Little Slide Rooter

The chances for a top 2 pick are looking better and better each day. Trade deadline will help. I don't see the Padres having too much to sell outside of Headley. Cubs have some epic downside. There's Carlos Quentin, who's a lot younger and a lot cheaper than Soriano.

With all of the characters NSBB has seen come and go and come again under a ghost account and then go once more, what exactly did Da Bum do to become the most infamous poster in NSBB history and earn a lifetime ban with no chance of redemption?

The national emergency is over. The Cubs are good again an will now make an improbable playoff run including a 63 game win streak. All is right in the world again. Democrats will hug republicans. Muslims, Jews, and Hindus will rejoice together. Cats will hug dogs. Dogs will hug postmen. @BleacherNation: RT @CarrieMuskat: Koyie Hill designated for assignment, Welington Castillo activated from DL #Cubs

Considering the fact that I can't imagine him getting more than a 1 year deal with an option or 2 at a low base salary loaded with incentives, assuming that we really don't plan on breaking out the big money just yet, I'd love to see us in the mix for him in the winter, assuming he looks good.

Probably another solid outting by Wood, say 3 ER 3/8 BB/K through 6+ IP, but it won't matter as I don't expect that we'll be doing much hitting off of Verlander.

To me, it looks more like what I've thought along. Big free agents arent out of the question, but unlike the past regimes of both the Red Sox and Cubs, they won't be used to fill every single hole, but rather evaluate each hole and what we have coming up or potential reclamations and low risk aquisitions are available to try, unless and ideal free agent for that spot is available. Basically, no more just grabbing the best available thing to fill the hole. Looking at basbealls best teams over the past several years, Yankees, Rangers, Red Sox, and Phillies each of them were built with a perfect combination of free agent and trade aquisitions as well as from within. That's what we need to see happen.

AAA: 4.43 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 7.8 K/9 Majors: 2.81 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 9.7 K/9 As much as I want to make the pixie dust statement, these are PCL numbers we're talking about. As hitter friendly as the PCL is, it's still a hell of a lot easier than the big leagues.

If it wouldn't cost a year of control, I would like to see Vitters come up, with the position opening up a full time one. I just hope that Cardenas is given the lion's share of the starts at 3rd while Stewart's out. Valbuena may stick around for a few years as a utility guy, so that's how we should be using him and the only benefit to giving Baker or Mather starts would be the possibility of upgrading their trade value from PTBNL to slightly better PTBNL. And with Valbuena getting called up, any chance that Junior Lake will be promoted to take his place, or will they just send back Nate Samson?

An excuse to get out of Detroit?

Final line: 9IP, 1H, 0BB, 0ER, 12K, 106 pitches. A run scored in the 9th on a throwing error, followed by 2 passed balls and an RBI groundout. In related news, this made me look up Dickey's career. I knew he'd been a decent pitcher for the past few seasons, but thought he was in his mid-late 20's, not a 37 year old journeyman. Damn, 18th overall pick in 1996.

He was down to .298 for a brief moment on Sunday before going 3-5.

Hunter Cervenka's been pretty lights out in his brief time (7 games, 13.1 IP). 0.68 ERA, 0.750 WHIP, 5/14 K/BB. Granted he's 22 and in A ball, but they must have seen some degree of potential when they picked him from the PTBNL list. As for Byrd, now that he's officially been released I'm sure some team will pick him up as a 4th/platoon OF. He's known as a great clubhouse guy which is viewed as having some value, assuming that the team itself is good.

Didn't see the game, but there were a lot of Twitter reports that they were well represented and took over when the Tigers tied it up. My guess is that the that the reason that these AL midwestern teams not known for their fans taking over opponents stadiums seem to always be en mass against us is that while to us, Wrigley Field is crumbling and out dated, it is one of baseball's most glorified parks along with Fenway and they just come to take it in and see what it's all about. And they often leave thinking the same way we do after a raccoon runs of with their $12 bison dog. And more power too them. Tigers and Twins fans money is as good as Cubs fan's, and once we get good again, Wrigley won't be as easy to take over.

Later... So Dempster won't return anything huge, but they could aim for a Top 25 prospect Detroit reportedly balked at including in a Garza deal who is held in higher regard than Wheeler? Well done, Schoenfeld. He also floats Dempster for Jose Igleseas. Do we really know that Detroit balked at Turner? Depending on the rumor of the day back in the winter, what Detroit balked at was Garza for Turner and Castalannos AND Crosby or Smyly. This isn't to say that I think we could get Turner for Dempster, because I don't. I'd bet we could get Turner and then some for Garza. Probably not Castalannos though.

That's why you leave that type of [expletive] to to Tony Campanas and Reed Johnsons.

He figured if he got his inning of doom out of the way early, then people could say he settled down and pitched 4 strong innings.

But is their window really now? As weak as the NL West is, they were not expected to get off to the start they did, much less hang on after losing Kemp. Even Colletti has to look at the rest of hs roster and know that this isn't a win now team despite the hot start. Surely, they'll make some moves in July but I just can't see any GM who has a roster made up of as many scrap heapers as he has can give up any impact prospects for another rental in his mid-late 30s. The fact that they gave Ethier and Kemp the extensions that they did suggests that they plan to compete for at least the next 5 years, and looking over that roster, not a lot of others are going to be a part of it. In 2013, they'll be paying Kemp, Ethier, Kershaw, Billingsly, and Lilly over 70MM, so they'll likely want to go with all of the internal options that they can to round out the roster.

Last night in Daytona, Matt Loosen threw 5 scoreless innings wit 2 H 3 BB and 7 K, and then Simpson, Morris, and Zych finished things off with a combined 0 H 0 BB 7 K. Very nice.

More importantly, a lot of people ignore how many stepd there are from a 100 loss team, or whatever we have now to a playoff contender. Granted, you can spend your way back to the top in one offseason, but as we've learned the long term outlook of such a thing isn't so good. Additionally, "contender" is a very broad term. To some, it means be a .500 team in a weak division. I think that's very possible as soon as next season without a massive splurge fest. On the other hand, if we're being the hands on favorites to win it all like 2004 & 2008, unless we want to re load on monster contracts.

coletti isn't really known for being a moron in trades. the only really bad trade he made that i can think of is giving up carlos santana to get casey blake. Plus, trading top prospects for win now guys isn't in their best interest. With the contracts given to Kemp, Kershaw, and now Ethier they clearly plan to contend long term, and aside from these guys, Eovoldi and Billingsly, that roster doesn't have a lot of guys who will be long term answers. Maybe A.J. Ellis, but like with LaHair it's hard to put too much stock into a 30 year old having a breakout season. What actually is in their best interest isn't the same as to what Colletti thinks is in their best interest, as the topic of this thread shows. Rosenthal quoted a GM that called Dempster a classic Colletti acquisition. He's traded good prospects for the likes of Casey Blake, Octavio Dotel, and Julio Lugo at the deadline, and is no stranger to deadline deals with the Cubs(Maddux, Lilly/Theriot). This is different than the usual Dodgers contenders. In '08-'09, they were a lot younger and at the time, Loney, Martin, DeWitt, and Hu appared that they would be a part of a bright future along with Kemp and Ethier. This season, Mark Ellis, Juan Uribe, Tony Gwynn, Jerry Hairston, Juan Rivera, Bobby Abreu, Adam Kennedy, Ted Lilly, Aaron Harand, Chris Capuano, and Toddy Coffey make up a big portion of their roster. It's like a Who's Who of he's still playing? However this season turns out, knowing that a lot of these guys are on borrowed time I really can't see even Ned Colletti giving up parts that he's going to need sooner than later.

This will be the first time in quite a while when putting together a top prospect list will be due to the abundance of talent rather than lack their of, but I'll try later. Spoiler alert: won't be too many pitchers, not in the top 10-15 anyway.

coletti isn't really known for being a moron in trades. the only really bad trade he made that i can think of is giving up carlos santana to get casey blake. Plus, trading top prospects for win now guys isn't in their best interest. With the contracts given to Kemp, Kershaw, and now Ethier they clearly plan to contend long term, and aside from these guys, Eovoldi and Billingsly, that roster doesn't have a lot of guys who will be long term answers. Maybe A.J. Ellis, but like with LaHair it's hard to put too much stock into a 30 year old having a breakout season.

Since the start of this thread: Anthony Rizzo hit 4 home runs in 2 games The Cubs win the Jorge Soler bid The Cubs won a game Starlin Castro came out of his mini slump Alfonso Soriano went on a trade value building tear Even Hayden Simpson had a solid outting last night. To anyone seriously considering locking this thread, this losing all of that, I say [expletive] that noise. It's too loud and there are people trying to sleep.

Brandon Morrow suffered an oblique injury lady night, now believed to be substantial. They were in on both Garza and Dempster from the start, but could this push them to try to get one sooner than later?

So how long before we get an en flux of Soler related new posters and ghost accounts? Soler Power Cirque De Soler Soler Asylum Soler Rebel Soler Eclipse Han Soler Damn, Han Soler would be awesome had I not just swapped out. Still willing to do so if the powers that be are listening.