Backtobanks

so if he's performing great and is cheap, why would the nationals give him to us for our crap? He was performing and cheap with the Pirates when they traded him. I'm thinking the Nationals need so much that an offer of Hart plus a lower prospect might give them a young, cheap pitcher who can start or relieve plus a prospect.

I think extending Wilson and Sanchez is a move to save the few fans they have left since neither Wilson or Sanchez will be around when the Pirates are competitive again.

While I agree that I would like to upgrade the offense, there aren't many options out there. As others have pointed out, 2B is where we would have to look. The real upgrade would be Sanchez, but it looks like Hendry is in a financial crunch. The only real hope the Cubs have is that the players they have (Bradley, Soriano, Soto, Fukudome, Fontenot/Baker) start producing.

I'm all for the BJ Ryan signing, but I would love to see the Cubs go after Sean Burnett of the Nationals. His numbers this year have been great, but past numbers suggest that he should be used as a Loogy. He's only 26 years old and making $415,000. Maybe Hart alone or with a lower prospect might get the trade done. If Ryan is reasonably successful, adding Burnett would allow Marshall to be available for the Harden/Dempster drama.

Are you just refusing to factor in how paying someone like Vernon Wells 25 mil a year over the next several years could hamstring a team? Keeping that contract hurts them...it's worth a prospect or two to get someone to take his contract off of their hands. For example, if it weren't for Soriano's contract (or others), we might have actually sealed the deal on Peavy in the offseason. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks this way, as Toronto has already stated they're going to try to package them. I totally understand keeping Wells hurts the Jays in the future, but accepting less than maximum value for Halladay by packaging Wells with him also hurts the Jays in the future. I guess it's hard to argue the point since we don't know what package(s) being offered for Halladay and/or Halladay/Wells to compare them, but the Jays have a chance to really load up with top prospects by trading Halladay alone. Also, it's not out of the question that somebody might take a chance on Wells during the offseason if the Jays eat a decent chunk of his contract.

Also, it's really hard to compare totally different eras, but I would think Williams would be near the top if you're talking about the complete package. As OMC posted, Hornsby only played for the Cubs for 4 years. Madlock was a great hitter, but was a Cub for only a few years. I'm afraid Sosa can't be taken seriously as "one of the greatest" hitters or sluggers because of the PEDs allegations. A player like Bonds was a great player before PEDs, while Sosa never distinguished himself beforehand.

Have you looked at what Wells numbers look like, and what the rest of his contract looks like? They need to get rid of him, badly. He's worth packaging even if it decreases Halladay's value. The question is how much devaluation is acceptable. The original point was that the Yankees were a team that could afford Halladay and Wells. Assuming Halladay can get you 4 prospects (3 very good and 1 good) from a team like the Phillies or Cardinals, do you really think they would send Halladay and Wells to an AL East team for less? It's not like unloading the ridiculous contract on the Yankees is going to hurt them, thus improving the Jays chances in the future. Unloading Halladay for less then maximum value would be ridiculous.

Halladay doesn't become cheaper, he becomes untradeable. Repeat after me "Nobody Will Take Wells In A Trade. Absolutely dead wrong. Nobody will take Wells in a trade for something useful. There's plenty of other bad contracts out there that other teams may not mind swapping for Wells, depending on the other factors in the trade. For example, you know the Giants would do a Zito for Wells swap in a heartbeat. Of course the Giants would, but the Jays wouldn't. The Jays are trying to rebuild and not take on new, lousy, expensive players to replace their old, lousy, expensive players. If Zito had only 2 years at $19 million per, the Jays might think about it to save some money in the long run.

The Jays have already stated that it would be much more expensive in terms of prospects for a team in the AL East (Yankees) to acquire Halladay. Since the rumors are already stating the Jays would get probably 4 prospects for Halladay alone, I would think 2 more for Wells isn't out of the question unless they up the quality of the prospects. If adding Wells to the deal decreases Halladay's value, they would be crazy to include him.

Halladay doesn't become cheaper, he becomes untradeable. Repeat after me "Nobody Will Take Wells In A Trade. The Yankees might if the Jays dont mind sending him there. New Yankee Stadium would be the ideal place for a guy like Wells to find himself. While I agree that the Yankees might be the team that could afford to take a chance on him, that's still an awful amount of money to pay in the future hoping that someone will find himself. Also, would Wells "find himself" with the daily scrutiny of NY media and fans? Finally, would the Yankees virtually strip their minor league system (6+ prospects) for a sure thing (Halladay) and a really expensive long-term committment to someone looking to "find himself"? The Yankees would probably be very interested if the deal included Rios instead of Wells.

Halladay doesn't become cheaper, he becomes untradeable. Repeat after me "Nobody Will Take Wells In A Trade.

I don't think Baker is the second coming of Sandberg, but Baker has been injured most of the season and is just coming back. Let's give him a few more ABs before saying he's worthless.

You should be on Last Comic Standing - Calling Gallagher, Patterson, and Murton major league ready players. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

And I'll only agree to a trade to the Cubs. :) i heard from a source in toronto that halladay was singing "go cubs go" in a bar with his buddies. a trade appears imminent. Are you sure he wasn't singing "No Cubs No" instead.

There's no way anybody is going to take Wells unless the Jays pick up at least half of his contract. Rios is a possibility, but I would think the Jays would be better off trading Halladay and Rios seperately since Rios has "some" trade value. Unless Toronto takes back a bad contract. If the deal were for Halladay only, we have no chance at landing him. Involving Soriano for Wells or Rios with additional massaging I think we actually could be one of the better fits in the league here. I wonder if Vernon Wells is fixable, and if Hendry would be willing to part with Soriano. I also think Jake Fox is best suited in the AL, and his and Randy Wells values are probably about as high as they're going to get. If we could swing something while holding onto Fox (maybe send Hoff instead?), I wouldn't mind letting Fox and Wells duke it out for LF playing time. The mileage on Halladay's arm is a small concern however. But, I think there's a fit between the Cubs and Jays on this. Don't know if it'll ever happen though. The Jays taking on a bad contract (Soriano) makes no sense. The point of trading off one of the best pitchers in baseball is to rebuild with a boatload of good prospects. Basically your dealing Soriano for Vernon Wells, so you would still have to come up with 3-4 top prospects for Halladay. Soriano and Wells are probably two of the most untradeable players in baseball because of their contracts.

There's no way anybody is going to take Wells unless the Jays pick up at least half of his contract. Rios is a possibility, but I would think the Jays would be better off trading Halladay and Rios seperately since Rios has "some" trade value. Of course Toronto would have to eat some of that contract of Wells, but it still doesn't mean that they would likely play teams off of each other. The only problem including Wells/Rios is that eliminates teams on the cheap (which helps the Cubs since including Wells/Rios would likely eliminate Mil. and STL). Rios doesn't have a trade market now without Tor. taking on some of his contract as well. Rios is still young and his numbers are pretty good if he is considered a CF. His numbers don't look great as a corner OF. The Jays might have to eat some of his contract, but not too much. He's signed for $9.7 next year and then for the next 4 years he's in the $12 - $12.5 range. In his final year he'll be 32 years old.

There's no way anybody is going to take Wells unless the Jays pick up at least half of his contract. Rios is a possibility, but I would think the Jays would be better off trading Halladay and Rios seperately since Rios has "some" trade value.

Vernon Wells' contract makes Soriano's look great. One site stated that it's the worst contract in baseball. Now if you made that Alex Rios instead of Vernon Wells, it might get interesting from this side (but not from the Canadian side).

Lou said Geo could be out for as long as a month. And then the guy we acquire will be an improvement over Koyie or we could keep three catchers (if the new guy is good enough) and use one as a pinch hitter. The latter might limit our options too much, though. So they can survive without their best hitter for 2 months and no legit backup, but they can't survive without Soto for a month without going out and acquiring a "real backup" catcher? The Cubs proved that you can throw anybody (Fontenot and Fox) in at 3B, but catching is different. Of course they didn't exactly replace ARam offensively though.

You have to bring in another catcher because having Fox as a backup catcher eliminates him as our RH power off the bench. (Managers don't like using their 2nd catcher to pinch hit in case of an injury.) It seems like we've been playing with a 23 or 24 man roster all season with injuries and players not being used (Patton).

If true, moneterily, the only NL teams I could see swinging it are the Phillies, Mets, and maybe the Dodgers. Wells contract is a mess and a half and I cant see the Cards or Brewers having the finances for it. Pretty much. If taking Wells is a condition for getting Halladay, the Cards and Crew can just forget it. Wells' contract is massively back loaded. Vernon just isn't that good, and that contract could really cripple a mid/small market teams financial flexibility. Asking a team to take that on might be asking too much, IMO. I'm sure Wells won't be a condition to a Halladay deal simply because you've now made Halladay's trade value diminish immensely. No team is going to take on an extra $100 million for 1 1/2 years of Halladay. The only way this would work is for the Jays to take back a bad contract (less than Wells) and get prospects, which would be pointless. There would be a better chance if they made Rios a condition in a Halladay deal, but it still wouldn't be very likely. Keep in mind, the Jays dont need to deal Halladay, but they're taking offers. They know a lot of the interested parties, such as Angels, Dodgers, Mets, and Phillies have money to spare. This might make the injury depleted Mets a pretty good fit, not only would they have the best 1-2 pitching combo since Maddux and Glavine but they also get an outfielder who might be able to refind himself on a new team. Even the desperate Mets wouldn't be crazy enough to take Wells with Halladay. They already have hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in future years to Rodriguez, Beltran, Perez, Wright, Castillo, Reyes, and Santana. Most of those contracts are terrible already and paying another $100 million for an aging, rapidly-declining OF just to acquire 1 1/2 years of Halladay is ridiculous.

If true, moneterily, the only NL teams I could see swinging it are the Phillies, Mets, and maybe the Dodgers. Wells contract is a mess and a half and I cant see the Cards or Brewers having the finances for it. Pretty much. If taking Wells is a condition for getting Halladay, the Cards and Crew can just forget it. Wells' contract is massively back loaded. Vernon just isn't that good, and that contract could really cripple a mid/small market teams financial flexibility. Asking a team to take that on might be asking too much, IMO. I'm sure Wells won't be a condition to a Halladay deal simply because you've now made Halladay's trade value diminish immensely. No team is going to take on an extra $100 million for 1 1/2 years of Halladay. The only way this would work is for the Jays to take back a bad contract (less than Wells) and get prospects, which would be pointless. There would be a better chance if they made Rios a condition in a Halladay deal, but it still wouldn't be very likely.

If we only had an owner that could okay such a deal.

At least invite him over to throw for you or offer him a minor league deal.

4 prospects for Placido Polanco???????