Little Slide Rooter

Admit it Epstein. Gerardo Concepcion was never a top Cuban prospect, or even a real person. He was an actor hired to play this young, hot shot top international star. You assumed that as soon as you locked up Soler, the fans would forget that he ever existed. Unfortunately the plan backfired, and all of the sudden you had no choice but to make the 26 year old Telenovela star pitch in the lower levels of the organization.

More reason to support celebrities being [expletive] on Twitter. I rarely follow celebs. Only friends or news related things. Even celeb I really like Twitters aren't interesting. Theyre usually promoting something.

It's not really necessary to know the actual Twittet address. Just type the name into the search or discover box and you'll find them.

Some people just seem to think if a player isn't one who will bring back 2-3 top prospects they have no value. Any GM can demand top prospects or young players for their top trade chips. However, part of the value of a top GM is that they can better evaluate a potential trade partners more raw prospects and maximize the trade value of guys like Maholm.

Good idea. If it's nice an quiet, I can put more concentration into writing posts for you to enjoy. It would be awful to trade a productive player who we have at an incredible price so we can bring up a guy who strikes out every other at bat at the hands of AAA pitching. And if we did want to call up Brett, we have about 7 position players more expendable than DeJesus. And while roster moves don't necessarily mean trades, they mean that some players will be added to the roster, and as a result, others have to be removed. One way of doing this is to trade them, and like I said, guys like Baker, Johnson, and Camp may seem useless to us, to a contender in search to fill a role, they could be appealing. As for the bigger trades, they could happen sooner than we think. This front office wasn't assembled to just watch the team lose 95 games and stand idly by.

I know Zach Cates has one. Apparently, he has a friend named Jesus, probably someone from the DSL who inspires him. Dave Sappelt has one too.

Everyone pitches well against this sorry lot.

Garza I want to keep. If we plan on being contenders in the next few years, we need him. DeJesus is another one would would be a great piece assuming we had a good team. I'd be more than willing to trade him, but I can't imagine getting a worthwhile return, especially considering that we're paying him 3.5 mil next year with a 6.5 mil team option for the next year. We don't have a replacement in the wings, I can't imagine being able to replicate his production through free agency anywhere near the price.

I think it's a bit of everything. The draft is 4 days before Rizzo can be called up without losing service time. After that, I don't expect a large scale of exodus of players, but it will start. Teams will be calling on Dempster, and while to us, there's little difference between trading him June 5th or July 31, to the buyers there is. He'll be up for auction if he isn't already and if someone clicks buy now, take the deal. As for the junk pile, to us they're garbage, but to a contender, they're useful role players. Except for Koyie Hill. He's just garbage. As guys start saying their not so tear filled good byes, players like Sappelt, Valbuena, Rusin, and Beliveau, who may not be much better but will at least be more interesting to watch will behin take their places.

although maybe wsr speaks a regional dialect where "a few" actually means "zero or one" just a dialect in which broad generalizations give you a better chance to be right. And I stand by it. Soriano can still hit at times, and for a minimum amount of money, we could land, say somebody's Logan Watkins and Brooks Raley. Maholm could fetch something slightly better. Starting pitching is always in demand, and we could end up with a Michael Burgess and Nick Struck.

This time we can say only the Cubs

I wish. Sadly, those days are well behind me. Not that I woudlnt revisit them, but it's not that easy to come by here.

More like she suddenly drops dead and leaves you with a little something to rember her by, causing you 4 long years of pain and suffering all the while hoping that the cure isn't too far from being discovered and that your family will be willing to pay for it.

The Twins have been scoring some runs, but their pitching is awful.

Not that we have a ton to offer. What we have: Dempster should bring a pretty nice return. The fact that he's 35 and an impending free agent could limit the return, but if we're willing to take in his remaining salary, that should help. Marmol should have decent value. Quality relievers are always in demand, and if Marmol can get somewhere close to form and were willing to take on his salary, he could net us a prospect from the back of someone's top 10 and a sweetener as Billy Beane, or at least Brad Pitt portraying Billy Beane would say. Soriano is also possible. It's been said earlier that the Tigers inquired but were not willing to take on more than 5 mil total. For a few decent or even fringy prospects, we should take them or someone else up on that offer. Maholm I'd say would bring in a few low level guys, maybe even a guy from someone's top 15 if they're desperate enough. LaHair: if he can start slugging again for a few weeks, fliers will be taken. Everyone loves a one dimensional left slugger, especially AL fringe contenders. Soto: at this point, his value is at a low, so it might be in our better interests to let him try to boost his value until either the deadline or even the offseason in which we could tender and trade him. Campana and Barney each present interesting possibilities as well. Maybe one could be thrown in to maximize the return on one of our better chips. If we don't get anything worthwhile, no reason to run them out of town. Beyond that, Johnson, Mather, Wells, Baker, and Camp might each be worth a fringe prospect or PTBNL. Also each could be throw ins in other trades. Perhaps Volstad. This is a good year to be awful. More playoff spots means more contenders meaning less sellers and more buyers. Sucking could end up a luxury.

Even more reason look forward to the draft.

Woohoo! No reason we can't get that up to a Baker's Dozen or so, at least. If we're gong to suck, go all out so we have a better draft position next year. The motto of the 2012 Cubs: ALL OUT!

Jay Jackson 5 IP 5 K 2 B 1 ER. Perhaps he's found a niche as a fill in starter when the scheduled guy is pulled after one pitch.

No, and most things can be attributed to Ricketts. He's cutting payroll! He's letting the Dodgers be the mid-tier but big market team to make the rise to the top (with Ned Colletti)! He's the reason I've watched three seasons of three different shows this week. That's got to total 24 hours, easy. You do realize that Ricketts offered Epstein a virtually open checkbook and he was the one to chose this direction, right?

17 game winless streak for Dempster. 2 runs or less in 8 of his 6 games this year. The good news is I can't imagine him blocking a trade to pretty much anywhere at this rate.

Close enough.

More frustrating: being a Cubs fan or a Cubs starting pitcher?

I completely forgot he was on the Pirates.

Wasn't Joe Mather a thing many years ago? He was never a top prospect, but didn't he have some degree of hype somewhere between '06-'08?