Little Slide Rooter

He's no Matt Kemp, that's for sure No. Because he's a pitcher. Kemp's a power forward. Wait, wrong Kemp. He's an Outfielder.

In case anyone's forgotten what a closer looks like, it's that.

Time to do that thing where we get three guys out without giving up the lead.

Ross leads the NL in HR/9, and by a wide margin at 2.82, with the next guy at 0.412. And he's 6th in K's. He also leads the NL in BB at 61, also be a wide margin with the next guy at 49.

God [expletive] dam..wait- hubba..wha?

Javy with a 2B.

I could go for a dumpster dive for old time's sake. Beachy's 28, and was looking to be a hell of a pitcher once upon a time. And Morse could offer some lightning in a bottle, something we could really use.

Enough prospects to get Kemp? Certainly enough to snatch Upton or Cespedes out from under the surging White Sox.

Nothing to do with us, but isn't it kind of strange that the Twins aren't doing anything (or at least no talk?) They're hanging onto that 2nd WC with 3-4 teams chasing them, and lord knows they have prospects to spare.

and Fiers THANK GOD Fires is out of the division. Is this some inside joke I'm missing, or did you really fear a guy who for all practical purposes (at least per Fangraphs) is a poorer man's Kyle Hendricks?

Phillips looks pretty good. The rest of the package isn't particularly inspiring though.

Olt on his own should suffice Maybe for Ted.

This. I'd do that in a heartbeat. I get that they might be trying to hold off trading Baez, but I hope the front office isn't delaying this by caring about guys like Underwood. They want Baez? Give us Upton or Kemp and he's theirs. My favorite part is "Upton or Kemp", you know, whichever. If that falls through we could offer Baez to the Rangers for either Hamilton or Odor. It's nothing to due with viewing them as equal players. I want Upton, but he's a long shot. Kemp, on the other hand, I could see them being willing to move for a lesser player return and some salary relief.

[expletive], didn't realize that the White Sox were only 2.5 games out for a WC. Granted, they have 4 teams ahead of them, including the Blue Jays who just stacked themselves. But they're just crazy enough to give up Fulmer for a few months of hope and an extra game.

PLEASE STOP WITH THE KEMP STUFF I would like to acquire Matt Kemp. Why? Seriously give one good, logical reason why Kemp is a wise acquisition. Just one that makes sense. And "he could use a change of scenery" isn't a logical reason, that's an excuse. What in the hell do you see in Kemp that makes you think he would be a wise acquisition for the Chicago Cubs? There's the PetCo to Wrigley argument. Not just on offense, but he'd have less OF ground to cover, which could be helpful to his comically bad defensive numbers. Beyond that, all I've got is that he's too young to just fall off a cliff.

This. I'd do that in a heartbeat. I get that they might be trying to hold off trading Baez, but I hope the front office isn't delaying this by caring about guys like Underwood. They want Baez? Give us Upton or Kemp and he's theirs. PLEASE STOP WITH THE KEMP STUFF I would like to acquire Matt Kemp.

This. I'd do that in a heartbeat. I get that they might be trying to hold off trading Baez, but I hope the front office isn't delaying this by caring about guys like Underwood. They want Baez? Give us Upton or Kemp and he's theirs.

Worley may not be anything special, but to DFA him for Joe Blanton? That's just..weird. 27 years old, under control for 2 more years. I'll take it.

Maddon: Relax, kid. You're not being traded. Now come on, it's time for suitcase packing drills. You're up first.

Rizzo & Bryant have slumped, but it might just be a case of coming back to earth from early astounding numbers. With the long season players go in and out of slumps, but unfortunately the Cubs aren't deep enough to cover for the players in a slump. When you're counting on Coghlan, Denorfia, and Schwarber (an inexperienced rookie) to provide consistency to the offense, you're in trouble. Also, a team that depends on a lot of hitters with a ton of strikeouts is probably more likely to hit these slumps. I agree that they need a legitimate veteran upgrade on offense along with a #5 starter. The #5 starter can be a rental, but the off season has to provide the veteran offensive upgrade and a solid controllable starter. There's a difference between a slump and Bryant and Rizzo of the past 30 days. Add in the fact that our lead off hitter's been broken until about a week ago. And with our regular lineup featuring Castro, Russel (until the past few weeks) and Ross more often than he should be, we may as well have 4 pitchers. And I think that most of these problems can be rectified. And if they are, plant a big bat and/or a front end or even mid-rotation caliber SP, we're right in it. But adding a 5 starter who may or may not be better than Wada or a bat that probably wouldn't be slightly better than a Coghlan/Denorfia platoon? I'm not saying that I'd be mad if it happened, so much as I wouldn't be mad if it didn't.

This might raise a lot of eyebrows, but do we really need a new toy just to get a new toy? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for going all in for a legitimate upgrade like Upton, CarGo (either,) Ross, or Kimbrel. But I don't think that a band aid like Kennedy or Veneble (or Steve Trachle or John Grabow) just because we want something new is going to make a difference either way. This isn't to say that if we can get something like Kennedy for next to nothing we shouldn't take it. But I wouldn't bee to aggressive in pursuit. It feels a lot worse, but we're 13-12 in July, and 6-7 since the ASB. It's this stretch that knocked us out of the Wild Card we'd held onto for most of the first half. And I know that we have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on a few occasions, but that has as much to do with the Giants, who we went into the break 2-3 games ahead of, I think, going 10-2 during that same stretch as it does anything else. And really, there's nothing we could have done about that. Now take into consideration that Rizzo and Bryant have been mostly worthless for about a month, and Castro beyond worthless for even longer. What we need isn't a band-aid but for those guys to get it together. With Fowler out of his uber-slump, Russell showing improvement, and Schwarber..Schwarbing, if we can get the production that we need out of at least 2 of those 3, we're right in this thing. If we can't, it won't matter who we have at the end of our rotation or bolstering the bench.

Why this morning? Other than Javy and the golden sombrero, there were plenty of decent but not particularly awe-inspiring performances last night.

Not until they stop acting like they're going to get Pie AND Hill, that's for sure.

It wouldnt surprise me if the dodgers give him his 200 million before the offseason either. There's absolutely no way that Friedman gives up Urias. Could be the tigers putting up a smoke screen to get one of the other teams to offer a top guy Or "MLB Executives" could simply be a handful of low levels he has on his friend list, for the purposes of spinning smoke into a blazing inferno,

I've been quietly noting the early success of Ovando and fellow pitching convert Mark Malave Ovando: 11.1 IP 0.79 ERA 0.88 WHiP 5/19 BB/K Malave 13 IP (11 AZL/2 Eug) 0.69 ERA 0.54 WHiP 2/16 BB/K And I'm still intrigued by Greyfer Eregua, who through 30 IP has. 2.02 ERA 0.84 WHiP and 7/39 BB/K.