Little Slide Rooter

I'm interested to see what sort of contraption you come up with to watch games focusing on Barney at 2B while at the same time, preventing your eyes from seeing the Thing just a few dozen feet to his left. I can't be alone in the no emotion regarding Darwin Barney, can I? If he's as good a fielder as they say, and can at least be Ryan Theriot with the bat at the 8 spot, I'm OK with his existance while he's nice and cheap. If someone better comes along, by all means move Barney to the bench.

The more outragious the prediction, the better it looks if it comes to be. You don't get rich by putting $5 down on a 2:1 shot.

In this case, it's about the money. It's no secret that the Yankees had been trying to move A.J. and as much of his salary as possible for a while now. With Dempster, if we expected a team to pick up a bulk of the salary, we'd probably get around what the Yankees got for Burnett, probably less because he's on the last year of a contract. However, if we were to pick up the bulk of the salary, we could get a better player return. As in demand reliable starting pitching is, we could get a good return on Dempster if we ate most to all of the salary, and since our goal is to build the farm and not dump salary, that's what I'd like to see.

2003 Mark Prior laughs at this. I miss Pre-2004 Mark Prior. The perfect representation of what could of been throughout the aughts.

I did miss that part. Still, their pitching could very well give them a chance at fringe contention, but they're full of offensive question marks, and center field is a big one for them between Bernardina and Ankiel, who's long since gone from pumpkin to Halloween jack-o-lantern that nobody's bothered to dispose of in mid November. If they don't want to give up too much for Jones or Upton, they may well settle for a stop gap for now. As for the Indians, a stop gap would be exactly what they could use.

Sounds like an opportunity to me. With the additional Wild Card in play, The Nats are a legit contender for their first playoff spot ever and the franchises 2nd spot and first in over 30 years. Marlon Byrd may not be Jones, Upton, Bourn, or Victorino, but he'd be a hell of a lot cheaper. Aside from lat year, Byrd has been a 2.5-3.5 WAR guy, although last year, Rick Ankiel and his .239/.296/.363 and 9 HR had a slightly higher WAR (2.1) than Byrd and his (1.7) .276/.324/.395 and 9 HR, with the bulk of Byrds(1.5 O, 0.2 D) value coming from offense and Ankiels(0.4 O, 1.7 D) from defense. WAR aside, Byrd is a far superior player to Ankiel and Roger Bernadina, who to put it bluntly, cannot hit. With Sappelt pretty much big league ready, and Jackson may very well be too, we should be trying to sell them Byrd, and as far as we know, they're in discussions as we speak. It just makes sense. Maybe we could get one of their top 15-20 and an additional 19-20 year old if we pick up the bulk of his 2012 salary. Cleveland as well. They're another team that could benefit from the extra WC, although the East and west have stronger suiters. The say that Sizemore will miss 8-11 weeks(not sure if it means starting now or opening day), but with Sizemore, that number could escalate quickly and exponentially and a backup plan couldn't hurt.

With this and the bunt tourney, I'm beginning to think that Dale Sveum is going to become everything people feared that Ryne Sandberg would be, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Welcome to Dale Ball.

Unfortunately, trade partners feel the same way about dropping top prospects on them. Yeah, as much as I was sucked into the vacuum of teams emptying out their farms for him, I'd have expected something more along the lines of Smyly or Crosby+Castalannos or Gose (or even Snider)+Drabek+1 more high ceiling prospect at best.

Joe Mather is 2012s AAA mega slugger. He puts up .325/.430/.615 with 42 HR before earning a September callup in which he goes .272/.355/.450 with 5 HR in 62 PA. Many are angered by the fact that he exists and WSR is [expletive] upon for suggesting that we could do worse for a 25th man in 2013.

I don't think that it means that there will be less sellers, but certainly more buyers. It's a zero-sum game. 30 teams total. If there are more buyers, then by definition there are fewer sellers. (Unless you think there's a third, "none of the above" category.) That's my point. The sellers are usually the teams who know they don't have a chance. No matter how many playoff spots there are, if you're 15 games out of anything by the end of July, it's time to back up the truck. Even more so for the waiver deadline The "none of the above" catagory is of which I speak. These are the teams who are not bad enough to sell, but not in a position to give up anything of value for a rental. This isn't to say that if they have an in demand player they might not want to cash in, but with an extra wild card spot available, these teams are likely to become buyers.

You forgot the part where he rolls around in a pit of unearned money.

Jorge Soler signs for 32 mil to very mixed reviews. He starts at Peoria sometime in June and puts up something along the lines of .275/.325/.450 with 12 HR between Peoria and Daytona. Logan Watkins is the 2nd round of Theo comp. he puts up .300/.375/.400 for the Red Sox AAA affiliate. Pierre LaPage and Frank Batista are sent to San Diego.

Jay Jackson looks solid and is a September call up. Cam Greathouse greatly improves his control an is one of our top 15 prospects next year.

Do they give him enough meds to make it stop?

I don't think that it means that there will be less sellers, but certainly more buyers. Usually, the sellers in July are the ones who have pretty much no chance of the playoffs. These teams tend to know that with or without a few extra playoff spots. However, there will now be more fringe contenders looking to bolster themselves, be it for mid-back rotation starters, solid bats, utility guys, or middle relievers. This could give us the chance to get more in return for Byrd, Dempster, Maholm, Baker and various relievers. If we want to move Garza, Soto, and Marmol at that point, we could really rake.

It is kind of crazy that the season starts in a month and it has yet to be decided how many teams will be in the playoffs. However, whether they add 1 more team in each league or note, it shouldn't change anybody's approach right now. Plus, Bud has made it very clear he intends on having those extra teams this season. It's a difficult thing to pull off with the regular season schedules already in place. I would have just waited until next season to introduce it cleanly and all at once. It shouldnt change any bodies approach right now, but you can bet that there will be a lot more action going on in the hot stove this summer.

Great reporting... So it will happen unless it doesn't.

Any 36 year old is going to be a tough sell even if they're not making 18 mil/year. However, if we pick up 100% of his remaining salary, we might be able to rake in someone like a Brian Marusz, Zach Britton, Wade Davis, or Brett Cecil but even then we could end up tossing in something else.

Last night, Boers and Bernstein were discussing the insanity of Brewers fans on the subject and their refusal to accept even the possibility that he may be guilty. They compared them to fans of other teams, primarily the Red Sox when their star players were accused of PEDs. They didn't bring up the real reason. it's all the Brewers have. People genuinely care about the Cubs and Red Sox outside of their markets whether they're good or bad. The Brewers can't say that. When the Brewers were winning, they were getting national attention, the likes of which they havn't seen since the Molitor/Yount days, maybe more so. This was due largely to Prince Fielder who's gone and Ryan Braun, who's reputation is now tarnished.

Mark Prior is somebodies closer by the end of the season.

And some sort of fire Sveum thread pops up less than a month into the season.

This will make both East divisions very interesting, not to mention more action at the trade deadline.

As easy as that one is, it may be the first time I've seen it. If one were to type his name into a computer with a spell check, I'm assuming that's what it would ultimately come up with.

By July: Adrian Cardenas takes over 2B and puts up 2006 Theriot like numbers, though he and Castro form an epically bad double play combination. Marlon Byrd( to TB for Wade Davis or Jeff Niemann) and Reed Johnson(to who cares for a PTBNL and 27 year old one time medium upside prospect) are replaced by Brett Jackson who puts up something to the tune of .265/.350/.450 and Dave Sappelt with .280/.325/.400. Blake DeWitt is traded to the A's by opening day. He puts up the same numbers he did in 2011. He ends up their 5 hitter. Bonus: At the deadline, some type of multi team blockbuster trade involving Alfonso Soriano and Chone Figgins, and Barry Zito occurs.

Kerry Wood is our closer by Memorial Day. Randy Wells is traded to the Mariners by opening day. Ryan Dempster and Jeff Baker are traded to the Red Sox in early July. We end up with 2 of their top 15 prospects and another young high upside prospect. SoSH collectively loses is it and come to Wrigley Field bearing torches and pitch forks.