giving him incentives to where he can make up to 2 mill or so, I doubt it's him that'll be the cut. Same with Sonnanstine. I could see a small trade or us cutting Mateo or Maine, maybe Gaub.

My guess is this IS done and we're waiting again for a corresponding move, since this puts us at 41 again.

We might should make this the All Cubans Thread not named Cespedes or Soler. Maybe Geraldo Concepcion and Omar Luis deserve their own threads as well, if we signed them. But, there are over 30 Cubans currently in the Dominican Republic, waiting to be signed right now.

Is there anything left to get after the Latos and Marshall trades? Not really. Mesoraco's excellent, but he's their catcher very soon. We've got Torreyes, so Hamilton doesn't make sense. Corcino's it, after that. Not nearly enough.

We'll see. Still think he gets dealt.

Yeah, but who needs a catcher right now? Tampa's the only contender that looks like they could. If they don't like Soto, we're stuck. My guess is we're waiting for an injury or two to go down AND for Soto to rebuild some value as well, to maximize our return. Once he's dealt, I'd expect Castillo gets the rest of the season as an audition.

By a process of elimination, this Marlin guy was giving out info during the Hendry run and he still is now. My guess is he knows Bush or Wilken, since they're both still around.

I have very little doubt that Turner is in play. My scenario for getting the best package for Garza goes something like this: Boston signs Kuroda, Edwin Jackson signs with whoever gives him the most money(maybe Baltimore) and then Detroit, Toronto, and the Yanks are left to up their offers. It'd be great if Darvish fell through as well, but I think that's asking too much. In the end though, with the risk of Garza not having as good of a season as 2011, plus the idea that the new CBA will start to change the value of prospects some, I think he'll be gone well before the season starts, at this point.

Balanguert got 400,000 and Martinez got 250,000, per Ben Badler.

Did he mention anything regarding the talks with Detroit? Nah, thhe last he said on that was about a week ago. Some Detroit fan said giving up Turner was too much for Garza and Marlin said he'd be pissed then, because if Detroit gets him it's Turner and more.