Little Slide Rooter

Talk to a lot of scouts? Only when they're selling cookies.

My money's on Barney at SS, Baker at 2nd, Valbuena at 3rd.

Please, game threads are full of people over reacting to one game, but I'm not one of them. In fact I can assure you that when scouts come to watch a player, they're not so much interested in his line so much as mechanics and approach. Whether he threw a complete game shut out or got shelled for 10 runs in 3 innings, the effect on his trade value woul have been minimal at most. If they cared about his stats, they could check the box scores and save themselves the trip.

Is 18 year old DSL CF Robert Caro anyone worth watching? He split the season between 1&2 2 with pretty even results in each and in 27 games is .372/.464/.476/.950. No home runs though.

And pitchers careers are reborn. If I'm a once good pitcher or pitching prospect *Chris Volstad* who's hit the skids, I'm begging the Padres to give me a 1 year deal or for my team to trade me to them in hopes of some sucker giving me a 3 year deal the following.

What's to evaluate? There's Soler, Concepcion, a great deal on DeJesus and a bunch of reclamation projects and spare parts. Additions will come, but they're not going to get into bidding wars. Who knows, maybe they will for Hamels. Going forward, we have 3 guys resembling impact players: Rizzo, Castro, and Samardzjia. 4 if we keep Garza. More are needed. There's just no way that they'll let the team turn into rubbish and the bottom drop out of the ticket sales. Remember this is a business as well as a baseball team. They need to make money. If the Cubs keep sucking, ticket sales will plummett. Ricketts knows that. Epstein knows that Ricketts knows that. They're not going to keep scraping scum off the sidewalk for the next 3-5 years while they wait for a bunch of 18-20 year olds to be ready for the big leagues and another 2-3 those that make it to fully develope.

Unless they're still counting Rizzo, I'll assume that the 3 Top 50 guys are Baez, Soler, who's yet to log an inning and Almora, who's not even signed yet. Maybe Maples, who's also yet to log an inning.

When was the last time he had a game off?

I also think that a big problem with pitchers today is that they're far too focused on their shaving cream pie recipe and technique to concentrate on pitching. Chris Volstad's entire career was derailed by such antics.

Any chance that the scouts sent to watch Garza are stuck in traffic or on a potty break for the past hour?

The Good thing about an All Star Jersey is that you can still wear it when he hits 55 Home Runs for The Dodgers next year. By the All Star break. I don't know about anyone else, but I find it to be a major snafu to wear a jersey of an active player who's no longer on the team.

Maybe this is just Garza's way of saying he doesn't want to be traded.

@JonHeymanCBS: survey of GMs: matt garza is more valuable trade commodity than greinke or hamels. #cubs #phils #crew http://t.co/bDAhJepB

Another team to join the hunt for pitching?

I wasn't aware that being bad was something that could be fixed via rehab.

You said, "can't," sarcastically, so I used the word, "can." You're reading far too much into that. You said "process >>>> outcome" when I attacked wsr's post about using trades to evaluate GMs. Your post leads directly to the conclusions I'm inferring. So if you think otherwise, why not just state what you think? I should have been more specific. Even if Tyler Colvin turns into Carlos Gonzalez and Ian Stewart Blake DeWitt, it will be hard to blame Theo for the trade. Had it been made sometime in mid 2010, that would be different. It's really about knowing when to move on from a player. A lot of people blame Hendry for not trading Patterson and Pie until it was too late. Well, had we waited another year on Colvin, and he gave us a follow up of last, that probably would have qualified as too late. in 2005, a lot of people were starting to said that the Dontrelle/Clement trade was the worst thing that the Cubs did since Lou Brock, but they sure didn't mind it in 2002-2004, and it's pretty much forgotten now.

You pretty much have to. God forbid he takes playing time away from Reed Johnson or Tony Campana.

Where on earth did this Mike Fiers guy from the Brewers come from? Entering today, he had 41/8 BB/K with a 2.29 ERA and 1.068 WHIP. Today, he pitched 7.1 with 2 ER and 9/1 BB/K. He was a 22nd round pick in '09 and never sniffed the top 100. I kind of wish the Brewers were contending so we could try to get him for Dempster.

The only thing that the White Sox would have would would perk up the ears of either the Phillies or Brewers is Chris Sale, and that would defeat the purpose. I could see the White Sox getting Dempster, Wandy, or Marcum if they're willing to empty what's left of their farm system, but they simply don't have what it takes for one of the top shelf guys, especially when they'd be up against the Tigers, Cardinals, Braves, and Rangers who have very strong farm systems. Even the Yankees have more to offer. To the White Sox have any prospects that would come near the top 100?

Overall sucky day on the farm. And my guy Encarnacion was lifted after 1 AB for some reason, and I'll assume that it's not because he was traded for Zach Lee.

He's gone. Seriously. There are too many teams competing right now, especially with the new wild card. Add a lot of pitcher injuries and not much competition on the market and it makes too much sense not to. Actually, there are very good reasons not to. There are reasons for both and there's a gigantic thread on the topic that even I couldn't miss if I were blind and drunk.

There's that arm of Soriano's.

If he can be a .270/.800s hitter and play a decent RF, let the scouts watch Soriano and DeJesus instead. It's not as though there are a ton of options for corner outfielders, and nobody's going to give up the type of pitching prospects we need for him anyway.

Not always. Especially if people loved the trade when it happened. In the case of trading a top prospect(s) for a rental, its never a good idea. However, in a deal line Colvin for Stewart in particular. 2 guys who were in need of a change of scenery. At the time, It was viewed as a low risk/high reward for us. I still see it that way, but some disagree. Another example is Rizzo/Cashner. Everyone loves it, but if Rizzo ultimately turns into Russell Branyan, and Cashner an ace, will a trade that Cubs fans unanimously loved all if the sudden be blamed on Theo?

With a lot of teams in need of pitching, and some very unexpected potential sellers, July could be very interesting: 1. Hamels: definitely the top guy. Going by what they reportedly want in return, my guess is that the suitors will be limited to the Tiger, Rangers, Cardinals, and possibly Blue Jays gap Garza and Greinke: while Greinke is the better pitcher, this year anyway, Garza's extra year of team control could make him equally, if not more valuable. That and the fact that it gives the Cubs incentive to hold in. Even if an extension isn't in the cards, he'd be either valuable to us next year or would likely generate an equal return this winter to what he did now. Knowing this, it's hard to fault the Cubs for shooting for the moon if trading Garza. However, with The Brewers and Greinke, unless they get closer to contention that almost have to trade them to start fixing the barren wasteland that is their farm system. The afore mentioned teams who miss out on Hamels will likely scramble to get these 2. Dempster, McCarthy, Wandy, Sanchez, Marcum: each of these should generate at least 1 guy from someone's Top 10 plus another high ceiling prospect or 2. Contenders in need of pitching, with weaker systems should all be in on these guys. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the teams with deeper systems go all in and acquire one of these 3 in addition to one of the bigger names.