Little Slide Rooter

To be honest, I hope that Quade is offered a position somewhere in the organization, be it his old 3B coach job, a bench coach, or a minor league coach. It would be a shame if a guy who had been in the organization as long as he has would finally be given the managers job and it didn't work out so he's kicked to the curb all together. He's a very good man but a very bad wizard.

I agree about those 2, but as a lot of people have said, or maybe just 1 or 2, as with many farm system, after the top 5-10, there are a lot of guys who could go anywhere from 11-30.

Hopefully theres nothing better than Evan Crawford or Grahem Hicks on that list.

As far as that set goes, another guy whose rumored to be available is Joe Saunders, who the D Backs have said might be a non tender or a sign and trade. To me, he's below Wilson and Maholm but above Jackson and Vasquez.

You sign Prince or Pujols. This being said, we need to understand that this isn't the NBA or NHL where 1 big addition can completely turn your franchise around overnight. It will probably be about 3 years before we get where we really want to be. I'm not saying that we "throw it away", that should never be your state of mind going into the season whether your the Yankees or the Padres. Could we go all in? Sure, we went from worst to 1st between '06 and '07 and got even better in 2008 by throwing a bunch of money at a bunch of guys. But what happened 2 years later? The clock struck midnight and we were stuck with a bunch of mice and pumpkins. Now Fielder and Pujols arent your average best available and we have a bunch of money burning a hole in our pocket so lets throw it at them guys. They're true elite players that could be cornerstones. If they werent available, I'd say don't spend any big money on free agents this year. We also have Brett and Castro who can be our 1-2 hitters for years to come, maybe develope into 2-3 hitters. Soto can be a solid pice as well, even in his off years he offers solid OBP and power for a catcher. That's 4 guys. We need 4 more not to mention pitching. When Theo was with the Red Sox, they had all 3 things going: free agents, trades, and the farm system coming up with top players, although many of his FA signings were suspect at best. We have the money to sign free agents. We can make trades. What the problem for the Cubs has been is developing impact players. In my lifetime, theres been Maddux, Palmeiro, and Grace, and it's been over 20 years since Grace. Some will argue for Zambrano, Wood, and even Prior, but I wouldn't put them in the elite catagory, though all 3 could have been. Of course we have Castro, who could join their ranks, but time will tell. We need to be patient and hope they can make treading water look good for the next 2 years. We have just struck the lottery in terms of suits. Coming soon: players.

The sad thing is that the average meatball Cubs fan will turn on Ricketts, Theo, and Hoyer when the Cubs don't instantly turn into the Red Sox.

Theo is smarter than all of us and 20 Kaplans put together. Mike Quade will not be fooling him.

Kenney had planted a bomb in a Boston childrens hospital and was to detonate it if the talks werent resolved by the end of this evening. Kenney was reportedly visibly distraught when the announcement was made as he was looking forword to detonating the bomb all week.

I've never heard of this guy or site before, but do to the fact that it came off the I Cubs twitter i thought it might have some cred.

they haven't reached it yet Interesting. Now that it's official, do The Red Sox lose most of the leverage they thought they had? I'm sure we'll give them something fair out of respect that they dont really deserve, but i doubt that it will be anything as huge as I may have earlier thought. Great evening!

Hate to be a wet blanket, but I would very much like to know what the compensation is. Kind of scares me that they're saving it for a seperate announcement. Makes me think it's something on the huge side.

Im not sure how official this list is, but its straight off the Iowa Cubs Twitter and is from RT @ MinorLeagueBlog To qualify, a prospect must have fewer than 130 at-bats or 50 innings in MLB #1 Javier Baez SS Born: 12/1/1992 Highest Level Reached: Short-A Boise Hawks 2011 Combined Stats: .278, 2(2B), 1RBI (5-18 in 5 pro games; 2011 1st Round Pick) #2 Brett Jackson OF Born: 8/2/1988 Highest Level Reached: Triple-A Iowa Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .274, 23(2B), 5(3B), 20HR, 58RBI, 21SB #3 Matt Szczur OF Born: 7/20/1989 Highest Level Reached: High-A Daytona Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .293, 22(2B), 3(3B), 10HR, 46RBI #4 Dillon Maples RHP Born: 5/9/1992 Highest Level Reached: 1st Round Pick 2011 MLB Draft 2011 Combined Stats: Did Not Play In 2011 #5 Jeimer Candelario 3B Born: 11/24/1993 Highest Level Reached: Rookie League Dominican Summer League Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .337, 16(2B), 2(3B), 5HR, 53RBI #6 Josh Vitters 3B Born: 8/27/1989 Highest Level Reached: Double-A Tennessee Smokies 2011 Combined Stats: .283, 28(2B), 2(3B), 14HR, 81RBI #7 Dan Vogelbach 1B Born: 12/17/1992 Highest Level Reached: Rookie League AZL Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .292, 3(2B), 1HR, 6RBI (7-24 in 6 pro games; 2011 2nd Round Pick) #8 Pin-Chieh Chen 2B Born: 7/23/1991 Highest Level Reached: Short-A Boise Hawks 2011 Combined Stats: .301, 14(2B), 4(3B), 2HR, 30RBI #9 Tony Zych RHP Born: 8/7/1990 Highest Level Reached: Short-A Boise Hawks 2011 Combined Stats: 0-0, 2.25ERA, 4IP, 2BB, 5K (2011 4th Round Pick) #10 Ben Wells RHP Born: 9/10/1992 Highest Level Reached: Short-A Boise Hawks 2011 Combined Stats: 4-4, 4.66ERA, 77.1IP, 19BB, 53K, .265BAA #11 Trey McNutt RHP Born: 8/2/1989 Highest Level Reached: Double-A Tennessee Smokies 2011 Combined Stats: 5-6, 4.55ERA, 95IP, 39BB, 65K, .319BAA #12 Marco Hernandez SS Born: 9/6/1992 Highest Level Reached: Rookie League AZL Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .333, 16(2B), 5(3B), 2HR, 42RBI #13 Ryan Flaherty 2B Born: 7/27/1986 Highest Level Reached: Triple-A Iowa Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: .280, 34(2B), 3(3B), 19HR, 88RBI #14 Chris Carpenter RHP Born: 12/26/1985 Highest Level Reached: MLB Chicago Cubs 2011 Combined Stats: MINORS: 3-4, 5.91ERA, 42.2IP, 27BB, 34K, .269BAA MAJORS: 0-0, 2.79ERA, 9.2IP, 7BB, 8K, .316BAA #15 Junior Lake SS Born: 3/27/1990 Highest Level Reached: Double-A Tennessee Smokies 2011 Combined Stats: .279, 21(2B), 6(3B), 12HR, 51RBI, 38SB

99.99999999999%!

I don't se how that's what you're getting out of it. Sounds more like he's saying piss or get off the pot. I don't see why he's dragging the Padres into it though, as they seem ready to part with their guy without a struggle.

I wont complain, but I said it before and I'll say it again, I find it odd that The Padres aren't asking for anything in return for their young GM who they've only had for about 2 years and was supposed to shape them into something resembling a major league baseball team while the Red Sox are asking for top prospects for a guy they're done with regardless.

But he was saying things that made us happy. If that doesn't make him reliable, what does?

fixed How about we just add eventually between Theo and coming?

It seems as though everyone out there is 100% that it will get done eventually except for a handfull NSBB and SoSH posters.

The deals been done for several days and Ricketts and Henry are just throwing down some brews and telling every sports writer that asks a completely different story just to [expletive] with them until the scheduled announcement.

I just remember thinking that it was kind of cool because he was the closest thing to a high profile manager we had in my lifetime, or at least while I'd been following baseball unless anyone considered Don Zimmer as a high profile manager, but even then I just though of a manager as an old guy who just sat in the dugout and came out to change pitchers or occasionally yell at an umpire. Even when Dusty came, I didn't value managers all that much.

Tonight. No next week. no, tomorrow. Halloween. Thanksgiving flag day this afternoon sideways world a week from tuesday now yesterday 3 days ago there is no now...here

[expletive] man, there are 217 pages worth of dances. I can't be responsible for learning all of them. You were actively posting in the thread while the discussion was ongoing. Can I expect you to read threads while you actively post in them? I actually don't remember that part. Besides, with all the conversations going on in this thread, one would probably need a Venti Adderall Latte to catch everything.

Awesome. Now lets just all sit back and await the next talks stalled/don't expect announcement anytime soon update