Little Slide Rooter

Andy Sonnenstine elected free agency today.I don't get why guys like this opt out of their minor league deals. While I'm sure he'll be able to get another minor league deal, I can't imagine he'd have any more of a chance of earning a big league call up.

Last I heard, Hoyer denied any deal being in place. That was sometime last week.

Lamenting with Justin Berg and Brian Schlitter.

What about Corpas? I know Castillo had some control issues, but I'd much prefer hang on to him over Lopez, who should be nothing more than starting ptiching depth.

Forgot Garza. Top 100.

My prediction on the remaining Cubs are Castro, likely top 50, Soto, Dempster and Marmol probably low-mid 100's. Soto and/or Dempster might be able to sneak into the back of the top 100. I would have expected Baker in there somewhere, but not top 250.

brilliant I certainly don't agree with the call, nor do I inderstand it as there's no question that Garza is by far our best starter, but I really don't see the point of him publicly griping about it, assuming that's what the Tweet's about. Maybe he can go to Red Sox camp and share a bottle of Boons Farm with Chris Carpenter while listening to AFI.

At 375, more like they don't particularly not like him.

Seeing as Derrek Lee, who at least last I checked wasn't currently on a team is listed, they're working with a bigger pool than the 750 players that project to be on a big league 25 man roster by opening day. They must be simply using existing big league track records. Otherwise, I can't see Wood, Wells, and Volstad all above Casher. Maybe if this list had been out a few months ago we could have substituted Wells for Cashner in the Rizzo trade. No, I'm not serious about that last part.

He has 520 PAs at Iowa and would be splitting time with Clevenger anyway. Let Castillo be the backup, give Clevenger the lion's share of starts, and hopefully you have an idea what you're looking at for catcher next year. The good thing with a backup catcher is he can get a lot of playing time in the majors, unlike something like a backup 1B or 3B. He's going to be 25 at the start of the season, has over 1600 professional PA over 6 seasons. Soto has been under 400 PA in 2 of last 3 seasons and hasn't been over 500 PA in 4 years, so there is plenty of opportunity for Castillo to play enough this year to continue developing. A backup catcher is usually guaranteed at least 1 start per week,but beyond that they're usually riding the bench. They're usually the last resort for pinch hitting so they don't tend to get many at bats, which is why it's rare to have a backup catcher that can hit worth a damn. They don't have to be Koyie Hill bad, but Castillo is much better off playing everyday with Clevenger backing up Soto.

Here's to righty Bryan LaHair. It's hard for me to care too much if he's just taking a spot from Campana, although I'd prefer Sappelt get it. Too bad Reed Johnson's a lock. Besides, I'd Sappelt takes in Iowa and Mater or Johnson struggle he'll be there. Makes me think more and more that Baker or DeWitt are traded by opening day. I believe that the Phillies and Brewers are both in the market for such a player.

Well to be fair, it seems like they were going in hard on Cespedes but he got a ridiculous offer from Oakland and took it. The offense could have been better with Cespedes in there instead of someone like Byrd. Not drastically better but enough to have a small amount of hope for a playoff spot. As much as I would have liked Cespedes, there's really no guarantee that he would have made the offense any better or even broke camp with the team. He's really struggled so far in a very small ST sample size. The available options who would have been sure things to make our offense better are Pujols or Fielder, who the FO did not want to comit the money and contract length they got and to a lesser extent, Aramis, Reyes, Beltran, and maybe Rollins, who would have costed more than they were willing to pay for older and mostly injury prone players. I don't know how we'll get anything better next offseason, with the position player highlights being Brandon Phillips, Josh Hamilton, Shane Victorino, B.J Upton, Andre Ethier, and Delmon Young who will have a make or break year. I really wish that Matt Kemp wasn't extended because he would have been exactly what we needed. I guess he'd have been exactly what most teams need.

It all depends on the question marks: Soriano, Soto, Stewart, DeJesus, LaHair, Volstad, Samardjzia, Maholm, Wood, Marmol. If we can get some real production out of enough of these guys, we should be able to stay close enough to the rest of the division that if the right upgrade is available, we can end up surprising a lot of people. The Brewers and Cardinals have both taken big steps back, and The Reds might be a bit better but they don't exactly frighten me.

I'd see if they would overpay for Barney. Maybe the Phillies are desperate and would give up Domonic Brown for a package starting with Barney and a 95% paid-for Soriano. If only we could be so lucky Yeah, not going to happen. The Phils are still likely the team to beat in the NL, but they're rapidly aging and have one of the lower ranking farm systems in baseball. Their once potent offense is looking very old and iffy. No way they'll give up Brown, one of their few guys who could contribute beyond the next 3 years or so without a huge return.

I saw on BN that the Phillies have some degree of interest in Blake DeWitt or Jeff Baker to fill in for Utley. Not sure what the Phils have in their system, or that we'd get a ton back, but our front office can certainly dig through their lower levels and get the best return possible. There's no urgency to move Baker or DeWitt, but if/when we move them I can't see them bringing in any more or less if we waited until the summer.

Winning a wild card wouldn't equal an NL Central Crown. Wake me up when the NL Central Crown is a given and this team is built to go further. Being able to win this division feels like 3rd place. I'm excited about our future, wait till "next year". Take out the 2nd sentence and I agree. Looking at what we have now, we have a solid foundation but are missing the big pieces. By this, I mean give us an ace and a heart of the lineup we're good. 1. Jackson CF, 2. Castro SS 3. ??? 4. Rizzo 1B, 5. ??(Soler RF/LF?) 6.Vitters/Lake/Stewart(probably not Stewart, but who knows) 3B 7. Castillo/Soto C 8. 2B Rotation 1. ??? 2. Garza 3-5 Maholm/Volstad/Shark/McNutt/Wood/Wells I know the pieces we need are big ones, but when you have the rest in place and a good amount of available money they should be well within reach, and plug in an ace and a legit 3 hitter and the rest looks pretty impressive,not to mention that we'd still have a pretty good farm system.

When we went mega-over slot for him 7 years ago it wasnt so he could be a middle reliever. Our system is thin on starting pitching, so I'm willing to risk his future as a 7th or even 8th inning guy if he can potentially be a decent mid rotation starter and if he looks good we can lock him up.

The fact that that money is available tells me there's no reason that we shouldnt end up with Soler. I'm normally against outbidding yourself, but this is the perfect situation to do so and he could end up the flagship of the farm system and the Epstein Era.

I'd be pretty happy with that setup. I'd really like to see what Shark can do as a starter this year. That would be an interesting and potentially good rotation with plenty of depth behind it. We'd then likely have a pen of Marmol, Wood, Russell, Corpas, Dolis, Wood, and Wells, unless someone like Castillo, Maine, Miller, or Sonnenstine impress enough. Wells, T. Wood or even Coleman could also draw some interest toward the end of ST by teams looking for last minute back end guys. Of course there's also Dempster for the right price.

Pretty much. I became a Cubs fan during the '84 NLCS, and never looked back. I sat through a lot of awful teams with some pleasant surprises mixed in since, and just accepted it as being a Cubs fan. It wasn't until '03 that I got a taste of what it was like to root for one of those teams that actually had a chance to win anything, and with that taste in my mouth it was difficult to go back to just enjoying a season one game at a time without thinking in terms of playoff implications. The past 3 years, I've gradually become more accepting of it, and I've officially come full circle. The main difference is that back then, I didn't follow the minors, so now I at least have something to get excited about.

Looks like he's had several cups of coffee between the Tigers, Marlins, and Padres before last years stint with the Brewers and was a piece of the Cabrera/Willis trade. He'll fill in behind Garza, Dempster, Maholm, Wood, Volstad, Wells, Samardzjia, Coleman, Lopez, Jackson, Sonnenstine and Robertson as our 13 starter.

Cubs claimed some journeyman pitcher from the Brewers.

He must of gotten bored or maybe sick of his wife nagging him to do stuff.

If he's having a great season, let's say a 3ish ERA, solid WHIP, solid K/9 rate, probably best case for him.....I'd still think we'd have to pay quite a bit of his contract, in order to get something solid for him. He won't net draft picks for his next team and he's pretty old as well. If there's not much else available, I could see him bringing in a borderline top 10 guy from an average system, along with a pair of top 30 types with upside. Maybe something like a Rhee, Ha, and Beeler from our system. That'd be an awful nice return, but I have my doubts that you could get two solid pitching prospects in the upper levels for him (assuming Rhee/Beeler pitch well in AA). I tend to think a positive scenario would be one upper level 2nd/3rd tier prospect that's close to ready and two lower level "lottery ticket" guys, or maybe 3 low level guys, with one having a high ceiling, maybe a notch above the DeRosa deal. But it's hard to speak in specifics this early, and you also never know what type of pressure a team may feel at the deadline. Yup. It all depends which and how many teams need pitching, how desperately they need it, and what else is on the market.

I don't know why you would make that assumption. All four of them could easily see their prospect status drop fairly significantly this year. Vitters probably needs to take a step forward just to tread water By retaining status. I meant they will all still BE prospects, unlike Brett or Rizzo, who probably lose their eligibility. In each case, it is possible for them to take a step forward, but my guess is only Szczur and McNutt are in our top 10 next year. However, that doesn't mean Lake or Vitters don't help upgrade the overall grading of the system. They add depth at worst, ay best they both still have high ceilings. That's a very confusing statement. If all you mean by "retaining status" is that they will still be prospects then it doesn't make much sense to say or they can improve on it. They can all take steps back this year. Still qualifying as a prospect is fairly meaningless. I think what he means is that they all have the chance to move up the ladder. Of course there's always the chance that any one of them could take a step back as well. As for Vitters, I think that his days as a "prospet" are very much numbered. I say this because if he shows enough improvement, he'll likely be in the big leagues by 2012 if not September, however if he regresses or doesn't improve enough he'll move closer to non-prospect status. He certainly has age on his side, but one can only spend so many years in the minors before they team starts to accept the fact that the power and dicipline may not happen. It sure would be nice to see him get that OPS back over .800 and the PCL is certainly the place to do it.