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You lose more than that. 1) You lose draft picks. As davell mentioned, signing Pujols and Wilson would have cost the Cubs their 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. 2) You lose roster flexibility. Signing Pujols makes an opportunity to flip Cashner for Rizzo go by the boards. Sure, you still have Cashner to trade, but who knows if there's another undervalued asset out there for him to get? The more flexibility you have for positions, the more likely it is to be able to find diamonds in the rough. 3) You lose financial flexibility. If the Cubs signed Pujols, Wilson, and Cespedes, do they have the money for even small acquisitions like Maholm? Probably not (they had a lot of money left over, but signing those 3 would have sapped it very quickly), and so you lose one of the other easy ways to build assets-buying players in free agency who just need playing time, and then flipping them when there's a need. And as sneaky mentioned, do the Cubs have the money for Soler if they put a large amount into free agents? 4) As you mentioned, your team is better so you lose draft positioning and IFA money. 5) The Cubs would also lose whatever they did or are planning to do with that 30 million dollars. I don't know how much value to put on this one because we know that money didn't go into thin air, we're pretty sure that money wasn't just pocketed by the owners, but we don't know where it went. So should free agency be completely eschewed? Maybe not. Players like Cespedes and Darvish might have qualified for more reasons than their ages. They wouldn't have cost a draft pick and they both play positions (OF and SP) where you have to have multiple of anyway. But spending big money in free agency typically is a rather poor way for the whole organization to gather assets. By staying active and staying flexible, an organization can usually pick up better assets by going a different route However, I tend to agree the Cubs could have gone the free agency route and likely succeeded in building the organization as well, although the success rate would be lower than it is now.

I'd guess mostly A, but I'd guess Theo wouldn't think it was lying. The dual fronts thing was always couched in one key component. They were going to try to win now, as long as it didn't interfere with the future. Theo stressed this repeatedly. The future always came first in every decision. If they could make a move to improve the team now without hurting the future, they'd do it because every season is precious. But they weren't willing to sacrifice the future for anything. So basically what Theo was saying with dual fronts is that the team wasn't going to actively tank. They were going to try to win, but they were going to do it with one hand tied behind their back because they were prioritizing the future in decisions much, much more than a normal team would. You could still say the statement was misleading though because Theo knew that people would jump on the dual fronts idea and downplay the thought of future based thinking, and he probably used that for PR purposes.

You're fast. I had marked the posts on page one and when I went to page two, it was gone! I'm glad to see this will be helpful for so many of you. Although it does seem to me that Peoria has usually been one of the most barren levels for prospects year after year. This year has been one of the better years, and still it hasn't had the volume of good prospects that other levels have had.

Patterson's going to prep school. We don't know at the moment (and may never know) if he didn't like the offers being presented to him, the schools suddenly cooled on him, or he couldn't end up qualifying at the places he wanted to go.

He's replacing Bynum though, and Howard's a much harder worker on the court than Bynum is. Plus Howard doesn't demand the ball like Bynum does. They'll have their moments, but I think Kobe has a better chance of being able to work well with Howard.

Why in the [expletive] would Denver do this deal? I'd rather have Afflalo than Iguodala, and they gave up Harrington and a first for the hell of it. Iguadola's a more well rounded player. Rebounds the ball quite a bit better, dishes out many more assists, and is considered a better defender as well (although Afflalo is no slouch in that department either). Afflalo is a better shooter, but I'm not sure what else he does better. I'm not sure if that's worth giving up Harrington and a first, but I think Iguadola is better.

There's always a chance they go with a spot starter in game two to keep their rotation set for next week. When I posted, they had Whitenack scheduled to start both games, which probably isn't a great idea, especially since he was under the knife just last year. Have we heard how they're going to use Hendricks? He pitched 1 inning on Friday and hasn't pitched since.

2012 - 158K Games 148 (so far) 2011 - 138K Games 115 2010 - 126K Games 128 Jackson has only played 109 games this year. That changes the comparison significantly. Here are his strikeout rates at all the full season leagues: A-25.0% High A-20.1% Double A-24.2% Triple A-32.5% So it really skyrocketed when he hit AAA. And he was even worse this season than it was in his half season last year. I read the stat 2012 wrong. I combined the last part of 2011. Duh. So it goes up when he faces better competition. Isn't that worrisome? Absolutely it is. But it's also unusual (and very unusual to keep being so productive despite it) which is why people were speculating it would normalize out after a larger sample size. That's why even after his half season at AAA last year, he was still ranked high-it was seen as a fluke. And that's why he's still seen as a decent prospect now, because nobody quite knows why it suddenly spiked or if something can be fixed that will take him back to being a high but not crazy high strikeout player.

2012 - 158K Games 148 (so far) 2011 - 138K Games 115 2010 - 126K Games 128 Jackson has only played 109 games this year, and he has 166 K's between AAA and the majors. That changes the comparison significantly. Here are his strikeout rates at all the full season leagues: A-25.0% High A-20.1% Double A-24.2% Triple A-32.5% So it really skyrocketed when he hit AAA. And he was even worse this season than it was in his half season last year.

It is interesting that his minor league BABIP was also .346, but I think that supports my point. Some loss of BABIP when facing the best defenders in baseball is to be expected. Which is what we've seen, his MLB career BABIP is now .334 after almost 1700 PAs. Is defense really collectively that much worse in the minors or is the major gap in talent among position players hitting related? It's hard to say why it is. Maybe the defense is worse, and field conditions probably have something to do with it too. The minor leagues do tend to have slightly higher BABIP's though. Every league in the minors last year had at least a .300 BABIP against (the Cubs leagues go as follows: PCL .329, SL .312, FSL .313, Midwest .306, Northwest .315, Arizona .342). The major league median (couldn't find the average) was .294.

IMO, Garza's very unlikely to settle for a 4 year deal, especially a 4 year deal that would only buy out 3 free agent years. If he wants a chance at one more contract, he'll be much more likely to ask for a longer deal with an opt out. The Cubs are likely not going to be able to extend him this offseason unless they pay him close to what he wants. And if they wait until free agency, he's probably going to command a 5 year deal taking him through his age 34 season if not 6.

I don't see the blame for the Dodgers. They just didn't value Dempster as much as other clubs did, and they never backed off of that. It was only the issues on the Cubs end that caused them to have to negotiate so much with the Dodgers in the first place.

CCP just posted he's been sitting 87-89. Yeah, I'm not really in love with the ceiling of a guy who got demoted down a level from the previous year's. Hendricks wasn't demoted. He got one random start at the end of the year at AA (probably because their season was still going). He actually jumped a level this year from short season ball to high A.

This report has him at 87-89 on his fastball, but he's added a cutter to his already deep repertoire. http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/2012/07/kyle-hendricks/ Seems like a guy who will have to prove himself as he moves up the ladder because of the inability to overpower hitters, but the level of control he's shown so far is pretty special. Could move up the rankings quickly if he could repeat anywhere near that level of control at the higher levels.

Not uncommon for a sinkerballer. His low home run rate really helps keep that in check.

http://baseballprospectnation.com/2012/01/16/scouting-report-allen-webster-rhp/

I find that very hard to believe. Unless you are basing it off those bogus "opening day payroll" numbers that USA Today and ESPN like to throw around. The numbers given in this thread are very close to the numbers Cots gives (although not quite the same). They update during the season with each new contract that is added to a payroll and are usually considered the gold standard for contract details (including money payouts to/from other clubs). Of course that just reflects money actually spent and not budget, but budgets would just be guesswork as teams are pretty tight lipped about such things.

According to Fangraphs he's been worth about $13.5 million thus far. Take that as you will. Fangraphs also has him as providing the 5th most defensive value in all of baseball (3rd most on a rate basis). He's certainly improved and was always underrated defensively to begin with, but that much? Soriano does currently have his best OPS+ number as a Cub though.

What are his numbers up to? He just made an out which made his numbers .263/.326/.382 for the season. His BB/K numbers are 23/23. BABIP of .271 on the season. And he's still 19. He'll be a very interesting guy to try to grade at the end of the season since he likely has very little power projection and middling results offset by several encouraging signs.

Insisting that he absolutely had to be sold at a time when he clearly had very little value, for starters. It's hard to argue with that. I doubt that his value could have possibly gone any lower than it was when we traded him. Zambrano had no value then, and he has no value now. I haven't heard any rumors on Zambrano. Have you? Why would the Marlins trade him? They're getting 200 innings of an average starting pitcher for pennies. Zambrano hasn't been average though. Well below average ERA+, and his peripherals are even worse. Fangraphs lists 101 qualified starters right now. Z is 77th in ERA, 91st in FIP, and 98th in xFIP. Over halfway through the season, BR has him at 0.7 WAR and Fangraphs has him at 0.6.

We're not getting a draft pick. He doesnt understand how the system works now. I don't really either, but with the last five days of news I've learned that we aren't going to get a pick out of this. Maybe WSR will figure it out in a month or two. Yeah we aren't getting a pick for him. The best thing we could have hoped for happened, then Demp [expletive] all over it. I hope he gets booed now. Had he been straight forward like Aramis was I wouldn't be this pissed. The Cubs might get a pick out of it. Nobody really knows how teams are going to value their draft budget vs upgrading their team now. Yes, they lose their first round draft slot budget, but they also don't have to sign their first round pick. So they lose a little bit of flexibility in under slotting pick 1 to spread it out for later, but they might feel it's worth it to add a pretty good starter. Of course, Dempster might not decline the offer, but if he does I think the odds are better than some others think of somebody choosing to sign him.

It doesn't take much evaluation to point out that a guy has thrived at each of the lower levels, plays a premium position, and is very young. As for the Castro comparison, the one thing that Amaya has on him, and seems to have had going for him all along is OBP, which this organization values highly. Second base is a premium position? In the only league Amaya and Castro have both played in (AZL at age 18), Castro walked 14 times in 215 PA while Amaya walked 13 times in 227 PA. Castro had a better IsoD wen you compare their rookie ball seasons. Castro showed better patience; Amaya had a higher OBP because he hit for better average but I think we all know Castro had and has a better hit tool. On the major league level, I would say second base is a premium position (or at least it should be). It's the third highest position player on the defensive spectrum behind SS and catcher, and it is the 2nd worst position in the majors for offense this year behind SS (4th last year, 3rd in 2010). People frequently put CF in as a premium position, but it is a slightly easier position on the spectrum that has hit a ton better at the plate the last few years than second base has. Maybe CF is actually harder in a vacuum, but right now a good second baseman is much scarcer and therefore more valuable. Now whether that can translate over to the prospect rank of a guy still in short season ball, that's much more debatable. Especially because of two things: since second basemen are undervalued around the league, a second baseman in the minor leagues is never going to have as much trade value as he should have, and second baseman also have a perception (at least partially based in reality) of having injury risk/longevity issues which would affect his ranking as well.

Well that would certainly suck. Would also make the "balancing out the money" side of things more interesting. Maybe we're taking on something a lot bigger? I can't imagine Theo would take Uggla, and he's the only guaranteed contract the Braves have next year (McCann and Hudson have small buyouts).

Well that explains it. Most scouts don't think Baez is going to be playing SS when he reaches MLB. Even if scouts weren't changing their minds on that, why would you rush that decision when it doesn't need to be rushed and provides no benefit? It does some provide some benefit to start learning the position earlier. But as one of the writers said recently, a SS/3B transition is one of the easier ones for a player to make. And the benefits of sticking at SS are so much more valuable than 3rd that you really shouldn't move a player until the chances are a lot lower than Baez's of sticking there.

There was nothing to get serious about; he doesn't want to play here. Just like he didn't want to play in LA? LA had been in and out as a place he might end up at. It's been pretty clear from the start that Chicago essentially had and has zero chance to keep him. Before this report, all the reports indicated Howard wanted no part of LA just as much as he did Chicago. In fact, one of the reports from last trade deadline said that Howard waived his player option in order to convince Orlando not to trade him to the Lakers. LA has stayed in the picture as has Houston because until now, LA didn't demand a Howard extension in order to pull off a deal.