toonsterwu

Point in his development is a bit different from Arodys, though, so unless he had TJ (I don't recall that, but maybe I missed something), I certainly would take a gamble on him if the Braves were willing to offer. His starting upside is too tantalizing. Now, that said, it'd have to be more than that to do a Russell deal, and I doubt the Braves go down that road anyways (moving Graham), as they seem likely to be able to find someone. Furthermore, I forgot about Beachy, so Alex Wood probably just slots in there anyways (if they don't keep him as a starter down the stretch).

Thoughts on packaging Gregg with Schierholtz there? What possible return could we get on that from the Pirates? Together? If we package them together, I'd at least hope for either Glasnow or Kingham as the headliner to a package. Not sure how realistic that is, as it's tough to really gauge the market for those two, but I'd ask for one of those two, if not both, and maybe a Jin-de Jhang. Maybe I'm way off on the market for those two individually though.

I completely forgot about him. Damn, he's been out awhile. I am still hopeful of perhaps pulling off a good trade of James Russell to the Braves. I wouldn't do it for doing's sake, as there's no point with the control we have left, but if we can get something solid, it'd be mighty tempting. Granted, the problem is, I don't think Mauricio Cabrera/Cody Martin/Christian Bethancourt is good enough for a 1v1, and I doubt they move Sims/Graham in a Russell deal, though I can dream. If we get a couple 2nd tier guys, it might be interesting. Midday ruminating ...

Didn't he have TJS? That was, uh, 3 years ago? Or was it 4?

My guess is that the Braves will give someone like Alex Wood, Cody Martin, or David Hale a look before looking elsewhere. Wood should be the guy, as there was talk he would force his way in. If he looks capable in his start, they probably focus on a lefty pen option. As for what they have, there's some decent-solid pieces. This isn't the Braves system of old. It's a bit thin at the top, but Lucas Sims and JR Graham both look like solid pitching prospect with solid ceilings. Alberto Cabrera's little brother would be a decent gamble, a very good power arm still learning command, control, and consistency. There really isn't any great positional prospect. Bethancourt is still there, but his bat is very suspect. That said, his defense behind the dish is that good that he should get some looks in the bigs. After that, there's some raw, toolsy guys, with Edward Salcedo coming to mind. The speedy shortstop Jose Peraza is mildly intriguing. It's really the three arms (Wood should be in that mix, although I guess he'll lose prospect status, and I doubt they deal him), and Graham/Sims are both very intriguing arms. After that, it's a mish-mash (enough to do a trade for say, a pen arm, but for a hypothetical solid starter to replace Hudson, I doubt they'd have enough to win a bidding war without moving Graham or Sims).

Lost in all the shiny new fun stuff, Dae-Eun Rhee had himself a pretty solid outing. I'd be pretty curious how he was looking these days. 2 years ago, it felt like Rhee was potentially breaking through, then the stuff, iirc, regressed a bit last year. Then, he got hurt early this year.

Vizcaino is the wildcard. You can go high on him, on the promise of "stuff", but you can also dump him to the mid-teens on account of the last two years and I'd be fine with that. Thus, I think somewhere 10 seems reasonable. I'll take Edwards over Paniagua for now. JCP's pitching, but I want to see ... more. Edwards has dominated and has some ceiling, so he gets a tiny edge, even if JCP's ceiling is, on paper, higher. But that's me.

I'm surprised that Edwards is getting so much love, and I am a big fan of Edwards. But, I don't recall many suggestions out there that his secondary stuff projected to be better than plus. I'm not even gigantically huge on Pierce Johnson, but it's hard for me to take Edwards over him unless Edwards breaking ball improves enough. Johnson's arsenal is, on paper, better. Again, I like Edwards a ton, but I'm just a bit surprised with this push for him at 1 on our pitching list, unless I've missed something on Johnson in the last month or so (fairly possible).

He came from so far off the radar that I don't think people were paying attention to him until now. It's a dumb explanation, but it happens, particularly when you talk about such a late round pick.

I don't know if he's known for a short fuse, but Struck is an emotional, go get it type of guy. Shame his stuff took such a big step back this year supposedly (granted, wasn't anything but an end of the rotation guy before that, but entering the season, I was mildly curious about Struck as a pen option).

As a side note, I like this trade for us, but I agree with Law that this trade makes sense for both sides. They get a big upgrade for their push ... and what do they really give up? A 3rd baseman with some legitimate warts, a mid-rotation at best starter in Grimm, a raw arm far away whose ceiling isn't off the charts, and perhaps an intriguing/talented arm in Ramirez that hasn't put it together yet. It's a good package for us, but they protected key guys in their system and giving up these guys isn't a bad price for them. I might've missed it, but were there any rumors on what the A's offered? Would've been fascinated to see what the AL West bidding war created as a package to challenge to the Rangers for Garza.

My initial gut feeling would be something like The elite tier - Baez/Bryant/Almora/Soler in some order. I think you can argue for each guy at the top, although my preference is probably Baez. The good, but not elite - Alcantara, Pierce Johnson (in that order) Intriguing but have some questions/warts/need to see more - Olt, Zastryzny, Edwards, Vizcaino. Not real sure on the order here, but wanted to get to 10, and you could make a case for probably 4-5 more guys (Alberto Cabrera comes to mind, along with Vogelbach). Honestly, could probably make an argument for someone like Paul Blackburn even. Very fluid, but a positive sign for our depth.

Randomly pondering it, I think your likely to see the Red Sox ranked high, perhaps 1. They've got a good balance of top arms and bats, and it's not like any of them are doing that poorly, off the top. I think we should be ahead of the Marlins, although I really love the Marisnick/Yelich/Heaney trio at the top of that system. The Twins will likely be a top 3-5 system, due to the sheer awesomeness of Buxton. The trio of Buxton/Sano/Meyer might be the best trio of any team in the minors, but there's some other quality guys. Let's see, what else. I still don't like the Padres system, though I suspect it might sneak into a top 12 or so. I'd take us over the Pirates system, but I can see people arguing for the Pirates system ahead of ours. Rays/Mariners probably take a small step back from their top 3-5 rankings last year. Cardinals should still be up there, although hard for me to see a case for top 3 right now. Who am I missing? Oh, the Astros. I'd take us over the Astros, as I don't like DeShields, Springer, Foltyniewicz as much as most, but I can see a case for the Astros ahead of us, I guess. Anyone see MLB's updated top 20 prospect list for us? Who makes that list? They updated it by sliding in Olt at 2, Edwards at 10. Odd, Alcantara is at 20, behind Amaya? Who does that list?

To be honest, I'm okay not getting Odor. I like Odor a ton, and I think he'll be in the majors sooner than later (really wouldn't shock me if he saw the bigs late in 2014). I wouldn't even be surprised if he turned out to be a better offensive performer than Jurickson Profar. We had specific, and large, pitching needs, and this trade meets it. Had we gotten Odor, that would've been awesome, but okay, clock ran out, and we got arms. That's okay.

Ramirez came off those arm issues recently, so it seems like they simply wanted to get a longer look at how he's throwing now, which makes sense.

I'll take the pool for 100 Alex. Really depends on who the pool is. Ramirez seems like the ceiling on the arms we could likely get, so we're looking at several guys below that. There's some raw upside guys in the system (as there is in all systems), but if Ramirez is sort of a ceiling on the talent of the arms we can get, then there's a case to be made for gambling on Ramirez's upside because we don't need filler/solid, as we have that.

There's no reason to feel stupid about it. It's hard to find third basemen these days, and Olt can pick it and has pop. If he can simply hit enough ... he has a shot. Sure, a lot of Brett Jackson dreaming, but it's a very good gamble in a trade like this, particularly since we got enough arm talent to fill needs up and down the system.

He's up there, and he's an exciting arm talent, but Pierce Johnson is still tops, and Rob Zastryzny is up there as well. If the other piece is a Ramirez, he probably goes ahead. But CJ should be in our top 5 arms.

That's a bit more debatable. I was never a Hak-ju Lee fan, but you could argue that Lee's value/hoped for potential was higher than Olt (people loved Lee ... I never did), and Archer is a better raw arm talent than anyone in this deal. As laughable as the idea of Chirinos being important now is, keep in mind he was suppposedly the guy that the Rays wanted/picked. Guyer was always an acceptable depth OF/AAA depth starter. Now, if you are thinking about it as 2.5 years of Garza, plus this package of talent vs. the talent we gave up, then sure, it's an awesome trade. If it's just a talent comparison, I think the Cubs package then was pretty dang good.

On paper, IMO, yes (assuming the PTBNL is Ramirez, or value approximate of it). Of course, Segura took off, so if we're looking at it from the perspective of what Segura has done now, then no. As a prospect, Segura wasn't this lights out offensive monster he's been this year. None of that really matters, though. What matters is that the Cubs get potentially 3-4 arms in the deal, adding a much needed infusion of talent at the key area of need, along with a lottery ticket in Olt. If it's Ramirez, I think Ramirez/Edwards both slot in our top 15, and maybe there's a case for top 10, and Olt probably is in that mix (but haven't pondered it yet). The trade meets our needs with upside and quantity, and for that reason alone, it's a good trade.

So, I'm late to the party. I'm not ready to get excited about the deal just yet, although to be clear, I think the value is fair-to-good for less than half a season of Garza. Now, depending on who the PTBNL is, I could get excited about the deal. It's just, I've never been a Grimm fan. Even healthy, his ceiling was never huge, and I wanted ceiling in this deal. I do like CJ Edwards a fair amount, as noted, and I like Olt. Is Olt risky? Sure, but there's enough to dream on/hope for. A lot of it is similar to Brett Jackson dreaming, but the difficulty in finding third basemen might give Olt a chance if he can just hit enough (damn, that sure sounds like Brett Jackson dreaming). The way it sounds, it's as if we can stock up on two further away arms or someone closer (may be reading too much into it). Makes it sound like they want to see how Neil Ramirez does in his next few so, otherwise they would go with Plan B of taking two guys. If the result is Ramirez/Grimm/Olt/Edwards, that's a heck of a deal, 3 arms with a variety of ceiling/readiness mixed in, plus a lottery ticket gamble in Olt. To be quite honest, I'm still mildly surprised no other team tried to top that package in a seller's market. It's a good package (even if we don't get Ramirez and get value that Theo and Jed consider equal to Ramirez), but there's warts for every guy. Of course, that's colored by my perception, and maybe Theo and Jed rate these guys far higher than I do (particularly Ramirez/Olt/Grimm).

Susac's interesting; can't say I know much about Blach, aside from an insane K/BB. No thanks to Gary Brown. I like, don't love Blach. The command is obviously a big plus, but I wonder if the K's hold up the higher he goes. Perhaps it does, but I don't recall the scouting reports suggesting a plus secondary. I think Blach is something like 89-92 on the fastball, solid change, average/inconsistent breaking balls. I think the Giants can put together a good deal even if Crick and Blackburn are out of it (hard to see them fork over either guy). It'd probably be on the low end of my realistic hopes in a trade, but with guys like Susac/Stratton/Mejia/Escobar/Blach/Kickham (not all of them), there's certainly enough guys to put together a decent deal. Susac/Blach alone wouldn't be enough, though. A ton of other teams rate as being more intriguing, though.

I'm mildly surprised that Heyman is reporting that things are so far now that the Rangers are just another team in the mix. If the issue is Garza, then that's something that's going to hamper any trade. If the issue is Olt, then something like Ramirez/Edwards/Sardinas for Garza alone would seem like a decent workaround. Or even Ramirez/Edwards. That said, I really do wonder about the Nationals. This was Davey's last ride, and a make-or-break year for some. The injury to Detwiler, plus Haren's struggles, almost forces them to make a move. Granted, they could go after another arm, but they have enough chips to match up on the arm side of a Ramirez/Edwards deal. The desperation of the season is just something I wonder about there. Perhaps they offer up a Nate Karns or a Taylor Jordan (I don't think Giolito gets moved at all, but they have enough "2nd tier" arms, guys in the Ramirez mix, to put a comparable package up) to headline a multiple arms package?

I think my opinion was that the value made sense, but I was wary of Garza. He took a big, big step up after coming over. That said, I was never really against the value. I was never as big on Lee as others. I liked Archer a lot more than most (I remember some discussions here about Archer vs. McNutt and I felt like I was in the minority then arguing for Archer ahead of McNutt), but you gotta give up something to get a cost-controlled young arm. I liked Chirinos and Guyer, but they didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Depending on whom you want to believe, the possibility exists that the Cubs don't want Jackson. At least it means we just don't like him enough rather than we couldn't get him. That's fair. There's a decent chance Jackson is a pen arm. I just would be disappointed, but a case could be made that Ramirez's starting ceiling might be a tough better than Jackson's.