davell

Zeke DeVoss flew to Chicago today and meet with the Cubs. His college coach expects he'll sign with us.

This was evidently from yesterday, so who knows? Translation: Marck Malave signed for 7 digits by the Cubs, highlighting his offensive potential, because he can hit for power with both hands. I'm sure quite a few signings leak out and all, so this would be GREAT, if it winds up being true.

Bigtime upside bat that profiles on a corner spot most likely? Awesome. I love the way we've adressed the lack of power within the organization with the draft and now July 2nd as well. If it's not tooooooooo much to ask, I'd still love to see us nab that catcher somehow. :D Or spread out some cash over a couple of guys like normal. Bottom line though is this: It's great to see us sign one of the high profile guys on July 2nd.

Cubs sign Enrique Acosta for 1.1 mill. First Latin American signing over a mill for us. :yahoo:

I don't necessarily WANT to trade Geo. But, we've got him for one more year. And while I'd hold onto him for now, if we're not contenders at next year's deadline, I hope we DO trade him at that point. Because I don't want Geo on a 3-4 year deal at 10 mill or so per(Which I figure he'll get).......To trade him now, I want a piece in return I can count on as part of our lineup or rotation for next year. Because we're creating a hole we don't know we can fill, if we deal him now. If we wait, maybe we come up with enough additions over the offseason where he's worth keeping around and with the money we should have to spend, I definitely think it's possible to contend next year, if we do it right.

No idea about Easterling, but my guess is he's done with football. If I were to bet on his bonus, I'm going to say he got around 150,000 or so. Nothing but speculation though from me. But, I don't think they're approving deals larger than that yet. I'm pretty surprised we got Maltos-Garcia. Maybe the TJS was just a rumor? I hope so anyway, but would think he'd get a decent bonus to lure him away from a 4 year school. maybe he took 150,000 as well?

Raisin, did that come from a Badler article? I saw something on Twitter from him mentioning the Yankees, Mets, and Cubs possible July 2nd targets, but it was premium.

Eliecer Bonne has signed with the Cubs, according to AZPhil. He's a 24 year old Cuban, that plays the OF. AZPhil calls him Del Valle, Silva, Cabezas, and Serrano second tier prospects, not roster filler. I have also seen his name as Eliecer Bonne Reyes, and have seen his age listed as 21, and 22 as well. So who knows? But, we did sign him.

Welcome in fellas. I enjoy the insight each and every poster brings inside this section. Lots of serious knowledge around here for sure.

While it's odd for the Cubs to only have 12 guys under contract, I think quite a bit of it has to do with the fact we took so many high schoolers and even community college guys this year. Given that MLB evidently doesn't approve overslots for more than 5% to 10% at this point and time, until near the end of the signing period, we're probably sitting on quite a few guys who we've gotten to agree, that we just don't know about yet......If I go by the players I've heard or read at least SOMETHING on, here's what I can remember...... Baez-Supposedly an easy sign if he were a top 15 pick. Still, wouldn't surprise me if we had to go slightly overslot, because he was a fast riser right before the draft. Vogelbach-Sent out letter to teams saying he wanted 1.5ish mill for him to sign. DuVall- Read him and Cubs had talked, he had a number in mind and was wanting Cubs to match. Find it hard to believe he's going to take much more than slot to get here, but who knows? Zych- Fell further than he probably thought and may want more than slot to account for where he thought he should have went, possible supplemental guy. This one is pure speculation on my part. Scott- Said he plans to sign. Considering he's a HS guy who was a late riser with upside, makes me think he'll get overslot of some sort. Rosario- No word on him, but my guess is since he's a HS C who went rather early and had shown up on a few top 200 lists, he's not going to be an easy sign either. Although I don't even know off the top of my head where he's attending school next year. Dugas- Surprised he isn't already here honestly. Figured he was going to be a org guy like Campana..... Gretzky- Sounds like he's signable, but I'm sure it'll take overslot and while it'd be nice to have him here, he's pretty far down my list of overslot guys that I really want badly. Sclecht- Everything I've seen is he's signable too, Selig approves the 150,000 deals like we gave Reed and Co. early, so I'm kind of surprised he's not here already. Lockhart-Have heard nothing and don't really care if we get him or not. Hope we don't go overslot on him. Dunston Jr- A tough sign, but read it's certainly possibly to get him here. That said, as great as the nostalgia would be, there's still other guys I'd rather want, if we're making tough choices here. A little too raw(even though I was pushing for him at the draft). We've gotten quite a few guys I like, so assuming we're on a budget, I'd possibly wind up letting him go. Lindgren- Guy was ranked REALLY high as a rising junior, but fell badly from there. Has talked to Cubs and is expecting an offer in early July. Martin-Not one word on him. Maples- The guy I really, really want here.(as is the case with most of us obviously). Law said it'll take 2 mill and doesn't expect us to sign him. Bruce said he expects us to have a 50/50 shot or so, who knows? But my fingers are crossed. Marra- No idea. Elias- Expects an offer soon and sounds like he wants to sign. Zimmer- Sounds like a tough sign and with the other talent we have around, he's probably not a real high priority for us. Shoulders- Has a figure in mind and evidently the Cubs haven't met it. My guess is he's a fallback option from Vogelbach and Gretzky, although I'd rather get him here than Gretzky personally. Jensen- Sounds like a fat riser that's going to take overslot to sign. Easterling- Has talked to football program and is thought to be leaning towards giving it up to play baseball. Maltos-Garcia- is hurt after having a great start to season, probably would require significant money and he's probably not going to be ready to go until next year at this time. Richardson- Was a preseason top 200 by some folks. Kind of the same guy as DuVall, my guess is we get one or the other. Jacquez- Cubs have talked to him and given him things to work on this summer. Both sides are receptive to a deal if he accomplishes what they want him to. This would certainly be a very significant overslot, possibly a mill or maybe even slightly more than that. Anyway, the Cubs usually sign around 30 guys and I just listed 23 here, so in a perfect world for me, we'll get 15-18 of these guys and leave anyone I didn't mention alone(with the possible exception of Urban) The bottom line for me though is this: If it takes trading away some major league salary to get a few extra guys in here, I'm all for it. We certainly drafted some talent this year, much more than usual. But, right now, with the type guys we drafted, I'm not surprised at all that we don't have more under contract, because of the way Selig does things......

I'm too lazy too, but my guess is Junior was younger.

Arizona is now up 18-0 in the 6th. Some dude named Eduardo Gonzalez(Venezuela) is 4-5. Anyone have ANYTHING on him? Size and his Dominican numbers make me think he's a slap hitter, but I don't recall hearing anything at all on this guy from AZPhil...... Pugliese pitched 2 innings, giving up a hit and K'ing 2.

Wonderful. He's been out for like a month, hasn't he? Yeah, he has been. I'm just hoping he's healthy and those results don't inspire any confidence. He clearly had no control and hit his pitch count of ~25. Not really that concerned with a pitcher's injury when it's an injury to the ribs. I had actually forgotten it was his ribs. That does make it a tad better anyway.

Not if they're currently working for other teams.

Jersey has it absolutely correct: You don't judge Hendry on an individual move that was good or bad. You judge him as a whole; Which is manning a team in a division where he's got significant financial advantages and hasn't taken advantage of them well enough for the majority.

Wonderful. He's been out for like a month, hasn't he? Yeah, he has been. I'm just hoping he's healthy and those results don't inspire any confidence.

I'm not even convinced Hendry won't be here next year, but why would you fire a guy right now who's shown his best quality is making trades to begin with? Especially when you have Friedman and Cashman both possibly available AFTER the season's over.

Wonderful.

There's absolutely no reason to try and lock in Pena right now. If both Pujols and Fielder miraculously sign longterm deals between now and the deadline, maybe we think twice about dealing away Carlos.......With the money coming off the books, there is no chance we at least don't make it appear we're after one of the big prizes. Even if we miss out, it makes management look better for having given it a try. It'll be a public relations nightmare for a new ownership group that's already been hamstrung enough, if they make it public that they're not going after one of the big guys, after the couple of seasons we've endured. I agree with Tim basically: Any money saved here, that goes towards draft picks and/or IFA is perfectly well spent in my eyes......

They might want "a very nice return" for him, but it's going to be a hard sell with those ugly stats for the last 2 1/2 years. Well yeah.....Which is why they won't be dealing him.

I'm not sure what kind of "plan" Ricketts could even be showing us right now honestly. I think the big picture comes out during this offseason. It'll be the first time we've had money truly coming off the books. And until you have someone out there to replace Hendry, there's no real reason to fire him just to fire him. Not to mention, it probably doesn't look all that attractive to GM's coming into a situation where they're going to be hamstrung the entire first year of their era anyway. Couple that with the type of guys we drafted, the amounts it's probably going to take to sign most of them and the talk of increased spending on IFA as well and I'm OK with his approach so far.

I don't want Soto past his arb years. So whether that means trading him over the offseason or keeping him next year and offering arb at the end of it, I'll take the return from that, over the idea of giving him a 3-4 year deal probably around 8-10 mill per during his early thirties. And I like Geo alot. Just don't want him on what's probably going to wind up a bad contract.

Tampa isn't going to trade someone like that without getting a very nice return. Yeah, he's got serious upside, but he's not all THAT young anymore and we've got Jackson and Szczur on the horizon. I'd rather spend the prospects it'd take to get him and spend it on pitching instead personally.

I'm the same as Tim......I keep thinking we've signed someone. That said, I kind of expect most of our bigname guys won't have any news until close to the deadline anyway. I'll say this though: I'm very excited about the possibilities of who we'll sign and don't expect us to be cheap whatsoever. The comments from Bush, Wilken, AND Ricketts all basically say we're spending much more this year than last. I'll even take it a step further and mention the Woj article on ESPN today calling out Ricketts for not having a plan and call BS on it. What else can we do? Until these bad contracts fall off, we're going to have to spend smartly and we're now doing that. Last year's draft? I'll admit to having been disappointed for sure, especially with Simpson. But, I look at Szczur as our 1st rounder at this point anyway, and considering we gave him slot money for a 1st rounder, I'm going to continue looking at it like that.

I know this: According to AZPhil, we're going to head into next season around 108 mill, down from 130 this year. That includes the 5 mill deferred on Pena, the Silva buyout, Aramis' buyout, Shark at 2.4 mill(20% reduction from 3 mill this year) and anything else we're paying out that's not going to be on the team next year, and also includes projected arb raises to everyone who's eligible. Didn't leave us as much room as I had actually thought we'd have, but it doesn't count any minor trades we make that can lose a little more payroll. If you look towards the following season, you're losing Z, Demp, and Byrd, which is basically 40 mill right there. Without looking at anyone else, I can easily see where we're in the 60-70 mill range heading into that offseason.