Little Slide Rooter

17.27/10 Left handed bats? Reliable starting pitchers? players that can catch the ball? Lou's ridiculous criteria Lack of quality options forced him to sign the likes of Bradley, Miles, and Grabow Left handed hitters, check. Starting pitching, check. Players that can catch the ball, check. metaphors are fun.

The only one of those deals that seems even remotely possible is the Garza one, and I know that a lot of people here disagree with the sentiment, but I'd take it and run without a moment's hesitation.

With all of the good stuff that's gone on in the past few days, on the farm anyway, I can't be the 1st one who's noticed that Szczur hasn't played in the past 3 days, can I? Is he getting another break to party with his buddies at the Villanova graduation festivities or what?

1. 3 months of 35 year old pitcher for a young, possible front end starter and a reliable reliever 2. Garza, who we may or not be able to extend past 2013 for a guy who's likely to be a top 10-25 prospect AND a young potential front end starter 3. A 29 year old rookie who's replacement is chomping at the bit for a 23 year old recent top 25 prospect and a decent young 3B we could either keep and trade Vitters or trade him? I want all 3 now! Now! Now!

That article was not written or edited good. Well. well well. Quick, someone look up Dale's email so we can tell him that we can get both.

Meh. The runs were off Ryan Rowland-Smith and Mike MacDougal. The correct answer was our pitching is not a disgrace. While we don't seem to have anyone with ace potential, we have a multitude potential late relievers and back end starters, which works for me if we can fill out the front of the front of the rotation other ways.

Wow, lots of all around goodness coming out of the farm this evening. If only it all culminate with the announcement of a certain free agent signing.

An organizational top prospect? I should hope that and then some. It's a very wide spectrum depending on the organization and which end of their top 10.

So with the bulk of Kerry Wood's 3 mil 2012 salary off the books, I hope that goes toward a Soler bid. Also anything we saved on Marlon Byrd. This is where over bidding is OK by me. I believe the earlier reported offer we may or may not have made was 22-27 mil over 5 years?? Well I'm all for 30+ onsidering our current payroll. If it means we don't drop a million each on more Reed Johnsons, Rodrigo Lopezes, and Manny Corpases next winter, then so be it. Like 'Ole Gil, we need this.

Looks like it's going to be a week full of frantically F5ing MLBTR and checking for Twitter updates every few minutes. Remember the days before smart phones when you had to actually make it to the computer for such updates? It worse yet, before that when we had to keep a close watch on the ticker on Sports Center.

Jed and Theo better get this done unless they want an entire fan base going Veruca Salt in his ass.

Someone recently Tweeted Goldstein in regards to Vitters improvement on defense, and Goldstein, never one to pull his punches referrered to him as serviceable.

Good thing I sat last out night's game out. As fun as the fake rally might have been, it's looks like it was the type that broken televisions and prescriptions for Lisinopril are made of.

Screw it, I'm in. This kid is exciting. Again, he's Soriano Light. He'll go on a tear for a week or so and then go 3-22 the next week. The fact that he's taking walks is encouraging though. While we're on the subject, since we're paying the Dave Duncan of hitting coaches, does he ever spend time with the farm team? If not, wouldn't he be more valueable working with our prospects rather than the likes of Jeff Baker, Reed Johnson, as Joe Mather?

You got schooled by WSR.

Hopefully they can help our cause to get Soler.

Jed: hey look, a guy! Theo: let's sign him!

@Kevin_Goldstein: Here's a quick (and FREE) mini-mock 2012 draft, based on what I know right now about Monday's Top Ten picks: http://t.co/rJ8oh3t8 Here's a little mock Top 10 from Goldstein in which the Cubs get Zunino. Now I'm going to go ahead and ask this, although I'm sure it's been covered many times: can we still over slot this year, or was last year the last chance? We have 2 supplementals in addition to #7, so this could be incredibly fun if we can.

I think it's obvious that I don't have a strong suit, but I stand by my metaphors, and to a lesser extent, similies.

Before this season, I would have taken some more consideration on this. I definitely wanted to see him get more time at SS, but was worried he was going to wind up at 2nd or 3rd. As it stands, I'm gaining more and more confidence that he was be an asset in the field at SS rather than just average or below average. The only shortstop in all of baseball that is on the same level in terms of value as Castro is Tulowitzki (I can see an argument to be made for Andrus). I do believe Trout will be a great player and a better hitter than Castro. There's a good chance he'll have more defensive value as a CF than Castro at SS. However, a guy like Brett Jackson (assuming he develops into what he's been projected to develop into) is not as hard of a fall-off at CF as the next guy in line behind Castro (Alcantara? Hernandez?). I pick Castro. I think this pretty much hits the nail on the head. It's much easier to find an above average guy at CF, or just about any other position outside of C, than it is to find an above average guy at SS. That said, I would take Castro pretty much every time as well. I'd take Trout over any prospect package, for the fact that Trout's pretty close to a sure thing. While a short stop that can hit is harder to find than a center fielder who can hit, a potential 3 hitter is a lot more difficult to come across than a guy who, in my opinion anyway will end up a great 2 hitter. Trout-Rizzo would be a hell of a heart of the lineup to build around, and our system as is doesnt have anyone who projects to be a 3 hitter, with the possible exception of Baez who we won't be seeing anytime soon.

I've definitely been following him, and if you follow Kevin Goldstein on Twitter, he seems to have replaced Junior Lake when it comes to the Cubs prospect that he's getting bombarded by inquiries on. Between Lake, Alcantara, Amaya, Hernandez, Torreyes, and Baez, we certainly have no shortage of high ceiling latin middle infielders.

The Hendry era was the best of most, scatch that, every Cubs fans life time, although that's really not saying that much. It was also the time in most, scratch that again every Cub's fans lifetime that Cub's ownership gave the GM the go ahead to spend like a big market team. Hendry, in turn used the opportunity like a housewife who's huband landed a huge bonus, gave her the credit card and said go nuts. Go nuts he did. Rather than bide his time, and wait for ways to spread the moey around he hopped on the most espensive items he could get his hands on. While each one filled a need, it wasn't necessarily the best option that would be available in the foreseeable future. In most cases, the problem wasn't the player he acquired, but rather the contract they were given. For example, I don't think that people would have complained if he signed Soriano for the 5/75-85 that the Angels and Phillies were reportedly offering him. This isn't to say that he didn't get some great values, such as DeRosa, Byrd, and Lilly. And then there were the cases of the nickel and dime guys like Miles and Grabow who could have easily been brought up through the farm system.

GMs are not going to get suckered into a bait and switch impulse buy where they call about Starlin Castro and wind up trading for Reed Johnson. How do you think these things work? Just the way it's written. Truth is, depending on a contender or fringe contender, guys like Reed Johnson, Jeff Baker, and Sean Camp could be useful. We won't get much for them, just a PTBNL, but he could package guys together, or package 1 or 2 of them with Marmol, Soriano, or Dempster to maximize the return. Really just the "everyone's available" talk sounded more like a way to get people to come to the store. At any rate, the fact that whoever made the information available actually said what it would take to get Castro, not just everyone including Castro's available, so there must have been sone degree of discussions at one point even if they were blown out of proportion.

Why he's still starting is beyond me. Wasn't he decent in his time in the pen this year? And who the deuce is Shane Lindsay, and why do they refuse to promote Cabrera, Hatley, Rhoderick, or Batista instead of scraping these carcasses off the sidewalk?

Nope. Using the term quality start loosely though.