Backtobanks

I think they ought to panic and make a 46 player trade (23 from each side except SS and closer) with the Cubs while paying the difference in payroll. If that's too difficult, they should panic into a deal of Gonzalez, Pedroia, and Crawford for Pena, DeWitt, and Soriano. :yahoo: An unusually realistic trade idea from you. I forgot that we need to keep Soto too.

I think they ought to panic and make a 46 player trade (23 from each side except SS and closer) with the Cubs while paying the difference in payroll. If that's too difficult, they should panic into a deal of Gonzalez, Pedroia, and Crawford for Pena, DeWitt, and Soriano. :yahoo:

Where in the world is Carlos Beltran going to play on this team? If we could find a way to move Byrd, CF. No, that would be Cubs get Beltran Aaron Hill Mets get Thomas Diamond Scott Moore Justin Berg Jays get Jeff Samardjzia Darwin Barney Nothing like being criticized about "ridiculous" trade proposals by someone who suggest we trade for a 34-year-old OF with bad knees making $18.5 million this year when we don't need an OF. :lol:

Kelly Johnson would probably be the most available/affordable because the DBacks won't be contending. Also, he's LH. Reyes and Hill might be other possibilities.

Ricketts must be a little concerned about all of those empty seats during the first weekend of the season.

I wish the White Sox gave up on Beckham. Cubs should be first in line to get him if that ever happened. You'd have an awesome, team-controlled up-the-middle core for a long time (Soto, Castro, Beckham and Jackson). As long as we're talking about untouchables (Beckham), I wouldn't mind getting Neil Walker from the Pirates.

That'd be some amazing magic because Barney was never even a decent hitter in the minors. Barney has a career .708 minor league OPS and it was never higher than .758 (his first pro season, he's been worse than that every year since). His slugging was over .400 one time during a full season and his OBP was better than .340 once. DeWitt posted a .709 OPS last year in the majors - and both Barney and DeWitt are the same age (25). Even if Rudy worked some great magic on Barney, I don't see much of a chance Darwin is even mediocre offensively. My point is that Barney had a good spring while DeWitt sucked. Give Barney a week or two to "stay hot" or show anything offensively, if not pull back the short leash and go with DeWitt. I'm sure there won't be much difference in the Cub's record if you go with Barney/Baker instead of DeWitt/Baker for a week or two.

The "experts" are putting the Cubs somewhere around .500 (78 - 85 wins), with more of them predicting just over .500. In the NL Central, that certainly gives you a shot if certain things go your way. So far, the injuries to the other contenders have helped their chances. Hopefully they get off to a fast start with 9 out of their first twelve against the Pirates, DBacks, and Astros.

Maybe the Cubs ought to play Barney (with Baker) just in case Jaramillo worked some magic on him. The worst that can happen is going back to the DeWitt/Baker platoon that everyone expected anyhow.

Where the decimal point is in his average. :yahoo:

It was refreshing to hear; I was thinking it was the most outspoken I've ever heard Hendry. However, you really have to wonder how big of a vagina Hendry actually was with Silva and letting him in on this info. I know the Cubs don't owe Silva anything other than his $$, but Hendry's comments really lead me to believe Silva had no chance from the start. Silva's an idiot and I'm happy, but I'd probably be a little pissed if I were him as well. To me, the only way Silva truly had a right to be pissed was if he had came out and pitched great this spring, Cashner didn't, and he STILL got passed over. Then, I could see him having a reason to be upset. But, he didn't.(thank the lord) It all goes back to when we traded a turd sandwich for a giant douche. Hopefully Hendry learned his lesson with that one. What lesson was that? I won't repeat BeertownCubbie, but Hendry did just fine in that situation, given the options he had. It never should have gotten to this in the first place. Along with Juan Pierre, signing Milton Bradley was one of the biggest mistakes ever made by Hendry. He did it out of a need to get "more lefthanded" which was completely idiotic given that the idea grew out of a three game sweep by the Dodgers, and ignored the fact that we were one of the best teams in baseball against righthanded pitching in 2008. It was a mistake the moment the ink dried, much like Soriano's contract. And combining this with the "Soriano Signing" thread, I wonder if the need to get "more lefthanded" was pushed on him by the manager and not necessarily Hendry's idea.

This is what I've been saying all along. It's easy for us to criticize him, but without knowing all of the behind-the-scenes stuff makes you wonder whether he deserves the criticism.

Silva was released this morning. Rangers wanted an actual piece or two for Young, not garbage, and we don't have money to make additions right now. I realize what the Rangers want for Young, but they're kidding themselves if they think they can get a decent prospect or two and not eat most of his contract. As it is they have a $48 million utility IF/part time DH. They better hope a rich contending team gets hit with an injury. Also, every month that passes Young gets more untradeable.

If Silva can pitch decently on Monday: From MLBTR: •The Rangers aren't looking for a centerfielder as they believe that Julio Borbon will be okay after suffering an elbow injury, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. It's not realistic to expect the club to land a starting pitcher either as there isn't much out there The Rangers are calling teams about Michael Young and are willing to eat about half of the $48MM remaining on his contract, tweets Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports How about talking Shark into waiving his NTC and offering this deal: Silva + Samardzija + Stevens/Berg/Diamond/Coello/Maine for Michael Young plus $20 million ($2 million in 2011, $9 million in 2012, $9 million in 2013). Rangers get possible starter plus 2 young pitchers and save $17 million ($3 million in 2011, $7 million in 2012, $7 million in 2013) Cubs get Young for $3 million in 2011, and $7 million for each of 2012 and 2013.

From MLBTR: •Matt Eddy of Baseball America explains that prospect Matt Szczur will be eligible for this winter's Rule 5 if he's not on the Cubs' 40-man roster because of a technicality

Baker against RH pitchers is like starting Koyie Hill at C for 162 games. I always wonder how a guy like Baker makes it to the ML without being able to hit RH pitching since most RH are probably 70% of all pitchers.

The gist of the article is the black hole the Cubs have had in CF for decades. Might be a nice problem to have 2 great young CFs.

Some other team might be willing to see if he reaches his potential, while the Cubs have plenty of young pitchers with more potential and smaller contracts. every team has those. such a big deal is made about his NTC, but nobody wants to trade for him and his contract. NOBODY. he has zero trade value. All of the talk about trading him would have him in a package deal with other prospects probably for someone making more money. Including him (instead of all minimum contract prospects) would be a way of leveling out some of the financial obligations.

Heaven help us with a bench that includes Perez and Hill. Zambrano might get a lot of pinch hitting opportunities.

Some other team might be willing to see if he reaches his potential, while the Cubs have plenty of young pitchers with more potential and smaller contracts.

I keep hoping the Cubs could talk him into waiving his NTC and use him in a trade package at some point. His $3 million contract would look good on another team.

Pretty much. No teams playoff hopes have ever hinged on a backup catcher. Its good to have the better bat on the bench, but they rarely go to the backup catcher to pinch hit. After Soto hopefully proving that 2009 was the fluke and not 2010, I cant imagine that they would platoon him with anypne anyway. However, Max Ramirez is an intriguing, out of options player, and Id prefer that we keep him up as backup with Castillo in AAA. Moot point since Koyie "Babe Ruth" Hill will be the backup catcher.

MLBTR is reporting that the Nationals could be shopping IRod, who is owed $3 million for this year. Obviously he's pretty far over the hill, but what about: Silva plus $4-5 million for IRod and then cut/trade Hill. Maybe throw in a prospect both ways to make it work.

I thought we only owed him 6 mil this season, after the Mariners picked up 5.5 of his 11.5 salary? If I had to guess how this plays out, Hendry is probably trying to trade him right now but wont find a taker. He'll probably push Cashner into the pen and let Silva start a few times. Those starts wont go well, we'll cut Silva, and try to move Cashner back into the rotation but probably give him a minor arm injury in the process of stretching him back out. We'll watch Coleman get pounded for a few weeks until Cashner is ready to start pitching again. Cashner will be ineffective and an MRI will show a tear in his elbow. He'll miss the next year after Tommy John surgery, and be stuck in the pen permanently after that, as he "couldn't handle a starter's workload." On the fringes of playoff contention at about 6 games back, we'll trade for Paul Maholm for the stretch run. We wont give up too much to acquire him, but Hendry will resign him to an overly expensive contract in the offseason. Probably about 3 years, 18 mil. Forever the optimist.

From MLBTR: Rangers Still Asking A Lot For Michael Young By Tim Dierkes [March 14 at 9:34am CST] The Rangers still want top prospects in return for infielder Michael Young, reports ESPN's Buster Olney, and "don't want to eat as much of the $48 million still owed to Young over the next three years." Olney's sources view Young as a $6-7MM player (presumably per year) as opposed to the $16MM per year he's owed. The Diamondbacks reportedly expressed interest in Young in the first week in March, and other teams have come up in a speculative sense, but there seems to be a gulf between the Rangers' perception of Young's value and that of possible suitors. The Rangers are delusional.