Sammy Sofa

I know Len & Bob are being diplomatic, but no, DeRosa is NOT likely to be very useful at his age and coming back from wrist surgery.

Oh man, I was cringing watching Ross and Fontenot diving for that ball.

You need some excitement? LOLOLOLBECAUSEHE'STERRIBLELULZ

Send Grabow out there, dammit.

So going in to today this was Castro's line over the last week: .438 .471 .625 1.096 Nice to see him kicking that slump in the balls. Len said he's 10 for his last 17.

Uh-oh; Giants craftily loading the bases with 1 out.

Excellent.

Again, it all depends what pieces were talking about, and what you consider important. Lets look at the Harden package, and see what would be close to it: Sean Gallagher: major league ready-ish starter, potential, but didnt quite reach it yet: Casey Coleman or Jay Jackson? Matt Murton: young major league ready player. Has had some past big leage successCould contribute in the future: Blake DeWitt Eric Patterson: fringe prospect. wasnt quite major league ready, althoug wed brought him up out of necessity: any number of guys. lets say, Ryan Flaherty. Josh Donaldson: young, lower level prospect. decent bat Again, could be any number of guys. Lets just say, oh, Matt Cerda or Pierre LaPage. Would you trade Coleman/Jackson, DeWitt, Flaherty, and Cerda/LaPage for Beltran and maybe a lesser player? I would. Again, it depends if the Mets would. Of course they wouldn't. Most the players you listed as potential trade bait aren't comparable with what was given up for Harden. Plus the Cubs were taking a chance because they'd get him for at least a season and a half and he was a much younger player.

Exactly. And you want to give up important pieces to get an old Beltran for half a season despite all of those if's.

What an odd inning. And Brenly's praise of the Giant's WS formula as being making up a team of "gamers and dirtbags" made me soooooo grateful he wasn't hired to manage the Cubs.

Hopefully he strangles Quade. For all we know Dempster requested Hill instead of Castillo. Dempster isn't the manager. No, but he is the starting pitcher today and outside of his last two starts he's been struggling. He might just feel he has a better rapport or whatever with Hill and asked for him to catch for him.

Given the general lack of offense in baseball this year, I think Beltran's price could be pretty high for a one year rental. Right. We have no idea which teams are going to be in the hunt around the deadline and someone like Beltran could still command a pretty high price for just half a season if he continues being hot. Sure, if he could be had for a song because of money issues, great, why not? But I seriously doubt that will be the case, and even if it is it's just going to increase the competition between the offers to get him.

The difference of opinion is simple: he feels the Cubs have a shot at competing this year if they get a significant upgrade at one position. You don't. Hence the varying perspectives. If I felt the Cubs were one piece away AND I thought Beltran would stay healthy all year, I'd probably feel the same way. However, until I see some power from ARam, I don't think we're only missing one piece. It still doesn't make any sense. I'm certainly not opposed to making a go at competing in a weak division this season (though I agree it would take more than one player unless Aramis AND Soto rebound), but I can't figure out why he would want to go after Beltran of all people instead of attempting something Garza-esque where you shell out for a player that can help now and in the future. I dont want to part with a Garza-esque prospect package. I would only really want to go after Beltran if it were a more reasonable price. Of course if King Felix were to become available, Id be willing to part with alot more. You part with a Garza-esque prospect-package to get what you pay for; a player much more along the lines of what the Cubs need right now as opposed to a half-season rental. Beltran would "cost" less than Garza because you're only getting him for half a season, though the Mets are still going to demand a decent return because of his value and the position they're in needing to build for the future ASAP. The Cubs wouldn't be able to get him for peanuts.

Why are you assuming Byrd and Soto are going to start hitting for significantly more power if Aramis doesn't? And the only "real problem" you see with trading for Beltran is figuring out what to do with Byrd or Fukudome? Really?

Hopefully he strangles Quade. For all we know Dempster requested Hill instead of Castillo.

The difference of opinion is simple: he feels the Cubs have a shot at competing this year if they get a significant upgrade at one position. You don't. Hence the varying perspectives. If I felt the Cubs were one piece away AND I thought Beltran would stay healthy all year, I'd probably feel the same way. However, until I see some power from ARam, I don't think we're only missing one piece. It still doesn't make any sense. I'm certainly not opposed to making a go at competing in a weak division this season (though I agree it would take more than one player unless Aramis AND Soto rebound), but I can't figure out why he would want to go after Beltran of all people instead of attempting something Garza-esque where you shell out for a player that can help now and in the future.

I am baffled as to how you think is this a good idea. The whole first paragraph was, quite honestly, nonsense. Because we don't know which prospects will pan out, or if the Cubs will be able to sign any good FA's, they should inexplicably waste resources on an old Beltran for half of a season? FTH?

In the dugout.

Again, you're inexplicably focused on this year like it's something that needs to bolstered. It's not. "Holes" can easily refer to the key positions that need to be filled next year with Pena and Fukudome gone and a good chance that Aramis is bought out. That's 3 key positions the Cubs need to fill, and trading away valuable pieces (be they players of the future for the Cubs or parts in much more valuable trades) for half a season of Carols Beltran doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

I am baffled as to how you think this is a good idea. Beltran is old, and while he would likely be a nice bump this year he should have absolutely no roll in the Cubs' future. He's still a very useful player for the right team, so it's not like the Mets are just going to give him up for the hypothetical peanuts deal you think the Cubs could get away with. When the Mets trade him, and if they trade Wright and/or Reyes, it's going to be them asking for players that are potentially going to be able to help the rebuild, not swapping expiring contracts. It's a waste of resources to go after Beltran when the Cubs are fielding a very mediocre team. He's not going to put them over the top. And why do you keep insisting on listing Wood if the Cubs were to go into fire sale mode? Even if they did they wouldn't move Wood. It's obvious he was signed at a drastically reduced rate so he could retire as a Cub. It's ridiculous to think they're going to deep-six that and trade him even if he was having a great year come the deadline.

Cowherd being Cowherd and making [expletive] up.

But if we could get him as rental in a desperate attempt to make this season count, would you be interested? Not really, since it would likely require giving up too many promising prospects and/or players on the team that could be better dealt for the Cubs' future. I have to disagree. My though all along has been that the main thing that keeps this team back is the lack of that 1 elite hitter, which is what a healthy Beltran would be. That has nothing to with my post, so I don't know what you're disagreeing with. What I'M disagreeing with is needlessly giving up valuable parts for a 1-year rental. It's not like this is a good Cubs team that just needs one part to push it over the top.

.249 .366 .345 .711 against LH starters. Though he's only gotten 5 starts against LH pitchers between this season and last year's, and in 4 starts last year he put up this hilarious line: .344 .447 .688 1.135 with 3 HR and a triple

I'm talking about the general idea that he needs to be out there if they're facing a lefty. I was happy he wasn't out there yesterday, and really only hope he's out there due to the sample size of his matchups against Bumgarner. And people SHOULD have a problem with starting Johnson. He sucks.

Reed Johnson against LH starters in 2010: .250 .289 .358 .647 Against LH starters so far this year: .263 .333 .368 .702 He's useful against lefties coming off the bench, but doesn't really do much to justify automatically getting starts against them.