Tryptamine

So worried this is going to turn into a 5/80 type deal. I just get the feeling that Theo wants this guy no matter what.

That'd have to fall under tampering Why? He's not signed with any team at that point. Shady negotiating tactics, yes, but tampering, I don't think it qualifies. It's coming to a verbal agreement with somebody you're ineligible to sign. It's not unlike entering a verbal contract with a 15 year old. Now the Dodgers case was worse because it was a written contract, and they likely enacted in fraud by fudging the birth year for Beltre, but it's still circumventing the rules in place to come to an agreement with a player you're not allowed to. The Cubs are allowed to sign Moncada, it just has to be for 250K before July 2nd. They're allowed to negotiate and discuss with him all they want so I don't know why they can't say, well we can offer you 250K today, but if you wait until July 2nd we can offer you 45M. It's not tampering because they are allowed to negotiate with him. I'd expect the commissioner's office to be pretty pissed off, but I don't see anything that circumvents it.

Is there any actual rule that says the Cubs can't say OK come to us with your highest offer and we'll tack on another 5M if you wait until July 2nd to sign?

You could add Baez and more to that package and I'd still be cool with it.

He does. That's a fantasy. You honestly don't believe 6 more years of Castro is worth a single year of Jordan Zimmerman? I mean that's not even close to equal value given the contract Castro has.

The trade package barometer for Jordan Zimmerman: Alcantara=I'm thrilled Baez=Disappointed but I get it Castro=There has got to be more than zimmerman right? Russell=I hate your face

Clearly the time to strike is now before they sober up. Castro for Wheeler,Syndergaard and D'Arnaud. Make it happen.

Absolutely shocked that someone would give up a pick. I don't even know if I would have been ok with giving up a 2nd rounder for Cuddyer.

Just read this article and I pray to god our front office is a lot smarter than these sources. Castro is very bad defensively? No, that's definitely not right. He has been a positive defender every year of his career other than 2011. One of Castro or Russell seemingly need to be traded because as shortstops we know they couldn't possibly play any much easier position. Also there's the Castro+ for Hamels suggestion. Oh please can we trade away our 25 year old 3 time allstar whose contract provides 50M in excess value even if he doesn't improve for a 31 year old making 110M over the next 5 years, coming off a season where they missed time with arm issues and then got the piss abused out of them?

It's unfortunate that I really like Cole Hamels, because I'm rather looking forward to this all blowing up in Amaro's face when Hamels has some arm discomfort in the future. Also, being forced to take that 5th year basically means you you either give up one more year for Lester or lots of prospects to save 23M, it's a really easy decision.

Completely agree. Who the hell cares if they're healthy for next week? Does it really even matter at this point?

Really McCarthy? Such a douche move on a 3 yard pass.

Absolutely inexplicable that he keeps getting to return kicks when putting no one back there would give better results 90% of the time.

Time to sell my MNF game tickets against the Saints. I doubt I'm going to get even half of what I paid now.

If Emery keeps all of these coaches until the end of the season he's only guaranteeing that he gets the axe when they do.

Screw elite, I'd just like to see them out rebound another team again. They've been out rebounded in 6 out of 7 games now.

The mighty Kirk Hinrich 3/19 over the last two games. How the hell does he continue collecting a pay check?

Getting beat down on the boards yet again tonight. Absolutely inexcusable when you have Noah/Gasol/GIbson trio. When they start to play good teams they're going to get absolutely torched.

Well yeah, it was unreasonable to expect them to dump all 60M available this off season. They've been quite clear they have certain targets they want in 2016 as well. They'll add a piece or two this year and likely do the same thing next year.

uh wtf are you watching the game at all? 4/10 7asst 4 TO, yeah he was a huge factor. his points per attempt were fine and he played 31 minutes and the team was clearly playing a lot better when he was in the game than when he wasn't. he might've been a bit more passive in the second half because he landed gingerly on his ankle to end the first half while leaping through traffic for a board. either way, all i saw was him flying around the court when he was in the game, through passing lanes, trying to push the ball in transition and taking more than one hard landing. also whatever that taunting thing he did to knight was when he was fired up to end the half. doesn't mean anything but simply makes it an even weirder time to play the "look like you give a [expletive]" meatball card. this isn't an entire season where it makes more sense to look at numbers than trying to go off your memory from watching games. this is a single game where it's silly to look at a single box score to determine a player's desire or effort level or whatever the hell you're doing. A bit more passive? He was a complete nonfactor in the second half, which is a surprise with all the flying around you're suggesting he was doing. 0/3FG(One of these was a chucked up shot to be the shot clock) 3/4FT including the 2 he took with 5 seconds left in the game 2TO 3AST

And trading him for Hamels (which still makes zero sense to me) is hardly the only suggestion we've seen that involves getting rid of Baez. My puzzlement is more with the overall negativity towards him than with a specific deal in mind. It's amazing to me that Baez struggled just like we all knew he would. We had how many discussions on this very board talking about how he would struggle at first and most agreed that it was good he could start in 2013 to start getting adjusted in a season that didn't matter.Yet here we are after he did what was expected and people are ready to throw him into any package. It just doesn't make sense. Not any package; my still preferred avenue is using him the main part of a deal to land Stanton. I highly doubt he'd be moved for Hamels, but if it did happen I could be talked into it being a good move. And I've said several times how I was expecting him to have shown at least some kind of significant improvement by then end of the year; he didn't. Yeah, the learning curve is going to be tougher at the highest level, but he was REALLY bad. I highly doubt anyone here was assuming he'd have been as horrendous as he was with little signs of improvement at the end of the season. Given the flaws in his game and given that they have Russell and Bryant waiting in the wings I wouldn't lose much sleep if they still sold high on him and got a great return. I'd be 100% ok with moving him for Stanton, because he makes sense. An already expensive, previously injured and abused 31 year old pitcher does not.

Granted I was only listening on the radio, but that is not the impression I got. i watched the whole thing and it was a really weird game for someone to bust out the "act like you give a [expletive]" stuff In the 4th, outside of the one time he took it hard to the basket and drew a foul he didn't try and initiate anything. He also got lazy on two passes which resulted in two turnovers.

uh wtf are you watching the game at all? 4/10 7asst 4 TO, yeah he was a huge factor.

And trading him for Hamels (which still makes zero sense to me) is hardly the only suggestion we've seen that involves getting rid of Baez. My puzzlement is more with the overall negativity towards him than with a specific deal in mind. It's amazing to me that Baez struggled just like we all knew he would. We had how many discussions on this very board talking about how he would struggle at first and most agreed that it was good he could start in 2013 to start getting adjusted in a season that didn't matter.Yet here we are after he did what was expected and people are ready to throw him into any package. It just doesn't make sense.

Giving up a top 10 prospect for him isn't dumping him, but it's hardly an efficient use of resources. Hamels will be 31 on opening day of 2015 and making 22.5M a year over the next 4 years with an option for 20M in 2019. He's also coming off an arm injury that caused him to miss the start of the 2014 season and then Sandberg went on to abuse the [expletive] out of him when he returned. In fact he was the most abused pitcher in MLB by a large margin. I'm willing to gamble, but Javy is way too big of a piece to gamble on Cole's future. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1670663