Little Slide Rooter

Future Octavio Dotel

On the rise or regression to the mean? I see a lot of mediocre. We have lots of high upside guys in the lower levels. Baez, Vogelbach, Maples, Candelario, Hernandez, Golden, Wells, all have the ability to show up on top 100 lists. Szczur, McNutt, Vitters, and Lake all will likely retain their status or possibly improve on it, by this time next year. We've added Concepcion, it's certainly possible we'll add Soler, we'll probably sell off a few more vets between now and this time next year, and we've got 4 top 70 picks in the draft, including number 6. The system is definitely on the way up. Nobody can deny that we have a lot of exciting guys to watch at the lower levels. However, there are no sure things in the minor leagues, even at the upper levels and with guys as young as the group that our farm system is relying the heaviest upon, you never know how many of them will even make it to AA.

Weren't Cashner, Carpenter, and Kurcz our top 3 candidates to take over the closer role after Marmol? Obviously, Kurcz would have been further down the road than the other two. Perhaps Hayden Simpson or Cam Greathouse could try to make the conversion if they're each able to rectify their respective issues.

Already been confirmed (Hoyer, I think?) That the Cubs' returning PTBNL is not as good as Kurcz. I remember hearing that the Red Sox would end up with the better PTBNL, but unless its some 25 year old organizational bum, it's hard to make that kind of statement. I wouldn't expect anything from their top 30, but I could se us ending up with a somewhat intriguing 20-22 year old.

Clevenger C, Johnson OF, Campana OF, Baker IF Cardenas IF. I have a strong hunch that DeWitt will be traded for a PTBNL or some sort of fringe prospect by opening day.

Surprised about Beliveau and Gaub. That pretty much leaves the 2nd lefty pen spot between Maine and Trever Miller. It would certainly be dissapointing to let bargain bin vets like Miller, Corpas, Johnson, and DeWitt take spots from Beliveau, Dolis, Sappelt, and Cardenas in a season that will likely be focused on auditioning the younger guys for future roles.

Why is nobody entertaining the idea of trading Wells? We could likely get something similar to what we got for Gorzo, maybe a bit less because he throws with the other hand. As for Demp, if someone made a reasonable offer for him now, I'd take it and run. If not, no harm waiting a few months and see if anyone gets desperate for mid rotation starters. Hell, even if we traded Demp and Wells we still have Garza, Maholm, Wood, Volstad and Shark, and if shark can't cut it as a starter we have more than enough replacements between Lopez, Sonnenstine, Jackson, Coleman, and Robertson.

According to BN, Casey Weathers was removed from the 40 man roster.He did walk 3 guys in 2 innings, but kind of soon to cut a guy from the 40 man so early. Could be that they needed an extra spot, although there is one available, or maybe he simply looked just that awful.

Wow, considering all of the early 20+mil talk, can't even almost complain about that. Pretty much overslot mid-first round money, right seeing as Baez got 2.65 mil?

#3 is probably something really big like intangibles. 3) aggressively running the bases. 3) Productive outs. Collect underpants.

1st round of cuts made: McNutt, Ha, Carillo, and Mota.

This is exactly why I have a hard time seeing this team be anything more than a .500 club (a potential youth movement in the 2nd half of the season). Even if we overachieve, If they are too far away come trading deadline (and that could mean simply too many teams above them in the chase), I tend to think that the FO will likely spin some assets off for more long term pieces, if possible (maybe Garza, Dempster, Byrd, perhaps Soto, perhaps DeJesus, perhaps Marmol, maybe another starting pitcher if one is performing well, maybe LaHair if he's hitting well). I think they would need to be smack dab in the playoff chase, say within a few games and not many teams ahead of them, for the FO to consider buying, and well, for us to be in that position would probably require a lot, a lot of luck. Yeah, Epstein's likely dream season this year is for all the veterans on the roster to provide enough value to get something of value in return at the deadline as he continues to flip this club, while also giving the youngsters valuable major league service time. The writing was on the wall when they didn't go out and sign any big long term deals. They signed veterans with potential value and easily tradeable contracts like the Pittsburgh Pirates of old. Only difference is Epstein does have an open wallet to strike when it makes the most sense to do so. He didn't like his prospects for this year, whether it be that too much of Hendry's work still makes up most of this roster or the timing just wasn't right for the big name contracts. It will be interesting to see what kind of pieces he can get out of Byrd, Soriano, Dempster, Maholm, Marmol, etc... if any or all get moved. Agreed with the older veterans, but with some of the slightly younger guys gambles like Maholm, Volstad, Sonnenstine, Stewart, and Cardenas my thinking is that with the knowledge that in the next few years they'll start opening up the checkbook to some degree, the hope is that these guys are auditioning for a long term future, and for every roll of the dice that works out, that's one less hole they'll need to fill in the long run. While it may seem that we have a long way to go, we seemingly have SS, CF, and C filled for the future, and those are 3 of the hardest positions to fill. It would be huge if we could add a 3B and a few mid rotation starters and the we could spend the big money on extending Garza and another front end starter. We'd also need some corner outfielders, and I'd like to see us go after a few former top prospects like Michael Taylor or Travis Snider to fill those roles, assuming we get them for a reasonable price for the sake of hoping that one of them could pan out. Another possibility is Delmon Young, assuming his ship hasn't sailed to far away. His 2012 could be the difference between a fairly lucrative 3-4 year contract and a modest 1-2 year.

So was the guy cutting his beard Fred? Well someone had to say it.

Depending on what "at least 1 game over .500" means, if we're there by July and the rest of our division shapes up as I expect it to, we'd probably be about 5 games out and who knows what type of help could be available.

He did look promising when we got him, but oh we'll.

Was this aimed at B2B or yourself? It's aimed at the fact that we're in a weak division and have a lot of players that at least have an off being valuable, whether they're one time highly touted players (Stewart, Maholm, Volstad)or players that could potentially have a big, bounce back year(Soriano, Soto, Marmol, DeJesus,). It would take a lot to go right for it to happen and a lot of extra sugar in the Kool-Aid to get me or anyone else to believe that it could really happen but I'm entering the season in the same state of mind I did pretty much every year up until the early '00's and just hoping to sit back and enjoy some games, and if I happen to be surprised by a team that manages to contend, that's a bonus. Jesus Christ. The bolded. Oh that. Mainly me.

It's Peter Gammons, he's probably just catching up on January news now. I caught that as well. Sounds like recycled news, but I remember thinking the same thing the morning of the day Z was traded when I saw a Tweet from a Venezuelan source that the Cubs and Marlins were discussing a trade for him so who knows. That was the original rumored price, and if the offer has been on the table the entire time, and nobody has been willing to match it the only thing in the way of a done deal could be his establishing residency and officially becoming a free agent.

Was this aimed at B2B or yourself? It's aimed at the fact that we're in a weak division and have a lot of players that at least have an off being valuable, whether they're one time highly touted players (Stewart, Maholm, Volstad)or players that could potentially have a big, bounce back year(Soriano, Soto, Marmol, DeJesus,). It would take a lot to go right for it to happen and a lot of extra sugar in the Kool-Aid to get me or anyone else to believe that it could really happen but I'm entering the season in the same state of mind I did pretty much every year up until the early '00's and just hoping to sit back and enjoy some games, and if I happen to be surprised by a team that manages to contend, that's a bonus.

even if you trade byrd/soriano, i'd rather start campana in cf on opening day than jackson. there are lots and lots of reasons to start him at aaa, and basically none to start him in chicago. If it were to come down to that, I'd go with Sappelt. There's at least the chance that he can be something resembling a big league regular. Tony Campana is a set of legs.

It looks to me like it could be another 85 wins could win the division type of season. The Brewers just lost Fielder. Chances are that Brauns numbers are going to take a dip, if for no other reason than because he's no longer protected by Fielder. Corey Hart and Shawn Marcum are both already having injury issues, and Ricky Weeks and Yovanni Gallardo always seem to as well. Axford looks like a shut down cloer, but so did Dan Kolb and Derrick Turnbow for a year. The Cardinals just lost the best player in the world(no Theriot jokes please), their ace is coming off a major injury, and virtually any member of their core are prime candidates to spend a good chunk of the season on the DL. Even last year, they simply were not as good of a team as they looked to be in the last few months of the 2011 season and they're worse this year. The Reds: Nothing really wows me about them, but they seem solid all around. Cueto and Latos should be a formidable 1-2, but beyond tat, the rotation is not a pretty one. The Pirates are...um....young. I stand by my assessment that if enough goes right( Soriano, Soto, LaHair, Stewart, DeJesus, entire rotation) that we could keep relevant through July, and perhaps make a big pickup.

If we can manage get a decent return before opening day for Byrd or Soriano, then by all means have Jackson start the season in the bigs. If not, assuming all is going well in Iowa just get what we can in July for Byrd and call up Jackson then. There's no excuse or your top prospect to be anything short of a full time player at whichever level he starts the season.

SELL!!! SELL!!! SELL!!!

I remember something similar, sometime after the 2003 post season in a documentry about the Cubs and Red Sox and at one point it showed a similar scenerio in which both the Cubs and Red Sox were able to hang on and meet in the World Series. It must have been before the 2004 WS because it was about the 2 droughts.

September? i didn't think szczur was close to ML ready. I think he's starting in AA, so it's not out of the question for a cup of coffee. He'd have to really impress to earn it, even as a September call up. Even if Soriano, Byrd, and Johnson are all traded/injured, I'd assume that Jackson, Sappelt, and Campana would round out the outfield along with DeJesus. If LaHair manages to impress with the bat, they might even want to give him a look in the outfield for future considerations while Rizzo gets 1B.

It comes out that Bryan LaHair, Rebel Ridling, and Justin Bour are all clones of a turn of the century steel mill worker turned ballplayer.