Little Slide Rooter

It's in the nightstand drawer of every hotel room in America.

A month ago? In a heartbeat. The way Soriano's playing now, I'd take Snider as the key piece, but try to get something tossed in. We could also expand the deal. They do need pitching. It's a shame that Volstad and Wells both insisted on being God awful instead of settling for bad. Maholm could appeal to them, but the way he's been pitching for us, that 6 mil team option will be a hell of a value, especially considering that we'll likely have to spring for two additional starting pitchers. There's not a single guy in our system, at least the upper levels, that I'm sold on as a big league stater. Struck's the closest, but I wouldn't expect to see him before next September at the earliest. Nobody is giving up anything of value for Soriano. He's on a nice streak right now but he does that from time to time. Define "of value". We won't be getting anything from the top 100. Probably not from anyone's top 10. However, if we could get a reclamation type like Travis Snider or Brian Matusz plus a raw but intriguing low level prospect, that's really not an unreasonable expectation if we eat the bulk of his salary. In that case, whoever gets him gets the rest of this season as well as the next two to decide what they want to do with him, and. 37-38 year old with bad knees would be better off in the AL for obvious reasons. This season he's been more productive between hot streaks than the past 3 and his defense is improved.

A month ago? In a heartbeat. The way Soriano's playing now, I'd take Snider as the key piece, but try to get something tossed in. We could also expand the deal. They do need pitching. It's a shame that Volstad and Wells both insisted on being God awful instead of settling for bad. Maholm could appeal to them, but the way he's been pitching for us, that 6 mil team option will be a hell of a value, especially considering that we'll likely have to spring for two additional starting pitchers. There's not a single guy in our system, at least the upper levels, that I'm sold on as a big league stater. Struck's the closest, but I wouldn't expect to see him before next September at the earliest.

Brett Wallach is still something that exists?

what 3b prospect is that? olt? I don't think it meas that there's one in particular so much as a well regarded 3rd base prospect in general. Not sure why they don't see Vitters as a well regarded 3rd base prospect by now though.

We should be willing to eat as much salary as it takes to get that return. I'm thinking that we could get something like the Sosa or DeRosa packages assuming we eat enough. Te fact is, whatever he does this season, he's not going to fool Theo, Hoyer, or any other big league GM into thinking that he's not a 36 year old with bad knees that's only going to progress into a 37 year old with worse knees.

Maybe him and Vostad can anchor the 2013 Newark Bears rotation.

We can argue whether or not they're ready until we're blue in the face. However, to me what it boils down to is that if Hoyer and Epstein feel as though they're ready, or at least that there's no longer any benefit to them staying in AAA or harm in calling them up, I trust their judgement over anyone else's.

They have been playing some really good baseball for over 2 weeks now. And it isn't like they have been playing the Astros and Padres during this 15 game stretch. They have been beating some decent teams. The 12 game losing streak and bullpen implosions were very unfortunate, but now that they're playing as well as they are I look forward to a few months of enjoyable baseball with the acceptance that the playoffs wont be happening for us. This isn't to say that I don't want to commence the selling as soon as possible.

Don't know that I'd go that far. I mean, I suppose if you REALLY buy into defensive metrics and you also buy that they're not being heavily inflated right now by the shifts. I know there's some significant effect right now, but I'm not sure how much. Yeah, Barney is a great defender with a decent bat, but I'm not buying him as a 3-5 WAR player. I'm taking the defensive metrics with a grain of salt, to be sure. I think Barney's ceiling could be Omar Vizquel. By no means a bad player to have in hand, especially at the price; still, if somebody wants to send us a guy who's ceiling is a front end starter, you take it without thinking twice. Especially when your farm system is full of high ceilign middle infielders and devoid of starting pitching.

Dempster's always been good, at least since joining the rotation full time, but where was this Ryan Dempster when the Cubs were relevant? Couldnt he have channeled Christy Matthewson, Satchell Paige, and Sandy Koufax all at once in '09-'10?

I think that's far enough down the line that we can't really know. In 3 years, maybe Rizzo's plateaued as less than we expect, maybe he's good but we can trade his last couple years of control for a real big fish, maybe he's out of baseball because his cancer came back. Moreover, here's the 2009 Cubs prospect Top 10: Vitters Shark Cashner Rhee Castillo Hart Castro Flaherty J Jackson HJ Lee Which is just a long way of saying that there isn't any need to brainstorm uses for Vogelbach at the moment. Kevin Hart? I remember him having nice stuff, but I had no idea he was ever that high up.

But that's more than they usually have going for them, and I can't see it being much different in the near future. In addition to their own hot start, they've benefited from the struggles of Boston and Tampa, which may or may not continue. When you're a perennial cellar dweller, in the toughest division in baseball it's hard to blame them for going all in. Bundy and Machado should be untouchable, and that about it as far as their prospects go. Even if they don't have enough for Garza without one of those two, I'd be interested in working with them on a deal with 1-3 of Dempster, Siriano, and Marmol. As I've said before, I'd be very interested in any of Matusz, Britton, or Hunter. For Dempster, I'd want more of a young prospect package, but for Soriano and/or Marmol I'd take 1-3 of those guys depending if we were sending Sori and or or Marmol and how much cash. I should clarify that Matusz or Britton more so, with Hunter as a 2nd piece.

I'd love to get the O's in on either Dempster or Garza. For lack of a better term, they need this. It's not often when they're in the thick of things in the division they are in, and they should be doing everything they can to make the most out of it. I'm not saying we get Bundy or Machado, but I expect them to be very aggressive in the next few weeks.

Problem is, it's unfair to demote Shoulders who still has an .804 OPS despite a low average. Any chance of leapfrogging Vogelsbach to Peoria?

So should we be proceeding with the mindset that Brett Jackson will not be our starting CF in 2013?

The problem is, if we trade Garza, and Hamels and Greinke are both extended, next thing you know McCarthy, Sanchez, Peavy, and Marcum become a lot more expensive. I can't see our guys getting in too much of a bidding war for any of them and the best option at that point could be to hope Dempster, who will be 36 is willing to give us a generous home town discount on a 2 year deal 5 months after we trade him.

This is dumb, even for you. And this defense of Amaro is weird and dumb. I don't think SCS is defending Amaro, just pointing out that there are similarities with the Phillies and what is happened with the Red Sox under Theo. Both GMs came into a good situation, made the teams better, had very high payrolls, and now are suffering with expensive players that are aging and getting injured. Yea, no. And he is defending Amaro. Read the last two pages. I'm not so much defending him as I an explaining that he'd done what big league GMs do.I just don't know what he's really done that other big market GMs havnt done. Even in the case of Rollins, while he's been meh at best since 2008, the 3/33 contract was a great value for what he's capable of. Other than that, the main issue during his reign has been the failure to produce from the farm system. As for contracts, Crawford, Lackey, and Daisuke were each as bad or worse than anything Amaro's done.

It's not all his fault. AAA pitchers just figured him out. Throw the ball in his general direction, and he'll swing.

Marlon Byrd's medicine chest? I kid. I hope.

Hopefully, this time we can move Soriano during the hot streak.

And what did Epstein really do for The Red Sox? He took a very strong foundation and built around it. How did he do it? Player development, big trades, and spending money. Amaro's main difference is that he hasn't had a Pedroia, Papelbon, or Ellsbury develop as of yet. I guess he did a lot more "moneyballing" to earn his first ring, but for the second it was more about money spending.

I think he will hit for more power than Randa did. I'll take your Joe Randa and raise you Sean Casey.

So Appel apparently returning to Stanford and eligible for 2013 draft. Better replace Rizzo, Castro, Dempster, and Garza with Amezaga, Lalli, Volstad and Wells ASAP.

Why? It's not like the Phillies are going to do a full on rebuild. We're talking one of the best young pitchers in baseball here. Is this a serious post? Amaro has been awful and has basically doomed the Phillies to high-payroll suckitude for the foreseeable future. And all they got was 5 lousy consecutive division titles, 2 stupid pennants, and 1 crappy World Series. No the [expletive] he didn't. Phillies won in 2008. Amaro took over in 2009. Pat Gillick and Ed Wade did all that, and they were also was responsible for acquiring the players that got them there (i.e. Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, etc.) Ruben Amaro Jr. took over a World Series Champion and proceeded to [expletive] all over their future. When your rotation is anchored by Hamels, Lee, and Halladay, your future is not necessarily [expletive] all over. I'm not going to deny that he's made his share of bad moves. Even during the pre-season when the Phillies were heavy favs in the NL, I didn't quite get the Rollins re-signing. When your a big market team, you can afford to make mistakes that the little guys can't.