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I'm not sure you can ever sell high on Marshall. I doubt his value around the league will ever approach his actual value. Marmol would be a different story and there are definitely reasonable arguments for trading him and for keeping him.

Hendry wants to keep the guys who can help him in 2012. What's wrong with that?

Uh, best case for Borbon is Michael Bourn. Michael Bourn is barely Juan Pierre in his prime. The day the Cubs put out a lineup with Fukudome, Borbon, Castro, Barney, Koyie Hill, and LeMahieu in it....I quit. I'd love it if Borbon became Michael Bourn. Bourn's one of the few guys in the league who should be a legitimate All-Star almost every year with very little power. But I don't think Borbon could even come close to Bourn so I would not be in favor of acquiring him.

Raley's last 6 starts: 37.1 IP, 34 H, 17 R, 9 ER, 1 HR, 8 BB, 20 K Not saying I'm excited about him, but for a guy I had pretty much completely written off he's got some encouraging signs. Very nice control shown by him lately (both with the walks and the lack of HR). For a guy who's basically in his second pro season and is still not too old for AA, he's still got some potential. He still needs to increase his strikeouts to be anything more than a guy who could be a marginally ok major leaguer though.

I have never really understood why everyone refers to Pierre as a "base stealing threat". He gets caught A LOT and defensively, if he gets on base you should be hoping that he tries to steal. You have a 50/50 shot at wiping away a hit/walk etc. Pierre's almost a career 75% basestealer. For a guy who has stolen 537 bases in his career that's a pretty big basestealing threat. He's had some years where his numbers have been pretty poor, but he's had others where he was excellent on the basepaths.

Your right he doesn't "quit" on a ball 20 feet from a wall, he just slows down to a slow trot on anything hit toward a wall so he doesn't get there to crash into the wall and plays it after it hits the ground or the wall. Sure, why not? You are confused about why an OF would want to try hard to catch a batted ball on the fly? Not at all. Any player is going to avoid crashing into a wall if they can. And BtB description is ridiculous because he's trying to make it sound like Soriano is acting like he's on the verge of slamming into the wall left and right instead of, y'know, playing a ball off the wall like everyone else does. It's just indicative of the irrational hatred the guy gets; if he's not slamming into the wall or diving for balls every other game he's worthless and a coward. Exaggeration aside, Soriano is probably the worst player in the league at going back to the wall on a ball. He does act afraid of the wall, and also has trouble playing angles and jumping at the wall. It's the worst part of his game. Soriano of course also has big parts of his defense that are well above average. His arm is excellent and I tend to think he moves better sideways then most outfielders.

So why not just wait and cut him when he sucks? Because first, you have to waste a year finding out he's terrible. Either he's hurt and you have a bench player all year or he's just terrible in your lineup. Between that and the dead money after cutting him you could very well lose more than 27 million.

The issue with Soriano is that there is more downside risk than upside. The most likely option is that he is worth 10-12 million over the next year or two. But all the other probable options are bad. He could easily get hurt and provide less value than that. His peripherals suggest a possible decline (his home run/FB rate is one of the highest of his career, his BB's are down, his K's are up). If he could be traded with eating 27 million, I think I would take that deal. I wouldn't take much more than that, but I'd rather trust a different 10 million dollar OF right now than trusting Soriano to keep up his production.

Suddenly Pena's up to an .812 OPS on the season.

For those of us not able to see the game, what is he ranting about? My guess is the errors by Cub pitchers. Nah, this time it was the strike zone. Garza had thrown 3 strikes according to their strike zone and yet only 1 of those was called. His biggest rant today was probably earlier in the game when Soto and Pena let a foul ball popup drop between them.

There's the potential risk that the interim GM makes short-sighted moves in an effort to impress his bosses with a meaningless W/L record. It may not make a difference to the Ricketts, but it might and that may be enough for an interim to buy instead of sell at the deadline. Why would the bosses be impressed by a meaningless W/L record? Seems to me that taking a 15-under club and making them deadline buyers would be a great way to ensure you *don't* get the job fulltime. I mean seriously, have at least a little faith that the Ricketts can see what's what here. Yeah, I'd be more worried that Bush wouldn't be able to get as many assets from selling as Hendry would. I don't see Bush even being tempted into buying unless Hendry was fired tomorrow and the Cubs got quite a bit closer in July.

Even if Reed had 300 AB's against right-handers this season it wouldn't be enough to overcome the rest of his career. It's possible he's an incredibly late developer, but the odds are very, very strongly on the side of sample size. He might have done well enough that the Cubs might choose to keep them on their bench again next season, but anything more than that would be way overrating the results he's gotten so far.

Sounds like a deal! Wow, that is awesome. =D> I'm trying to decide whether to like this deal. I like Hill, but I liked Leonard and the Pacers lost both their 2nd round pick and the rights to Lorbek. Lorbek will be annoying because he'll probably come over now that he's on the Spurs even though he wouldn't come over to Indiana all these years. I'm just trying to figure out where Hill fits. Is he just the backup point guard/shooting guard? Are they going to push Collison or George to the bench? Before the draft, if you told me the Pacers could turn the No. 15 pick into George Hill, I would have been thrilled. However, I was ecstatic to be able to pick Kawhi Leonard at No. 15. So I'm kind of torn (feel a bit like trading Bayless a few years ago). Leonard is a bit of a redundancy on the Pacers, so I understand it from that aspect . . . but Hill seems a bit redundant too. I'm not sure if he replaces Collison or George or if he's the third guard. I'm pretty happy about the trade, but still digesting. Regardless, the Pacers still need a power forward/athletic big man. I was presuming Hill would slot as the starting 2 guard but I could be wrong. I highly doubt he is being brought in to replace Collison unless a corresponding trade is in the works. George can still be a big part of the rotation. I was thinking the acquisition of Hill would mean two things: 1) Brandon Rush is definitely gone and 2) A.J. Price's minutes as backup PG could decline since Hill can play both guard positions. Overall I just feel like the Pacers already have a nice nucleus of young talent and now is the time to add more proven NBA talent to the roster. I will admit I know nothing about the Leonard kid though so drafting him did not excite me much before the trade was announced. The Pacers guards would just get abused defensively if Hill is the starting 2 guard too often. A 6 foot 0 and 6 foot 2 set of guards presents bad matchups everywhere. If Hill replaces Collison, then the Pacers will be hurt offensively but will be really good defensively. Hill, George, and Granger will be a tough core to get by and if they add a good power forward/center to go along with Hibbert that could be a monster defensive lineup. Hill coming off the bench and playing 30 minutes a game is probably the way to go. The majority of those should be at point guard and sprinkle in a little shooting guard time. I would rank replacing Collison and going with the defensive matchup as the 2nd best option. If they acquired Hill to primarily be a shooting guard, then I'm not sure he fits. Leonard will probably be a pretty good NBA player. But I do question where he would have gotten playing time with the Pacers. He probably would have played a lot of small 4 position in Indiana and his skills will translate better to the 3 since his rebounding will be a huge asset from that position.

Doesn't Ramirez have a buyout ($2M) if the mutual option isn't picked up by the Cubs? The Cubs will pay the $2M instead of bringing him back for $16M. The $16M option becomes guaranteed if he gets traded. So, the Cubs simply will not trade him unless they can negotiate a deal where they're only on the hook for less than the remainder of this season plus $2M or get significant player value back that justifies the additional expenditure. I don't see either scenario as being likely. I think Ramirez is on the Cubs for the remainder of the season and then becomes a free agent. EDIT - "unless" > "if" Big difference. Ramirez deal doesnt get kicked in with trade according to Levine Yeah, I saw someone mention that on a comment on one of the fangraphs articles as well. That clause has apparently expired at this point.

So Minnesota has traded from 20 to 23 to 28 and now what did they get now?

Sounds like a deal! Wow, that is awesome. =D> I'm trying to decide whether to like this deal. I like Hill, but I liked Leonard and the Pacers lost both their 2nd round pick and the rights to Lorbek. Lorbek will be annoying because he'll probably come over now that he's on the Spurs even though he wouldn't come over to Indiana all these years. I'm just trying to figure out where Hill fits. Is he just the backup point guard/shooting guard? Are they going to push Collison or George to the bench?

Arizona named an interim general manger when Byrnes was fired from inside the organization. The Mariners also named a interim general manager from inside the organization when Bavasi was fired midseason. DePodesta was fired after the season. If the Cubs fired Hendry now the precedent that other teams have set would have Bush take over as the interim.

I haven't ever been the biggest Zambrano fan, but I don't see any purpose whatsoever to dealing him as a salary dump. First of all, his contract isn't that bad. Yes, he has a lot of money on the books for the next few years, but he is also still a very productive starting pitcher. Secondly, who are the Cubs going to replace him with? Why dump salary to leave a gaping hole that you need to spend more money to fill? There is clearly nobody in the minor league system who is ready to step into the rotation at any point in the near future. Unless someone is willing to pay his salary and send something in return, I don't see any reason to consider a trade. He actually only has 1 more year beyond this one left on his deal. And the upside to trading him is that you might be able to find a pitcher who can fill his spot for less money than Z makes next year. The pitching market is a bit thin after the season but there are a few interesting names. If you sign one of them for 10-12 million and he gives you the same production that Z was doing for 18 then you have much more flexibility. But it really depends on how good you view Z as this point. If you see him as a lock for a sub 3.8 ERA then your options for replacement become much more limited. If he's a guy who could put up a 3.7 or an ERA above 4 in a given year then they start to open up. I wouldn't be thrilled if they only got salary relief, but would be ok if it got rid of his whole contract. I definitely would be upset if the Cubs are paying any appreciable amount with no solid prospects coming back because then there's no upside to the deal.

You just made me look up his hit chart. Interesting to see that he makes the majority of his outs on ground balls to the left side and his fly ball outs are almost exclusively to center or right (at least from his home data). His hits are pretty close to as all over the field as you can get though.

They might wait the whole season because of how young he is, although I don't know Tampa's philosophy on promoting prospects. Lee is having a fantastic season and will move up prospect lists although his total numbers are a bit inflated. His BABIP is still crazy high (.401), the 7 3B is probably a little bit of an anomaly and after hitting 2 HR in April he hasn't hit one since. So his numbers will probably keep falling as they have been in May and June, but it's still been a very big step forward for him.

4 WAR is probably understating Soriano a little bit. He was hurt most of 2009 when he put up that -0.1. He rebounded with a 3 last year and looks to be on pace for about a 2.5 this year. I would eat 20-30 million of it right now for him to go away. I doubt you'd find anybody to take him at that price though. In another year or two the options for trading him might open up a little more.

That's kind of a ridiculous claim to make. You should never trade any potential star for a Cy Young caliber pitcher? They got a very young stud arm. It's not like they traded him for an innings eater. Sure, they probably weren't expected 950 OPS seasons out of him, but pretending they had no inclinations that he was going to be good is just wrong. Well, there's a big difference in believing somebody's going to be good and knowing they are going to be a star. You don't trade your 21 year old SS if you know they're going to be a star because that is the most valuable piece you can have in baseball. 25 year old pitchers like that don't come on the market very often either (although Beckett was only 2 years away from free agency at the time) so I understand why they did it but they clearly undervalued Hanley by a lot.

Yeah, if they knew he would be a star then trading for Beckett was incredibly short-sighted. They would have much rather had Hanley than Beckett the last 6 years, and that isn't even accounting for the money they would have saved to use on another pitcher. I was under the impression that Hanley was widely considered to be a star in the making at the time of the trade. Maybe they didn't think he'd be as good as he ending up being so soon, but he was star material nonetheless. He was rated as the #30th best prospect in baseball at the time of the trade after being the 10th best the year before (he had a .720 OPS at the age of 21 in AA the year before the trade which dropped him a little bit). Boston didn't have SS blocked though-they ended up putting Alex Gonzalez there the next year. If they had any confidence at all that he was going to be a star, they shouldn't have made the deal. They could have gone out and bought a pitcher in free agency instead. It looks more like they tried to sell high while Hanley's value was still good and it ended up biting them pretty badly.

Yeah, if they knew he would be a star then trading for Beckett was incredibly short-sighted. They would have much rather had Hanley than Beckett the last 6 years, and that isn't even accounting for the money they would have saved to use on another pitcher.

If he stays hot through July it shouldn't be a problem, but that is still up for debate. And you have to get more than the mediocrity they've gotten for some other veteran dumps in recent years. I just don't see the point in acquiring more filler for the system. If they can get a potential impact player, terrific. If he was blocking somebody there could be motivation for moving him for the sake of moving him, but he's not even close to blocking somebody already in the system. Because trading for raw prospects pans out sometimes. Ceda and Hart weren't thought of as good prospects when the Cubs acquired them but they were later used as currency in other deals. Murton wasn't a key piece but gave the Cubs a couple pretty good seasons. And I can see the Cubs getting better than that for Pena. They should get 1 guy in the back end of somebody's top 10 and another guy in the top 20 which would be useful to have. The only real benefit I see to keeping him is if you want to offer arbitration. I bet he'll sneak into B level compensation so then you either bring him back or get a draft pick. If they aren't planning on offering arbitration they might as well trade him and either save some money, get some prospects, or both.