davell

If Lebron leaves Cleveland, I really don't see the Cavs doing a sign and trade with him, to help him get more money basically. Unless they were getting back something VERY useful to them. I honestly don't see Deng as a valuable commodity right now. Sure, he's probably dealable, but not for bigtime assets either. Meaning I don't think Toronto would take him back in a Bosh deal either. I really don't see how the Bulls can wind up with TWO of the big 4 this offseason, but if Lebron was to want to play here and it took some wheeling and dealing to get him someone else here as well, maybe Boozer is our best bet to do a sign and trade for......

I think in the Cubs eyes' he is a starter. I think the true test comes when he's allowed to go over 100 pitches, which I'm not sure he's ever done, to this point. And then, if he can do it consistently. Of course, he's getting 85ish or so very consistently at the moment, which is a nice uptick from last year, to begin with. We all bitch and moan about how the Cubs handle some of these youngsters, but I think that they have handled Cashner almost perfectly, to this point honestly. On a side note, were we that pissed that he was who we drafted? I didn't seem to think so, since they announced almost immediately that they had plans to use him as a starter. And even if they didn't, there were people saying that they thought he could have possibly been used on the major league team during the playoff run......

Cashner is at 89 pitches thru 6. 5 hits allowed, 1 run, 1 walk, and 6 K's.

I hope that's the case actually.

Vitters with a double his first at bat tonight. Struck and Dolis are struggling early on. And B Jax has the day off evidently.

Is it possible that Iowa just needed someone to pitch an inning last night for them and Jackson was available? It wouldn't surprise me if that winds up being the case here. Putting Jay in the pen for the rest of the year is flat out dumb.

Raley has pitched 6 games so far for Daytona and here are his stats...... 4 games 19.2 IP 16 H 1ER 6BB 26K 2 games 5.2 IP 20H 14ER 7BB 5K I guess his control is THAT important to him?

I didn't get to watch the game and perusing the game thread made me erase it. Then i noticed in the boxscore Castro had THREE errors? What were they?

I'm waiting for Lou to decide to use a pitcher for every inning at this point.

Only reason I say anything like that about Lee is because I am higher on him than most around here actually. I invision him and Castro as our 1-2 punch for a long, long time. I don't doubt he'll get it together at all, I just want it to be sooner than later.

Lee needs to get his bat going bigtime.

Archer with his best start of the season, going 5, giving up 2 hits, 2 walks, and K'ing 7. No runs. Coleman went 7, giving up 3 hits, 3 walks, and 3 runs. I had saw Vitters was replaced in the 7th inning yesterday, but figured it was due to him having 2 errors. However, he's not playing tonight, so doies anyone know if he got hurt yesterday? Kind of odd since it's second day in Tennessee.

One thing I've heard about Castro is he's a guy who rises to the occasion. The guy who's a leader in the clubhouse. He has the "it" factor. The numbers may not be gaudy(other than his Tenn numbers this year) but he's been raved about at each stop. All the way back to when he was in the DSL. Fleita gushes about alot of players, but he's been all about Castro since the DSL. Do the expectations scare me? Yeah, because having a game like he did to start off with, is only going to make some of the fans expect Griffey/A-Rod type stuff out of him. And he's not even a power hitter. But, because of his intangibles, I think he'll be able to handle things pretty well. But stat-wise, I have no clue what to expect......If he posts a .700 OPS as a 20 year old, I think I'll be pretty excited. One thing about him though, is he IS definitely starting to fill out. I can see where guys are coming from when they say he's going to have 50 power on the scouting scale and stuff like that.

Yeah, I was glad to see that. AZPhil says that the 2 guys most likely to get called up soon though are Mincone and Marcos Perez, who has been pretty unhittable, but seems to be profiling as a LOOGY already. On the hitting side of things, Chen seems like he could make it to Peoria possibly this year. Kim and Na are both hurt, Alcantara isn't hitting right now and the Bautista kid that evidently has lots of tools is K'ing much more than anything else right now. At any rate, I'm glad we have AZPhil reporting this stuff.

McNutt was cruising until he hit the 5th. He had only allowed 2 walks and no hits at that point. And wound up giving up 4 runs on 2 hits and 2 walks without recording an out in the 5th.

I'd like to think you're right. But, there are two veteran 2b's sitting on the bench, so I can see Lou "mixing and matching" to get those veterans some at bats wherever he can. Kind of like how Soto sits for no apparent reason so that Hill can play more than he should. Yeah, that's true. The Lou factor could POSSIBLY come into play. I wonder though how feasible it is for Ricketts' to be behind this? Any chance you think he'd tell Lou and Hendry he wants to see Castro up this year and played fulltime from here on out? I know owners don't typically get involved with this stuff, but with the possibility of this being Lou and Hendry's last year, I guess it's at least conceivable anyway......

You could add Casey Coleman to that list. I don't mind breaking a starter in via the pen, but I would rather avoid that with Cashner since he hasn't logged as many starter innings in as most prospects. I don't want him going into 2011 as a starter with his limited 2009 IP being his career high. You know, I almost put Coleman in there with them, but I just see him and Barney getting traded for some reason, since we have better options around. That said, I really think Coleman will have a solid major league career as a 4/5 guy and Barney should have a long career in the majors as well, possibly as a fulltime SS, or possibly as a solid utility guy.

While I kind of wish we had waited another month or so to miss the super 2 status, I'm thinking the Cubs didn't bring him up for a taste of the big leagues. I think he's here to stay and I think Lou is going to play him everyday. As far as the super 2 status goes, it may not even be around when his shot at it comes around. Not sure what to think, as far as stats for him this year in the majors, but if he holds his own as a 20 year old, it's all we can hope for. And considering how he's handled every promotion so far, I think he'll do it.

I figured Vitters would start off in Tennessee to begin with and I wouldn't have been unhappy if he had been honestly. His numbers aren't eye-popping in Daytona, but I think he'll be fine personally. Flaherty has struggled obviously and while I wish we had given him more time to work things out, we haven't seen what his at bats are looking like either. They could literally be as bad, or worse possibly, than what his average indicates anyway. We just don't know, he may really be overmatched. I kind of hope B Jax gets moved up quickly now too, as i think his power will reappear once he's in Tennessee. Cashner getting moved to Iowa, I like. I hope he doesn't wind up in the major league pen this year, although I think he probably will. Although, it's not the end of the world, if he does. I just don't want him being yo-yo'd around like Samardzija has been. I'd much rather see him get a fulltime shot at starting next season at the very least. That said, it's no guarantee they'd bring him up to use him in the pen anyway. An injury or someone really starts to struggle and one of him or J Jax will be called up anyway.

I love Adrian Gonzalez and would certainly be interested in finding a way to trade for him. That said, with Fielder going to just cost money and not the entire farm as well, he'd be my target, for that reason alone. In the end though, if Fielder was locked up by the Brewers, or traded and locked up by the Yankees or wherever he went, I couldn't part with a package including Castro, Cashner, and Jackson. Having the possibility of an All Star SS from the beginning of his career is too tempting for me anyway. Especially with what you're going to be paying Gonzalez(20-25 mill per?) soon after trading for him. Having a guy like Castro WILL allow us to go out and spend big somewhere else, whether it's for an ace or a middle of the order hitter, if he pans out the way we're all hoping....... In order of least tradeable to tradeable guys for me who are most likely going to be asked about by other teams....... 1 Castro(damn near untouchable for me, with what's on or could be on the market anyway) 2 B Jackson(love the idea of a lefty 20/20 guy with good defense manning CF for us, which he could wind up as) 3 Cashner (tough for me not to put 2nd, but since there's still at least SOME concern over whether or not he remains a starter, I'm putting him 3rd. Although, he's certainly alleviating some of that concern so far this year anyway) 4 J Jackson (only because he's closest to helping us right now) 5 Lee (easier to deal him, with Castro looking like he's ready very soon. Although if he's traded, they better get a damn good return on him, since it's possible him AND Castro could be our MI within 3 years or so and our 1-2 hitters as well) 6 Vitters Just because I have him this low, doesn't mean I want him dealt either. Not this year anyway, unless it's for someone we'll have more than half a season and is a difference maker. Heath Bell? No.

Spencer is kind of intriguing. How bad of a fielder is he exactly? Great to see Jackson and Cashner dealing again. I'm starting to think both of them could be on the major league team after the ASB. It's going to be interesting though, to see who gets traded or taken off the 40 man to open up 3 spots for them and Castro.

One positive today was Vitters had TWO walks. :eek:

I think we have to wait Phil out and see if he's a possibility. It'd give us a much better shot at landing a bigtime FA, if you ask me. I don't know if I see another possible hire out there that you can say that about either.(Calipari possibly? I can't stand him, but he has the WWW connections for sure) The key here is whether or not Reinsdorf wants to part with the money to get him.

At some point soon, Casey Coleman is going to make someone a very solid 4/5 guy in a rotation. Looked like Archer had a decent start(better than his norm this year anyway). Glad to see Castro with another BB, don't like the 2 errors obviously. Maybe the 2-4 game can get Lee started up in the right direction now.

Searle got moved down to Peoria? Didn't see that coming honestly.