Little Slide Rooter

Not sure why, but Beeler was replaced in the top of the 3rd with 2 out and a 4-2 lead. That can't be good.

Fear not! Here comes John Grabow to the rescue!

Aramis Ramirez refuses to be denied.

Explain how Wilson/Aramis/Prince will cost more than $60 million. Something like Wilson getting $15 million a year, Aramis being brought back for the team option and Prince inexplicably getting $30 million a year? What do we have coming off the books exactly? Kosuke= 13.5 mil Grabow=4.8 mil(barf) Pena=5 mil (5 mil still due) Bradley/Silva=not quite sure how that all worked out. 7-8 mil? Wood=1.5 mil Are there any guys like Garza, Soto, or Marshall that are due raises? My guess is that Wilson, Ramirez, and Fielder would cost around 35-40 mil. Id love it if they have that money to spend, and of course they spend it. We dont need to spend anything on relief. Nothing on utility guys or backups. Certainly no backup catcher. Anything we need there is on the farm. As far as Im concerned, the afore mentioned players should be the only orders of business. I just hope they see things the same way.

I wasnt even thinking in terms of Ramirez. To get all 3, wed most certainly have to move some salary on Z or Soriano, or perhaps Marlon Byrds entire salary if other teams found that more attractive, but in that case, were stuck having to patch together an outfield, assuming that Brett Jackson is major league ready by that point, and again probably relying on someone like Colvin unless they got lucky with a very cheap veteran like we did Edmonds a few years ago. The upside is that string of moves would no doubt boost us right back into contention.

Oh look, were losing to the Astros again. fun. If your the 2nd worse team in baseball, and you keep losing to the worst team in baseball, does that make you the worst team in baseball?

Id be more comfortable with Dempster as a 3rd starter. The problem is, who is out there good enough to be better than Demp? Wilson maybe, but the likelihood is that Dempster will be our second best starting pitcher going into next season. And if his horrid start were really a fluke, that'd be fine. CJ Wilson seems to be the best guy available, unless of course anyone out there thinks we have a shot at CC. Problem is, if we do go after CJ and Fielder, it could become a very expensive endeavor, and they may need to consider moving Z or Soriano for partial salary relief.

Id be more comfortable with Dempster as a 3rd starter.

She can be Branch Rickey, and it could still be 20 years before another woman gets a GM job. Next thing you know they'll want to drive, vote, and do something other than make me a sandwich.

I dont know what the weathers like in the city, but Im in Highland Park right now, and it doesnt look like we'll be having baseball conditions anytime soon.

It might be helpful to double check the players involved when you're making these comparisons. Watkins is younger, a HS draftee v. Barney's back to back CWS titles, he walks more, and he's hitting for more power this year. What would you project his ceiling as? I know there have been high hopes attached to him since the get go.

Nope. were doomed. DOOMED! bwahahahahaha. Seriously though, 1 more solid starter coupled with an effective Andres Cashner should do the trick. Some people have suggested CJ Wilson. Edwin Jacksons another possibility. Depends on how much they want to spend. Reclamation projects like Ben Sheets or Scott Kazmir could be good plan Bs as well. Garza ? Dempster Z Cahsner Works for me.

He's on such a tear that it's somewhat ridiculous. Also hearing that his glove is actually playing fairly well at short. Not really a bet to stay there long run, yet, but if any of this power surge is legitimate, he would be an intriguing 2nd base option. But as good as hes been lately, my perception is that hes more Darwin Barney than anything.

I may get flamed for saying this, but I'd rather spend in this area in some ways than on the major league roster at this point. With the way things are going, with teams locking in their best guys for an extra couple of years, it's making it very hard to find bigtime FA's who are going to be in their prime for most of the contract they're going to wind up getting. You don't have to have a 135 mill major league payroll to consistently be a true contender, if you ask me. If it takes dropping the major league payroll down to 120ish or so, but have the ability to consistently spend bigtime thru the draft and IFA, then I'm actually all for it. The pipeline would be continuous and while you'd have to pay big money to keep some guys obviously, you'd also consistently have the cheap production needed to go around it at all times as well. In a perfect world too, you wouldn't be shelling out humongous money on volatile FA pitching either. You could home grow it and always have more on the way up as well. Ive always thought that even when the Cubs do spend big money on FAs, a huge thing that separates us from teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is that fact that they seem to be able to constantly produce superstars from their farm system in addition to their FAs and trades, and we simply have not come close. Not much homegrown talent to get excited about from the Cubs in recent years. Hopefully thats a trend that can soon be reversed. that is a great point. People seem to forget how good the yankee farm system was in the mid 90's. They developed two legit HOFers in Rivera and Jeter and a pretty awesome catcher in Posada. The cubs always seem to sign the flavor of the month guys as well though. We dont go after elite talent like a Texiera or A-Rod (insert roids joke here) or CC Sabathia. These are guys are elite because they have been consistent producers year after year. The cubs always seem to target those second and third tier guys who are coming off of a big season hoping they can be consistent. We also overpay because in part we pay for the hype. And then we are stuck with guys are overpaid and age as quickly as that guy who drinks from the wrong grail in Indiana Jones 3. Guys like Soriano, Bradley, Todd Hundley, Jeff Blauser, Danny Jackson, Dave Smith, Kerry Wood (03), etc. immediately come to mind. But then thats where your point comes in the cubs sign a big name and then put it all on them to produce. The yankees sign a big name then put them in a line up with other big names. Yup. Yeah, the Red Sox, for example traded for A Gon and Beckett and signed Crawford and others, but they produced the likes of Pedroia, Youklis, Ellsbury, and Lester not to mention others. Same with the Yankees with Jeter, Rivera, and Cano. We seem to produce 1 impact player a decade at best.

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either. All three have gotten their share of criticism for their less than ideal defense. And Im sure any manager in baseball would take any one of them over Reed Johnson, Sam Fuld, or Aaron Rowand slip and sliding all over the field to make a slightly non routine play.

Fine. Ryan Braun, Jose Bautista, and Matt Holliday dont do much of it either.

Billy Hamilton has 72 steals this year alone. DeVoss will be valuable with a .320 OBP. He'll be a household name if he can ever get to .400. 72 SB is damn impressive for a guy with a .302 OBP. He could be pushing 100 if he could manage to get on base on a more respectable basis.

I cant help but notice that guys like Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, A Rod, and Miguel Cabrera dont go crashing into walls on a regular basis. There must be a reason. Oh yeah, they dont have to to to prove their worth.

Right around the time we heard DeVoss was signing or had signed and it hadn't been reported yet, there was a blurb(can't remember from who) that said Baez was expected in shortly or something to that affect. It's pretty easy to get excited with all this stuff going on right now. I just want to see Maples here. Getting him AND Dunston would be phenomenal. Craig, I think I'm going to disagree with you on how much of an overslot I expect Dunston to be. I think he'll get a mill personally. (not saying I see him being worth THAT much either) But, he does have some very nice upside and whatever amount we can get him to agree to, I'm going to be happy about it, since it's a change of philosophy, at the very least. Landing Vogelbach, Maples and Dunston was the dream from the get go. Now that we know Gretzky has signed as well, this has a chance to be a great draft. I would like to hear some news on Zych and Scott relatively soon too. You make it sound like we already have Maples and Dunston. I havnt heard anything to that affect. I heard they were making good progress with Dunston, but thats about it. I really cant imagine that wed miss out on Baez either way though.

I may get flamed for saying this, but I'd rather spend in this area in some ways than on the major league roster at this point. With the way things are going, with teams locking in their best guys for an extra couple of years, it's making it very hard to find bigtime FA's who are going to be in their prime for most of the contract they're going to wind up getting. You don't have to have a 135 mill major league payroll to consistently be a true contender, if you ask me. If it takes dropping the major league payroll down to 120ish or so, but have the ability to consistently spend bigtime thru the draft and IFA, then I'm actually all for it. The pipeline would be continuous and while you'd have to pay big money to keep some guys obviously, you'd also consistently have the cheap production needed to go around it at all times as well. In a perfect world too, you wouldn't be shelling out humongous money on volatile FA pitching either. You could home grow it and always have more on the way up as well. Ive always thought that even when the Cubs do spend big money on FAs, a huge thing that separates us from teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is that fact that they seem to be able to constantly produce superstars from their farm system in addition to their FAs and trades, and we simply have not come close. Not much homegrown talent to get excited about from the Cubs in recent years. Hopefully thats a trend that can soon be reversed.

Home run for Logan Watkins. Not much else to get excited about on the farm tonight. Good night for Vitters and Marwin Gonzalez too, I guess.

Any chance hes also sitting on some early/mid rounders, say 11th and 14th round ? :)

It would appear as though our farm system is full of brides maids. OK, aside from the handsom and dashing Taiwan Easterling.

He just has a better reputation because of a couple of fantastic diving catches. Granted, many CF would have gotten to those balls without diving, but still. And you're right, Johnson isn't much better. White and gritty>Ethnic and lazy.

No idea how that moron keeps his job. Assuming the plan was to let Aramis walk at the end of the year, Id definitely take Morel in a trade for him despite his offensive struggles in the bigs, but I dont see why we want broken down Jake Peavy over Matt Garza.