Little Slide Rooter

I say we just give the Red Sox Eddie Vedder altogether. Only anything from the last 10 years or so.

I wish she had her own thread for actual news that the rest of us could't gum it up with our rehashing and analysis. Yeah, stupid talking baseball on a baseball site. How dare he not want to wade through countless pages of your deeply fascinating baseball discussions for actual news. You poor darlings. The thread title changes when the news actually changes. Stop. I have no problem with the ongoing discussion. I just wish there was a seperate thread for just breaking news so that when there were new posts we could get right to it.

The only guys I really want to see gone are both gone anyway. Pena, not that I didn't like him, but because we need an upgrade and Grabow and Hill because they're bad. The only guys I'd be upset if we lost are Castro, Garza, Cashner, and Marshall. I'm on the fence with Soto. I'm rather indifferent on the rest. I'd like to keep Ramirez, but not for too much money.

I wish she had her own thread for actual news that the rest of us could't gum it up with our rehashing and analysis.

Hopefully lots.

Me too, but if we have a better option, I'd prefer it.

I he's leaving on his own free will and terms, should anyone really owe him a buyout?

No. he pretty much is For now. He's nowhere near good enough to be making the money he is, but nowhere near bad enough to eat the rest of the contract and railroad him out of town for nothing. We'll see how he ages the rest of the way. Skill level has absolutely nothing to do with contract. That's basically how I feel about him and Z. They may not be worth the money they're making, but as long as we have to pay it anyway, were better off keeping them than letting them go elsewhere and replace them with Lou Montanez and Casey Coleman. Z in particular. He essentially has his MLB future at stake on this season, more than your average pending free agent. This could be his last shot at another big contract, and if ever there's a year that he's going to keep focused and look like an 18 million dollar pitcher, this would be it and I'd prefer it be for us instead of The Marlins.

I don't think that the likelihood of Ramirez being here next year is very high at all and Zambrano is 99% gone with us pretty much guaranteed to pick up a significant chunk of the salary. I don't really care about the speculation. As the Cubs currently stand they have more than 2-3 above average players. They can choose to get rid of some of those above average players if they want to, but they are Cubs. Do you really think it's just "speculation" that Zambrano is likely to be gone after the way he was handled this year? Aramis himself doesn't expect to be back. I don't think those two things are anything short of likely, if not certainties. That was all before Epstein. Hopefully he's wise enough to know that Z is too valuable to railroad out of town with little to nothing to show for it. Aramis wants to play for a contender, well, now that Epstein is allegedly taking over, he may very well view the Cubs as such.

No. he pretty much is For now. He's nowhere near good enough to be making the money he is, but nowhere near bad enough to eat the rest of the contract and railroad him out of town for nothing. We'll see how he ages the rest of the way.

Brian Cashman.

OK, awful is exaggerating it, but we have substantial money tied up in mediocre to OK players and have a good amount of guys who are overpaid and don't have bright prospects of getting better. The level of denial regarding the Cubs' current major league roster is really quite amazing to me. They are above average at maybe 2 or 3 spots. The mediocrity runs deep. The upside potential is modest, at best. Theo or whomever has his work cut out for him, and those expecting a contender next year are going to be disappointed IMO. There's few here expecting a contender. Most are saying there's reason to hope for a contender given how weak the division is, the FA class available and that it doesn't require the Cubs to make a huge leap to be in the mix for at least most of the season. There's a huge area between going from 2011 to winning 90+ games. The Cubs can have a relatively successful season next year if they just get back around .500 and stay competitive within the division for a good chunk of the year. It gives them the off chance to actually win it (certainly not a forgone conclusion) but also, more importantly, sets them on the right path for the seasons to come. Ironically, I bet the same people who expect an immediate rise to contention and use 2006/2007 as an example are those who blast the big contracts that were handed out, however, the only reason they were able to jump straight from the 2006 mess to 2007 was due to Jim Hendrys reckless spending spree, whether it was his doing or more the fault of his superiors. Yeah, it's going to take spending over the next 2-3 years to get back up there, but it needs to be done wisely and more patiently than simply dumping as much money as possible on the best available players. Spending on Pujols or Fielder would be a wise investment, but if we miss out on them, hopefully we dont dump too much money on Carlos Pena or Michael Cuddyer, not that I would expect that out of Epstein.

Care to place a wager on that?

They have their own mess to worry about.

So the people in this and the previous thread were just trolling? Over the past week, people have talked about the possibility of virtually every one of our valuable assets being involved. Talking about the possibility and expecting it to happen are completely different. The media doofs have mentioned pretty much every worthwhile player we have: Castro, Garza, Jackson, Cashner, Szczur, Mcnutt. People are therefore going to discuss the possibilites of it happeneing. I don't think it would happen, but wouldn't be surprised if they ask for someone like Jackson, Szczur, or McNutt. They can ask for anything they want, but that doesn't mean they'll get it.

I don't think anyone so much thought they would/thinks they will as much as speculation as to why it would be a good or bad idea.

Compenation: Cash+Minor league rank and file. Title: Messiah and Savior. Done and done.

Castro put up a .376/.421/.569 line at AA while 2 years younger than Jackson was last year. I'm relatively sure if we let Castro amass half a season at AAA next year he'd outperform Jackson by quite a bit. If most hitters could put up the numbers in MLB that they do in the PCL, their respective teams would nut themselves.

I wouldn't trade either but either of those for Epstein is far less absurd than that Upton/Davis package of yours. It's a tossup, IMO. We aren't trying to get Epstein out of some 15 year contract to come to the Cubs. The only reason he's interested is because he's at least a little disgruntled in Boston, and he's only under contract for another 12 months. For the Red Sox to demand any player of value(aka anyone who would play in MLB or find themselves on a Top 15-20 prospect list), is a desperate attempt that someone like Ricketts should see right through. He can respond "you can take whatever trinket I'm offering(cash, minor league filler, Bryan LaHair) and get something for Theo, or you can trap him in Boston for 12 months and piss him off, assuring he's gone after 2012 for nothing". The Red Sox have no leverage to demand value. based on this logic, no team would ever get anything of value for a player, manager or general manager who requests a trade, yet it happens all the time. they could easily keep him around, win 100 games and the world series next year, and he decides to stay in what's kind of his home town with his wife and young family. it's not like he hasn't changed his mind before. or he still wants to leave, but there are other good organizations in the market for a GM. and what do the cubs do, have randy bush make all the decisions for the next calendar year? there is still some leverage on the red sox' side. It seems to me that if Theo stays in Boston, he's getting extended before the saga comes to an end. From what I heard on M&H this morning, the Cubs offer is 5 years at over 15 mil. No way he turns it down unless the Red Sox offer him an extension before he officially informs Ricketts that he's declining his offer to stay. This being the case, I agree, we should't owe them too much of a compensation because if they let him go, it means they probably didn't plan to extend him. If he stays, he likely forces their hand to give him an extension similar to what we offered, maybe with some kind of hometown discount. Even if he does pass on our offer, and Boston still hesitates to extend him, there are still the Angels and Orioles with jon openings who could contact him, and as bad as the Orioles are, it would probably look worse for the Red Sox if he left for a team in their division.

Damn, I just BBRd Crawfords contract and I had no idea how awful it was. Until this year, he was looking like the ultimate 5 tool player, but after this year, he's owed between 18-21 mil depending on the year through 2017.

This...except "two years". I haven't been this excited since the beginning of 09... so probably 3 years. Even in August when we were in first place, I was less excited than I am about this. Wasn't that for like a day and then the Cards ran off?

Seriously, if we had a deeper farm system, maybe we could get away with that, but as of now, it would be seeting the organization back too far no matter who The GM. They already have a guy posed to be one of the best CFs in baseball. They shouldn't be trying to pillage us. If they want some lower level guys or other prospects like Flaherty or Carpenter, that's OK. As is, the only guys in the big leagues and upper levels we have of real value are Garza, Castro, Cashner, and Jackson. Maybe Soto. We have some intriguing guys in the lower levels, but you never know how they could turn out. We simply can't afford to give up Jackson or Cashner. I'd prefer take Lackey and his entire contract of their hands, and kick them some fringe prospects, maybe even someone like Marlon Byrd if they want a corner OF.

Tweet from Heyman this morning says compensation may only be cash. Still may be another hurdle but deal still has a decent shot.

YES, amen to that. i got really sick of watching hendry become infatuated with one type of player because the cubs didn't hit righthanded pitching in a 3 game series, or didn't steal enough bases, or made a few too many errors. or trying to mimic what some other team did to win a world series (especially if it's some team that's not even that good, like the 2005 sox) I always though slot of those OCD infatuations were more Lou than Hendry.

That would be make sense, considering what the Sox got for Guillen. I'm kind of expecting that we've seen the last of Josh Vitters in this deal. Honestly, I don't want him if it takes that much. Is this serious? I'd probably be willing to part with Flaherty and Carpenter for him. Definitely better than Jackson, McNutt, or Szczur.