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I'd be surprised if Pena couldn't get a multi-year deal if he wanted it. He'll probably end up in the 825-850 OPS range with good defense and 25-35 homers. That will be a big change from last year with both the disappointing year and possible injury concerns. Well, I guess I wonder with "multi-year" is. I could see him getting 2-3 years, but I wouldn't consider that "long-term". For his age 3 years is a long-term deal. I would think he'd get either 2-3 years on a deal.

I'd be surprised if Pena couldn't get a multi-year deal if he wanted it. He'll probably end up in the 825-850 OPS range with good defense and 25-35 homers. That will be a big change from last year with both the disappointing year and possible injury concerns.

I think you have to wait for his numbers to start looking a lot more impressive, and then think long and hard about what you are going to do at 1B next year. The Cubs were never going to get Pujols, and the likelihood probably went down with the injury. But they need a 1B next year, regardless. If you are just going to get another fringe prospect, there's really no point. I really think folks are missing the possibility that the Cubs may be angling to extend Pena. They certainly might be. If they do want to trade him though, I have no idea why they would have a hard time convincing teams. Over 900 OPS each of the last two months. Much better in his career after the All-Star Break than before (.885 after vs .797 before). If they can't convince a team that Pena'a April was a combination of a cold start/April weather, then that is a pretty poor negotiating job.

Hendry's best move this year. So much for all of the wannabe GMs here who were begging for Adam Dunn. You're kidding, right? You're going to sit there and pretend that ANYONE predicted that Dunn would fall off a cliff this season? I thought he was going to put up monster power numbers in the Cell and I think most people felt the same way. His sudden fall off is really shocking. Anyone who says they foresaw this is almost certainly a liar. The guy had been the model of consistency for years. I was not in favor of signing him to a multiyear deal, but I thought he was absolutely going to be productive offensively. I would say it's surprising but not shocking. Players with Dunn's skills have fallen off suddenly before. And Dunn's BB/K ratio did get much worse last season which is a warning sign. But I tend to believe he's out of rhythm after his appendectomy, and even if he doesn't turn it around this season he has at least one very good season left in him.

I'm definitely not seeing the same thing you are. 10/10 SB is pretty solid. I have noticed the same thing that 9YR has when Castro runs to 1st especially on a few of his DP balls. There have been balls that I expect a middle IF to beat out the relay throw that he has been thrown out easily on. But his play in the field and his SB numbers don't suggest he's slow, so I don't know if it's just perception.

Not necessarily. Average is defined by all the players who play in MLB in a given year, but the pool of available players is deeper than that. Between backups and minor leaguers there are plenty of people who could be above average if just given the opportunity. The amount of players who could realistically do that could vary based on position. That is especially true in the middle infield, where some teams may promote a defensive first player and others are more likely to give playing time based off of offensive potential.

I feel like the Cubs went cheap in the 2010 draft. A big market team should not be spending in the middle of the pack. I'm not condoning wasting money and if someone told me that the 2010 pool of players was below average I guess that would make a difference. Simpson was not/is not a first round talent, at least at this point. Sure he had the illness, but he is doing very little right now in A ball to warrant that selection. I realize that the draft is a gamble in some respects but an aging team with an average farm system should be spending BIG on the draft IMO. I didn't see that last year and until I see more signings from the 2011 class I'll stick by my gut feeling that Ricketts is saying what the fans want to hear while not following up on those statements. It makes no sense that the Cubs would go with the draft philosophy they did in 2011 if they were planning to go cheap. I have no idea how many of the guys they will actually sign, but you don't draft a bunch of players out of high school along with a few guys that will require major overslots without some indication that you will have a pretty good budget at your disposal. How desperate will the Cubs get if some of these players ask for more money than expected? I don't know. But they had a pathway to draft decent talent without spending tons of money and they chose to go with the high upside high risk guys instead. I HATE the fact that I have become so cynical. Having said that...... ...if the Cubs didn't want to spend and they don't sign these kids, they could easily blame it on unrealistic bonus demands. I know it sounds hard to believe but it sincerely bothers me that I have become so cynical. Like I said above, I'll believe it when I see it with Ricketts. If they sign all these draftees I'll eat my words. edit: formatting I understand somewhat being cynical, but I don't get the motive for the Cubs. Why would they want to draft those guys just to not sign them? They have to fill their minor league rosters somehow. If they just wanted to do that with cheap guys they could have drafted college players who didn't have as many options. It's not like they're getting good PR for drafting all these guys because most of the fanbase doesn't know or care about overslots or draft budgets. Now will they chicken out when it comes time to actually put up the money? That is certainly possible. But the draft they had is not consistent with going into the draft intent on not spending money.

Their theoretical ceilings say nothing about how easy it will be to get above average production in 2012. The Cubs have Carlos Pena and tons of cash. Those two options are at least as likely to result in above average production at 1B in 2012. The original point was that the Cubs should use that money on other positions besides second base because 2B was the best chance of filling a position with decent to good players from the farm system. Your example of Pena and money is irrelevant to that point.

He has been for a month and a half. They started out toward the top of that list, have been plummetting, and will go even lower once Utley registers enough PA to bump their totals. The Cubs sucked at 2B in 2009 and 2010. They could easily be on their way to sucking at 2B in 2011. There is no way you can claim they will easily fill 2B with above average production next year. That is a baseless comment. I said easiest, not necessarily easily. The Cubs prospects may bust. That doesn't mean they should block them because they're afraid of that happening. The Cubs have to identify areas that they can get cheap average to above average production at. Right now, 2B seems to be the top of the list in that department. They have close to 5 legitimate options there to start next season. And it's going to be pretty hard for the Cubs to drop much further in the rankings. Philly will pass them, but everybody else behind them is way behind them. Again, it's a baseless comment. I could say 1B will be the easiest to fill with above average production. You could, but I'm not sure what it would be based on. My comment is based on the Cubs prospects minor league statistics (and a little bit of scouting reports) compared to the major league averages for the position. I'm not sure what more you can base things off of when deciding when it is worth it to bring up a prospect to play a position.

I feel like the Cubs went cheap in the 2010 draft. A big market team should not be spending in the middle of the pack. I'm not condoning wasting money and if someone told me that the 2010 pool of players was below average I guess that would make a difference. Simpson was not/is not a first round talent, at least at this point. Sure he had the illness, but he is doing very little right now in A ball to warrant that selection. I realize that the draft is a gamble in some respects but an aging team with an average farm system should be spending BIG on the draft IMO. I didn't see that last year and until I see more signings from the 2011 class I'll stick by my gut feeling that Ricketts is saying what the fans want to hear while not following up on those statements. It makes no sense that the Cubs would go with the draft philosophy they did in 2011 if they were planning to go cheap. I have no idea how many of the guys they will actually sign, but you don't draft a bunch of players out of high school along with a few guys that will require major overslots without some indication that you will have a pretty good budget at your disposal. How desperate will the Cubs get if some of these players ask for more money than expected? I don't know. But they had a pathway to draft decent talent without spending tons of money and they chose to go with the high upside high risk guys instead.

He has been for a month and a half. They started out toward the top of that list, have been plummetting, and will go even lower once Utley registers enough PA to bump their totals. The Cubs sucked at 2B in 2009 and 2010. They could easily be on their way to sucking at 2B in 2011. There is no way you can claim they will easily fill 2B with above average production next year. That is a baseless comment. I said easiest, not necessarily easily. The Cubs prospects may bust. That doesn't mean they should block them because they're afraid of that happening. The Cubs have to identify areas that they can get cheap average to above average production at. Right now, 2B seems to be the top of the list in that department. They have close to 5 legitimate options there to start next season. And it's going to be pretty hard for the Cubs to drop much further in the rankings. Philly will pass them, but everybody else behind them is way behind them.

Who specifically are you talking about? Barney, DeWitt, Baker, Lemahieu? If you want a good hitting 2B, you actually need a pretty good hitter. It's a productive position nowadays. They Cubs have been plugging holes at 2B for a while now and they have only on occasion filled it with actual production. and Flaherty and others. The Cubs system is filled with middle infield options. And 2B is still not that productive overall-most teams tend to still fill it with poor hitting players. Sure, the crappy teams have crappy 2B. But the good ones generally get actual production there. And the point is to try and be good. True, the good teams tend to get slightly better production out of 2B than the others. The key point is that of all the spots on the field that's the one the Cubs should be able to fill easiest with an above average player. So it's less effective to get a stud there when there are other holes that the system will not be able to fill so easily. Barney hasn't been terrible at 2nd, and he's probably the worst option of all the ones in the Cubs system.

Who specifically are you talking about? Barney, DeWitt, Baker, Lemahieu? If you want a good hitting 2B, you actually need a pretty good hitter. It's a productive position nowadays. They Cubs have been plugging holes at 2B for a while now and they have only on occasion filled it with actual production. and Flaherty and others. The Cubs system is filled with middle infield options. And 2B is still not that productive overall-most teams tend to still fill it with poor hitting players.

I did forget about Silva and more importantly Ramirez, so 85 million is more accurate as a raw number. Still, like CCP's example illustrates, that gets eaten up quickly with the raises to other players coming up(and that example assumes we let Marmol and Marshall walk, which is a frightening thought at this point). Marmol's one of the two players under contract for 2013 so that's not an issue.

Ack, had a post then lost it. Long story short, the Cubs have about 64 million coming off the payroll the next 2 years . Considering Prince/Kemp/Reyes are looking at 17-18+ per year, that doesn't really leave you the necessary resources to fill out a rotation that would consist of Garza, Wells, and a pocketful of wishes. ? Am I missing something? Cots shows a payroll of $134 mil this year, $72.6 for 2012 and 28.8 for 2013. Even figuring the number of arbitration eligible guys they have, appears to be six, and the raises they'll get, that's a lot more than $64 mil coming off over the next two years. They could sign Prince and Reyes this year and have plenty of money next year for Kemp and at least one high quality pitcher. And still end up with a lower payroll than they have now. If you have 28.8 million in 2013 and you add Kemp/Prince/Reyes at 18 each per year and a high quality pitcher at 13, then you have a payroll of 95 million already. Garza/Soto will probably together be around 20 million by that point so you're already at 115. Wells will probably be 3-5 million by then so 118-120. Castro will probably be another 4-5. So that's 122-125 and that's only 10 players. So they would only have 10 million or so for the other 15 players. Unless the Cubs go to a complete stars/scrubs model, there's no way they can sign that many elite players.

http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r71/bcvm22/sigzeon/soto_lol.png Hilarious. I saw that on SportsCenter. Soto laughing after Guillen kicked his catcher's mask was amazing. Did the broadcast show a good view on whether or not that ball actually rolled foul? In the highlights I just watched on MLB.com, it was a field level view and it looked like the ball was right on the edge of the plate, but I couldn't tell. They eventually did a freeze frame of the play, and it looked like part of the ball was on the plate which made it a good call.

The Cubs didn't exactly blow up the team after the last playoff year. 6 of the 8 position players started both years. 4 of the 5 starting pitchers were the same and 2 of the top 4 bullpen arms. That's pretty good stability. And of the players they lost, one of the position players had a poor year the next year while the other one didn't even play in MLB that year. The starter was pretty good for his new team (but replaced with someone even better) and the setup guy was good for his new team but the closer was not. If the Cubs had kept everybody they still would have struggled.

The incredible plate coverage was a consistent part of his scouting report. It's one of the main things that scouts saw that kept them thinking Vitters could improve greatly. It hasn't really shown itself in his statistics until this year..

That's not a surprise. The only real possibilities are players like Pena, Byrd, Baker, and Grabow which would save very little money and net us no-name prospects. I'm not so sure about that. Pena has had two good months in a row-one more solid month and he could get us something decent. A big left-handed power bat is always useful to somebody. Baker is a question of need. If somebody happens to have a need of a person who mashes left-handers and can play all over the field he could get something back. I doubt the Cubs look real hard to trade him though. Another name that could get something is Fukudome. The Cubs might have to eat some money (because so many teams cannot add payroll) but he's been so good this year and is a relatively rare skillset on the market.

Yup. That's a big reason why the Cubs have to continue to pursue trades like the one they did for Garza (on a smaller scale). The depth gets squeezed the closer it gets to the majors. If you don't make moves to constantly be removing the depth, you'll have people either being lost because of 40 man concerns or languishing in AAA and losing any value. IMO that's the proper way to be using a system that is better with depth than quality.

I don't think you can list 3B as a likely upgrade, nor expect it to be easy to upgrade it. So you don't think they can find something better than a .750 OPS out of third base next year? Whether Aramis stays or goes, I expect better performance than that. Heck, I expect a much better performance than that out of 3B by the end of this year. 3B is not an easy position to find a great or even good offensive player at. It wasn't easy even 4-5 years ago and it's gotten much harder now. The Cubs best chance for one who's better next year is probably Aramis but that's far from from a guarantee. I fully expect Aramis to finish this season around .810 - .820, even after his poor start. If we keep him, I'd expect him to be easily better than .750 again. I know 3B production is way down this year, but I don't believe it would be THAT hard to find someone to post a .775 OPS there next year, which would be a significant upgrade over the current production of .745 from 2011 Aramis. I'd have a hard time seeing Aramis get that high. He'd probably have to average between an .870 and a .900 OPS the rest of the way and while I think that's possible considering his age and the lack of power around the league I would think that would have to be unlikely. As for next year, finding a guy who could post a .775+ OPS will probably be pretty easy. Finding a guy who will project to be that high will be difficult IMO.

I don't think you can list 3B as a likely upgrade, nor expect it to be easy to upgrade it. So you don't think they can find something better than a .750 OPS out of third base next year? Whether Aramis stays or goes, I expect better performance than that. Heck, I expect a much better performance than that out of 3B by the end of this year. 3B is not an easy position to find a great or even good offensive player at. It wasn't easy even 4-5 years ago and it's gotten much harder now. The Cubs best chance for one who's better next year is probably Aramis but that's far from from a guarantee.

2008-2010 OPS's against left-handers Castro-.897 Johnson-.842 Baker-.906 Ramirez-.810 Soto-.935 Montanez-.441 Dewitt-.759 LeMahieu-unknown Zambrano-looks to be around .800 (estimating from year by year split) They could get shut down tonight, but this isn't a bad lineup against left-handers. It would be a pretty incredible lineup if both Byrd and Soriano could play (with DeWitt shifting to 2nd) but it's still pretty good even without them.

Where do you find his current error totals? http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=t_ibp&cid=553 It may just be my perception, but I don't think he's made as many errors lately.

Just look at his data on fangraphs. You think it's the cold weather that's causing such a turnaround in GB/FB? No, I think it is mostly a sample size issue. I'm also mostly done with this debate. He's a decent pitcher who not a great pitcher and I don't think the Cubs should have traded for, that's my opinion. What about the fact that he's only throwing fastballs 55% of the time instead of over 70% like he did the last 3 years in Tampa? Garza's using his changeup and slider a lot more than he used to and that's causing more strikeouts and ground balls. All those numbers will probably normalize a little bit (including home runs), but Garza's numbers aren't just a sample size issue. He's completely changed his pitch selection on the mound.