Have a seat, Neifi

Besides the fact that this still doesn't make the Royals a postseason team -- or even particularly close, given their holes in numerous other places -- Shields's home/road splits would scare the crap out of me. From 2010-12, dude has been significantly better in pitching haven Tropicana Field than on the road. (Granted, many of his road starts would obviously be @ AL East competition in AL East ballparks, inflating his Away numbers.)

keithlaw ‏@keithlaw One final thought before I sign off: Talked to a bunch of scouts/FO folks tonight. Every last one of them said the Rays came out way ahead.

Royals also giving up Odorizzi, Montgomery, and someone 3B prospect named Leonard.

Phil Rogers ‏@ChiTribRogers Cubs were bidding for Brandon McCarthy, who has agreed to 2-year, $15.5 million deal with AZ. They offered 2 yr deal heavy on bonuses.

You are not getting Giancarlo effing Stanton for anything short of Castro +, or Rizzo/Baez/Shark/etc. Dude is probably one of the 4 or 5 most valuable assets in all of MLB.

Hardball Talk ‏@HardballTalk Royals willing to include top prospect Wil Myers in trade for a frontline starting pitcher http://dlvr.it/2X8H7c #mlb #hbt

I would not want the Cubs to make that trade. I don't think the Diamondback would want to make that trade, either.

When did Berthume leave ESPN? Has to be fairly recent, no? They aren't officially announcing the pairing until Monday so that Berthume can work at ESPN through the weekend. I like Berthiaume. That should be a good booth. Not a Berthiaume fan. Once heard him go on a huge rant on the ESPN baseball podcast about how he still loves the pitcher win stat and thinks the backlash against it is ridiculous.

Also, love love LOVE the idea of Dave Campbell. Always thought he did a great job with ESPN. I doubt he'll get a look given his age and ostensible lack of connections to our FO, but I'd love him as our new color guy.

Smoltz is terrible. Sutcliffe talks at a nice pace / rhythm and is pleasant to listen to, but he seems a bit dopey and old-school to me. Sheehan would be amazing, but I don't think the baseball powers-that-be are ready for that quite yet.

Breaking News: Lovie Smith isn't very smart.

That was...predictable.

No, I said he can slot into his spot, but needs to get his velo back and innings up. Not really sure why you'd think that meant immediately whatsoever. Maybe I should have worded that a bit differently but it's not close to even being the first time I've mentioned him and figure most know he's coming off TJS and won't be doing much this year. At any rate, that's not what SSR is talking about, he's disputing the talent. And he's just wrong. ESPN's write up put his ceiling as a #3 starter. John Sickels also described him as a potential mid-rotation starter.

Not sure where else to put this, but the Red Sox reportedly placed Adrian Gonzalez on waivers and has been claimed by the Dodgers. Pretty crazy.

No, not at all. But I do think these guys actually want to do what Hendry once said: get good and stay that way. Sure, I think it can be done different, to an extent than what they're doing it. But I think the renovation and the soon to be expiring WGN deal are both playing a major factor in all of this. They won't suck tremendously for both 2013 and 2014, but I totally expect next year to be like this one. And then once the system has a very solid base, to start making trades from it right after that. If I tried pinpointing it, I guess I see 65ish wins next year, maybe 75 in 2014 and hopefully 90+ for 5 of the following 7, with injuries, bad luck, whatever being the dropff for the other 2. Well, I'm sorry but that's just a [expletive] ridiculous plan. Let's be bad for 3 years and assume the rest figures itself out. What would be your plan for putting a 90-win team on the field in 2013?

Well he didn't try to minimize it. (not directed at you, just seemed like the right type of post to reply to with this http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8282185/san-francisco-giants-melky-cabrera-launched-fake-website-ruse-report-says I was just about to post the link to that article. A pretty hilarious and almost-clever-but-mostly-inane attempt to cover up his TST test using a fake product website. Can't make this stuff up.

Agreed. Nor do I think Rizzo can either (especially when you're projecting out 3-4 years in advance). I don't see these guys on the same team unless the NL adopts the DH. Have there even been rumors of this happening? I can only remember various sportswriters or blogs speculating that it will happen at some point, but nothing from an actual source inside baseball. I do recall that speculation picked up about an eventual transition to an NL DH once it was announced that Houston was moving to the AL, thus creating two 15-team leagues and the necessity of constant interleague play. That would seem to further lessen the perceived uniqueness of the two leagues vis-a-vis one another. In terms of the stakeholders involved, it seems like most--if not all--would be in favor of it. The owners probably would assume an NL DH would lead to increased run scoring, which in turn might boost attendance and TV ratings. Front offices might want it for the purposes of scouting teams and/or players from the other league. And I would assume the players would be OK with it as it would theoretically extend the careers of position players while offering more opportunities for positionless players in college or HS yet to be drafted. (Of course, I guess the Carlos Zambranos of the world might resist the idea of giving up their ABs, but I can't say how many pitchers really enjoy hitting and baserunning. Some pitchers might be in favor of foregoing hitting out of the belief that it would reduce injury risk by no longer having to hit or run the bases.) I personally hope it happens. Watching pitchers swing and miss on three down-Broadway fastballs, with the occasional attempted sacrifice bunt sprinkled in, doesn't really do a whole lot for me.

David Kaplan ‏@thekapman Cubs Scouting director Tim Wilken has been reassigned to a role as Special Assistant to Theo Epstein. Jaron Madison is new scouting director

Obligatory Kevin Goldstein tweet:

72, tops.

Take what personally? That they didn't want to give up their top pitching prospects for 11 starts of Ryan Dempster?

I still don't see what the issue is. Player development is not strictly linear and never has been. This isn't Baseball Mogul. He might appear to be sliding back in some areas (contact, line drive rate) while improving in others (power, drawing walks). The juggling analogy is pretty apt. It takes each player varying amounts of time to learn how to juggle all of the balls he's capable of, and there's no mathematical equation or age cut-off we can definitively rely on to gauge "development." Starlin will get there. What the 'there' is simply isn't clear yet.

Yea, I listened to his podcast as well. Law's definitely a huge fan of this trade from the Cubs' perspective. He also mentioned that the current recovery rate for TJS is around 85% and that Vizcaino's TJS could have the effect of "cleaning out once and for all" all of the elbow problems he experienced previously.

Hunter Pence to SFG.