Clem Fandango

Robertson reportedly asking for Papelbon money. With the Cubs also linked to Andrew Miller, if they insist on getting one reliever I think I'd prefer Miller at the cheaper cost considering we've already got a good bullpen as it is.

Armando Rivero?

http://i.imgur.com/f34pfrF.gif

Well, if we can make a move this offseason and Baez is still viewed as a potential monster, I think... Baez + Alcantara + Edwards/Johnson + Vogelbach Makes their heads turn in our direction at the very least. I'd rather use Almora instead of Alcantara though, and if that's not enough you can always add expendable depth (Olt, Lake, Sczur) or throw in one of our pitchers that might get forced out from a reliever or starter signing (Wood, Wright, etc.) But I think that's a good foundation of an offer right there.

STANTON

Quite the opposite, IIRC

Funny enough, in a free piece that Crasnick wrote it talks about the same subject (Hamels/Castro trades):

Yet another insider article on ESPN about Castro possibly being traded,,, http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11851730/mlb-more-likely-traded-cole-hamels-starlin-castro Still more of the obvious?

Kemp didn't get good again until halfway through the season and while his overall numbers look nice, he's yet to prove he can consistently keep those numbers up. Combined with the fact that he's an abysmal defender, he averages out to someone who isn't worth Castillo AND Almora, IMO. A Castillo for Kemp swap is more realistic. 2014 Stats Kemp: .287/.346/.506/.852 140 OPS+ 25 HR 89 RBI Castillo: .237/.296/.389/.686 89 OPS+ 13 HR 46 RBI 2014 WAR Kemp: 1.1 rWAR; 1.8 fWAR Castillo: 1.8 rWAR; 2.2 fWAR Matt Kemp is so bad at defense that despite having an OPS .166 points higher and an OPS+ 51 points higher than Castillo, he was still slightly less valuable than Castillo. So if you're gonna offer up Castillo in a package for Kemp, I'd offer him straight up and not give anything else. Almora isn't as great as we'd hoped he'd become (yet), but I think he's still got enough heat as a prospect that he'd be a valuable asset in a deal for a more useful player. The caveat of all this, of course, is if the Cubs sign Martin.

I know the Cardinals could conceivably put together a package to make it happen, but Taveras was their blue chip prospect to offer to the Marlins for Stanton. With Taveras tragically gone from that scenario, they'd have to give up more to account for the offset in talent a package without Taveras would include, and it may end up hurting their future more than it would if he hadn't passed away. Either they add more prospects, or add young MLB talent to make up the difference. If Taveras were still alive the package would be a lot easier to visualize. And a vast majority of the better talent they can offer, both prospects and MLB wise, is pitching, and one would assume the Marlins would primarily want some offense back if they're giving up one of the best bats in the majors with no impactful replacement for that bat in the future.

Blow it out your ass, Amaro

So he's basically just stating the obvious. Thanks.

Keith Law just put an Insider article up that mentions the possibilities of teams looking to trade for Castro. Doubt there's any real news, but I'm curious to know what he wrote about it. Can anyone summarize? http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11837670/2015-mlb-free-agency-middle-infielders-buyer-guide

Kemp's offense re-surged but his defense was so bad that it practically cancelled out his offensive contributions and he was pretty league average as a result.

Yeah, I'm sold on Lester being a Cub. The fact that he doesn't cost a DP, his history with Theo, etc. it lines up too perfectly for him not to be their #1 target and for the Cubs not to be his #1 destination. Adding Scherzer on top of that would be amazing, but I don't think they spend on two aces. I would be super happy if they got Lester and McCarthy, though McCarthy's resurgence probably won't help those matters, unless he'd just be super jazzed about playing for the Cubs and would take less money, but I don't see that happening. I've sort of been on the "meh" side of things with Russell Martin because I don't like how much we'd have to commit to get him, and the fact that if Schwarber can stick at catcher even remotely well, Martin would be out by year 3 I'd have to imagine, and it'd take more than that to land him. But I really would like Martin on the team. If the offseason was Lester and Martin I'd be happy. Lester, Martin, and McCarthy I'd be thrilled. Lester, Scherzer, and Martin I'd probably need to see a doctor because my erection will have lasted longer than 4 hours.

My first instinct is Markakis, but I think he re-signs with Baltimore and I don't really think the Cubs target him anyway.

Jose Molina is awesome, and he's getting on in age to a point where he might retire soon. If he does, I'd love for the Cubs to snag him as a development coach. This is a good article from BP a couple years back on his abilities and even has a quote from Maddon about how valuable he was to their team. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18896

MLBTR just put out their arb estimates for each team, this is the Cubs:

Each of them have more of a chance to bust than they do to succeed next season. A lot of those performances were way above their heads. Santana especially. Arcia is the only one with any sort of a pedigree, but he's gotta work on that 31% K-rate if he wants to get better. Escobar is practically a glove only shortstop. Santana was a .700 OPS guy in the minors so I don't know if you can expect him to put up another .824 OPS. Vargas has the most intriguing future to me because his minor league numbers were solid. Good power, decent BB:K rate, hit for average, career .854 OPS in the minors. He's got potential. But he got called up from AA and looked a bit overmatched at the plate judging from his BB:K rate slipping pretty heavily. His numbers were propped up by a likely unsustainable .340 BABIP. Speaking of unsustainable BABIP's, Eduardo Escobar's BABIP was .336 and Danny Santana's BABIP was .405 (.405!?!?!?). Arcia was the only normal one (.292). He's probably the closest to what you can expect next season. The rest? I wouldn't count on it. They also have to hope Kurt Suzuki keeps hitting the way he has because he pretty much put up career best numbers last season. He had a better wRC+ than the $23 million Joe Mauer, who was also 27% of their 2014 opening day payroll. Otherwise Suzuki is a defensive specialist only. But they're in a decent position for free agency. They have only $60 million committed next season, and only Plouffe to really worry about in arbitration (the rest are meh guys who probably will each get a million or two). Their average payroll the past couple of seasons has been around $85 million so they've got a little bit of room to play... but not much, and pitching is what they need to fix. They'll likely have $10-$15 million available to play around with, which should be enough to get one guy, like Liriano or Peavy or something. But one mid-level guy isn't gonna save them. Adding Meyer to the fold should help, but that's still a lot of pitching issues even with Meyer and a FA added. And they have to hope Buxton isn't Mr. Glass and that Sano doesn't have setbacks with his return from TJS. Minnesota has a lot of "ifs" right now and very few sure things. So yeah... compared to the Cubs, the Twins are a dumpster fire as far as I'm concerned.

Molitor is going to be the new manager and Bosio played 7 seasons with him. I doubt he'll sacrifice what he's worked hard to accomplish in Chicago just before they get championship caliber good for the sake of getting the band back together at a dumpster fire Why is Minnesota a dumpster fire? I see three guys on the current roster that I see and go "Those guys are keepers": Mauer, Dozier, Hughes. Plouffe gets an honorable mention. The rest is stopgaps and dart throwing hoping something sticks. They got nice results out of Danny Santana but who the hell is Danny Santana again? And their pitching is embarrassingly bad. When you see that chart that was posted in the musings thread that showed how many 97mph pitches were thrown by each organization and you see Minnesota at the bottom with 1 (one entire pitch all season that was 97mph... and even then someone looked up pitch FX and saw it was actually a 96.6 mph pitch), it's not as surprising after you look at their pitching roster. You see that and then all of a sudden you go "Oh, that's why". It's pretty bad. Buxton, Sano, and Meyer are great pieces to build around, and I'm sure they plan on doing that, but because of the injuries Buxton and Sano probably won't reach the majors permanently until 2016 at the earliest, and even then they'll be extremely young and given the history of young prospects reaching the majors early they might not reach a level of sustained success for another couple of years. As odd as it is to say this, the Cubs represent the better path to sustained World Series contention than not just the Twins, but probably any other team in baseball. They are built for the success and the party is just now about to start. He'd be jumping off the balcony of the penthouse suite in hopes of hitting the awning on his way down to the lobby entrance just so he can make his way back up. And then on his way back he's gonna have to take the stairs cause the elevator is "Out of Order", but that's just the sign Theo & Co. put on there because everyone else is worthless and weak and doesn't deserve such luxuries. And when Bosio sees them get on the elevator and then look at the stairwell he has to climb with Molitor he's gonna be like "That sure is a lot of stairs" and Molitor will be like "Shut up fat ass you need to lose weight anyways" and Bosio will be like "Well that's not very nice, friend" and Molitor will be like "I'm not your friend I'm your boss, now mush!" and now I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore

Molitor is going to be the new manager and Bosio played 7 seasons with him. I doubt he'll sacrifice what he's worked hard to accomplish in Chicago just before they get championship caliber good for the sake of getting the band back together at a dumpster fire

Also wouldn't make sense for Bosio to join a rebuilding process on a storied franchise only to abandon it just before contention for a lateral position on a club that is pretty much at the start of a rebuilding process that doesn't have as many resources his current club does. That's just a dumb career move. He has no ties to Minnesota professionally or personally. Him taking the PC job on their team would be... illogical. Or is this a hypothetical for the sake of comparison/debate and not based on an actual rumor?

Might as well start this. Good luck with that, Marlins.

And that should end the tampering discussion. Tampering won't get anywhere, but the people accused denying it won't end the discussion. Um...that's more than a simple denial. If they got permission from the commish's office, it will, then Tampa has no case. What if Tampa alleges that there was contact before that official contact? Right back where we started: they say/we say. No we're not