davell

I don't think a WR through the draft is gonna help personally, due to how long they usually take to develop. Address it in FA. Agree about OL in round 1 though for sure.

Alex Dickerson and CJ Cron are both killing the ball early. Neither really has a position and both probably wind up at 1B. That said, they're both power bats and I'm starting to think they'd be a better pick(if we go hitter, and I'm hoping we don't) than Springer would be.

I'd rather keep the 16 game schedule, but I actually like the compromise Herm Edwards suggested: 17 games, 2 bye weeks, and each team has 8 home/away games and one game in Europe. Might not be perfect, but I could get on board with it anyway.

Personally, even if Vitters has a breakout season in AA this year, I want him to spend next year in AAA. May be in the minority here, but I still think he's got time on his side and I don't want to see him rushed any more than he already has been. As for LeMahieu, I'm holding out hope he's able to stick at 2B and has enough pop in his bat to become an asset there, since he's probably never going to have the pop to be a 3B offensively.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the Cubs liked his speed as an OFer more than his arm. Kind of wonder if that's why he didn't sign? Maybe he preferred pitching?

Classy way to go out for Tommie. I wish we could have resigned him for cheaper in a way. Sims-Walker? Not my top choice, but he's an upgrade at least. If you get him, hopefully that leaves you money to spend elsewhere in FA as well. Gallery? I see both the arguments being made on him. But, in the end, I wouldn't pay him what he evidently wants either. Especially since he's been pretty banged up over the past 2 seasons and he's not getting younger. Probably going to be better value out there than him. I think I'm for filling the OG need through the draft in round 1 or 2.

When I first heard that there had been a scuffle, I didn't know who it involved and was praying it wasn't Castro or some of the other younger guys. When I find out Silva was involved, I was borderline jubilant, as this can't exactly help him make the rotation, if you ask me. As far as Aramis goes, I really, really, really hope he doesn't turn into the scapegoat this year. But, I gotta admit, I think he's going to have a very solid season and I really feel like we're going to be in the thick of things come the trade deadline anyway, with the lack of elite teams within the division.

I think Silva and Cabeza count towards the 2011 budget personally, as both were signed after the season was over and possibly even during this calendar year. That said, I love to see these signings leak out, as we spent alot more than what I was originally thinking we had. I also love the fact that we took the quantity approach over signing one or two big names, as we've got just as much of a shot at hitting the lottery as a team that spent big on one or two guys, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong though, I'd love to see us add a big name or two and sprinkle some of these guys in as well. Especially with Wilken saying we had an increased budget this year for each the draft and INT FA. But, as much as I've harped on this, I gotta hand it to the Cubs and Ricketts so far, they're doing what they've said they would do at this point as far as spending on youngsters goes. It looks much better now than it did a couple of months ago. Very happy with the commitment and hope it continues in a huge way.

By the way, officially, Jin Yeoung Kim got 850,000. I think we originally were thinking he got 1.2ish mill or so.

According to BA, we signed these 2 guys, SS and 3B respectively last year as 16 year olds to 550,000 and 500,000 bonuses. They ranked 19th and 20th in INT FA July 2nd bonuses. Daniel Sanchez, who was signed to a "mid six figure bonus" evidently got less than 500,000. That said, it's very cool to see the Cubs made more of a splash last year than what we thought originally.

I really hope we find some power hitters in this draft somehow. But, with all the top end pitching available, I hope we go with a pitcher in the 1st. Follow it up with some upside hitting after that.

I think Burch Smith is probably a 1st rounder and Carson Smith has a shot as well. I forgot about Casali, I like him alot and as a senior, he's likely to come cheaper than alot of other guys. Cam Seitzer is Kevin's kid too, by the way.

If there's any way to catch Vandy, they've got the most MLB type players for this upcoming draft most likely. Their entire rotation of Sonny Gray, Jack Armstrong, and Grayson Garvin are all potential top 3 round picks. With Gray and Armstrong having the potential to be top 10 overall type guys. Jason Esposito(SS) is also a probable 1st rounder, although he's thought of as a 3B at the next level most likely. Navery Moore was once thought of as a 1st round "ace" type as well, but arm issues have put him in their closer role, but he's throwing in the mid to upper 90's again and he'l be a top 5 round guy assuming he stays healthy. Aaron Westlake is a damn good hitter for them too but he doesn't really have a position defensively and he's not looking like he's a prototypical power bat either, so his draft status is kind of up in the air, but he's still a top 5 round talent at least. Florida has Anthony DeSclafani and Nick Maronde(lefty) in their rotation, and both of them project as top 6-8 round guys right now, with Maronde being a guy that could make a solid move upwards from there. Alex Panteliodis also has a shot at becoming a top 5 round guy as a lefty pitcher as well. Preston Tucker is a 1st baseman with some usable power that is possibly a 1st round guy this year too, although I'm not all that high on him myself by the small amount of footage I've seen. If you're going to see Florida though, the 2 guys to watch are Austin Maddox and Karsten Whitson. Maddox is a possible top 10 guy NEXT year while Whitson(1st rounder who didn't sign) is the top freshman pitcher in the country and probably has the inside track on being the top overall pick in 3 seasons. Maddox is probably a 3rd baseman while Whitson is a righty pitcher. It's kind of a down year for LSU actually. Mikie Mahtook is a Brett Jackson type and is probably a 1st rounder. Austin Nola is a solid SS who's probably a top 5 round guy and Matt Ott is a closer with top 3 round stuff. Kevin Gausman is a freshman for them who floated a 4 mill signing bonus last year, so he must think he's a potential top 5 pick at some point, even if most of the country doesn't appear to see that happening. I gotta get off here for now, but these 3 teams stood out to me anyway. I'll try to give you a rundown sometime tomorrow on a couple of these other teams, but none have as many guys as these first 3 teams.

By the way, Purke missed his start this weekend, due to blisters and Jed Bradley and Danny Hultzen both looked great. I think that it's at least plausible that Purke falls further down the draft boards than we may originally have thought. If his price tag is truly 6 mill(major league contract could make it easier to absorb though) and Bradley and Hultzen look like they're close to his ability, I could see them being taken ahead of him in the right circumstances.

So I'm assuming we got zilch, correct? Mcgraw tweeted we discussed the usual guys but wouldn't cave on Asik or Taj......

With the talk of Bulls getting a "mystery guy" I'm hoping it's that and not Parker or even Lee. I don't think Mayo is even in play at this point unfortunately. Just saw a tweet though from ESPNINSIDER saying we're in the lead for Lee though......

Wow, he's going to be seeing a fastball to the head at some point this season. Dusty probably gets something thrown at him from the dugout too. Whether it may help your team indirectly or not, saying it's great news is nothing short of classless. And to me, a manager should be held to higher standards than players to begin with. I'm not even sure Ozzie would have made those remarks. Crap, I had read somewhere that he had gotten off the phone with Darren and was saying," my best scout gave me some great news" or something to that effect. Hell, maybe I imagined it? I take back what I said on Dusty if this was his actual quote obviously. Edit: That quote is from the same article that Fro posted and it has both quotes from Baker. I guess the first one talking to his son could be construed differently than how I took it, as Baker making fun or light of the injury.

And 10 in under 10 minutes of PT. :D

Thanks for posting that. I thought it was about as good of an NBA article as I've read in quite some time.

Wow, he's going to be seeing a fastball to the head at some point this season. Dusty probably gets something thrown at him from the dugout too. Whether it may help your team indirectly or not, saying it's great news is nothing short of classless. And to me, a manager should be held to higher standards than players to begin with. I'm not even sure Ozzie would have made those remarks.

Why Young over Mayo? Numbers don't show it all that much, but I think of Young as a better shooter personally. But, along with that, he's probably a better fit for team chemistry as well(some may not think it matters, but I think it's more important in basketball than baseball myself) and he's also 3 inches taller, which could help with matchups.

The RealGM board is the equivalent to here on deadline days. I guess we're after one of Lee/Parker/Mayo. No real surprise there, but someone mentioned Nick Young as a possibility and I gotta admit, if there was any truth to that, I'd like him more than these others for sure. And I like Mayo a decent amount anyway.

Yeah, we're getting into arbitrary stuff with the "elite" player talk and I'm the one that started it, so I'll squash that immediately. :D I mentioned Johnson, because I didn't think Atlanta would offer him a full max deal. I was actually thinking we'd be able to land him for Boozer money or something similar honestly. You're right though, I don't want him at the price he got. As far as his play being down, I'm not going to look too far into it personally. His 3's are down quite a bit, but everything else looks to be in line. I'll be honest, I think I've seen Atlanta play 3-4 times this year, so I can't say whether his 3's are down because he's missing open jumpers or if it's because he's being forced to take quite a few late in the shotclock type rushed 3's or whether it's just that he's having an "off" year. As for Noah, to me, he's the epitomy of an "intangibles" guy. His stats are solid, but they're probably never going to be eye-popping either. Personally, if I'm going to consider someone as a bigtime player, he's going to have to at least be a threat offensively at the end of games.(playoffs mostly) And I just don't consider Noah to be that and don't think he ever will be. And I'm not knocking Noah, as he's great at what he does and I think any team out there would LOVE to have a guy like him on their squad, but I don't think he's putting anyone in our position(1 superstar) over the top, because I think his offense is pretty well limited.

The East is going to be very hard to win, both now and also over the next couple of seasons, if you ask me. I think the Bulls should have made some sort of run at Melo/Nene for Deng/Noah/picks whatever else it took type deal. Granted, Denver probably didn't want Deng's contract, so they may have declined and we may have offered for all we know, but it didn't happen at least. My problem with the Bulls' roster is I really think we need an elite second player, if we're going to be making true championship runs over the next couple of years. Rose is phenomenal and will be a top 5 player(if he's not already). I think of Boozer as more of a complementary piece than a true legit threat though. On a championship team, he's a 3rd guy to me, not a true second option. The only 2 spots where we can upgrade this team over the next 4-5 years is at the 2 and 3 spots. If we had gotten Joe Johnson over the offseason, I think we'd be considered as good as anyone right now. Maybe even the same if we had lifted Ray Allen from the Celtics. Deng probably doesn't have negative value at this stage, but he doesn't have much positive value either, so if he were to be dealt, we'd have to replace him and honestly, that's not all that easy of a task, as he's pretty solid really. I think the only time we'll consider dealing him is closer to when his contract is up and he's more of an asset anyway. Which leaves the 2 as pretty much the ONLY spot where it's going to make sense for us to make a splash. And I'm just not seeing what's available to where it's going to put us over the top. I don't see Mayo or any of these other guys as guys that are going to put us over the top. With the Celtics heading downward and possibly the Magic as well, it's going to be us, the Heat and the Knicks as the 3 contenders for a while. With NJ as a possibility if they can add to Deron obviously. But, the Heat already have 3 top guys and will be adding more through mid levels and buyouts and that's what's scary to me: Watching that band of jackasses get better through moves like that, while we're needing another elite player, which is going to be extremely hard to get.

If the Cards find a way to appease Pujols and lose Wainwright in the process, I'd be all for spending on Wainwright personally, especially coming off TJS, where he'd have to take some sort of discount as it is.