Cubswin11

I know the obvious response is nobody would offer enough to make it worth trading a player as productive as Barney at his price, but say that they do? If someone wants to overpay, or even sprinkle in some extra prospects in a Dempster or Garza I'd do it in heartbeat. I doubt that anyeone expects him to continue his 3.2 WAR, and if this could be the definition of selling high. Our next options for 2nd would be Cardenas, Valbuena, Lake, and DeWitt could then each audition for 2nd once Baker's gone. I basically agree with you, Barney alone probably won't bring any sort of great prospect back and is probably worth keeping in that case. But he could probably help in a Garza/Demp trade in improving the quality of prospect(s) we get or getting an additional guy or two added.

Someone needs to put up the Bruce signal on this

Fake Rally Time \:D/

No. 25 on that list is Frank Robinson with 512 hits. Castro currently has 422 and I'd say it's a good bet that, barring injury, he'll get 90 more this year. That's not to say that Castro will be a HOFer or even a very good player, but the odds certainly favor it. Of the players with 3,000 hits, Castro has more hits before his 23rd birthday than all of them except Ty Cobb, Robin Yount, and Al Kaline. And that's with about 100 games to play before turning 23. Heh, and yet some meatballs are clamoring to trade him away for "upside" guys in A ball who have a chance of unknown probability at becoming as good as Starlin. I believe the word you were looking for is White guys

Burke has had a fantastic year so far, he's still fairly young right as he was drafted out of HS? When do we start considering him one of our better pitching prospects?

Will Peoria be as high as they put Baez this year if he continues, or at least realtively continues, to hit like he has? Any chance they could give him some time in Daytona, or even Tennessee (even if it's just like 2 weeks)?

If you signed a FA and he blocks a prospect, you trade one of them for something you need. You will never know exactly who your prospects are in the majors. My point is to let these guys come up and actually play and see who they are, then you add FA around them. Then you know exactly who they are and exactly what you need.

Well we were talking about building a serious/annual contender. That's roughly what it would take to do it. If we were just trying to keep the team around .500 and treading water like the old FO last offseason we probably would have re-signed Aramis, signed E. Jackson, signed on of Dejesus/Cespedes/Willingham, add a overpriced bullpen arm or two and probably brought Pena back. I guess that team would be a "contender" in a broad sense but certainly not a serious one or one that people would think would be around for years. Would that have been so bad? Theo's legacy was as a drafting and development expert who built from the later rounds and the end of the first round. Why couldn't he build all that here while still giving them a chance to fluke into a 2006 Cardinals situation? So you basically want Theo to impliment Hendry's way of building teams and hope he can continue his success of building teams from late round picks, in a drafting environment that has drastically changed from when he was in Boston and when draft picks are such a crap shoot? You want us to purposely tank for 8 years so we can build a team solely through top 10 picks? #DICHOTOMY No, just that I don't believe now is the right time to invest heavily in FA when we need to build the system and see exactly who some of our prospects are in the majors in the next few seasons (Rizzo, Jackson, Vitters, Baez, Almora, Soler, etc) before figuring out who to compliment those guys with through FA. Building/adding through FA certianly is important and needed, but ideally I'd like for us to attack FA when we know exactly who our prospects are in the majors and they have filled a need and then us FA to fill the other voids our system hasn't been able to fill.

Well we were talking about building a serious/annual contender. That's roughly what it would take to do it. If we were just trying to keep the team around .500 and treading water like the old FO last offseason we probably would have re-signed Aramis, signed E. Jackson, signed on of Dejesus/Cespedes/Willingham, add a overpriced bullpen arm or two and probably brought Pena back. I guess that team would be a "contender" in a broad sense but certainly not a serious one or one that people would think would be around for years. Would that have been so bad? Theo's legacy was as a drafting and development expert who built from the later rounds and the end of the first round. Why couldn't he build all that here while still giving them a chance to fluke into a 2006 Cardinals situation? So you basically want Theo to impliment Hendry's way of building teams and hope he can continue his success of building teams from late round picks, in a drafting environment that has drastically changed from when he was in Boston and when draft picks are such a crap shoot?

If Vitters were to be called up right now, I don't think he'd hit higher than .240 and have a sub .300 OBP and probably not hit for a lot of power all while playing below average D at 3B. He needs more time to develop in the minors, IMO. I am one of the guys on here who really still likes Vitters as a prospect, but I honestly don't think he'd be ready right now in the majors and it could be embarrassing for him.

We are getting no-hit today. Buster Olney agrees w/me, apparently he tweeted no-hitter alert, Verlander vs. Cubs today.

Why? He probably would sign a very cheap 1 year deal, might not even need to give him a MLB contract in the offseason. We invite shitty/burnt out pitchers to ST all the time if he works out you have a good trade piece next trade deadline and you don't have to invest a lot into him. Like I said it's not like bringing in Sheets is going to block some young guy from gettings starts (we really don't have anyone in the system that's knocking down the door to get ML starts that you would consider a big time prospect) and it's not like we are going to be on the cusp of contending for the World Series next year where we would need to depend on Sheets to turn into his old self to get us over the hump. If he looks relatively healthy, why the hell not take a flier on him??????????

Well we were talking about building a serious/annual contender. That's roughly what it would take to do it. If we were just trying to keep the team around .500 and treading water like the old FO last offseason we probably would have re-signed Aramis, signed E. Jackson, signed on of Dejesus/Cespedes/Willingham, add a overpriced bullpen arm or two and probably brought Pena back. I guess that team would be a "contender" in a broad sense but certainly not a serious one or one that people would think would be around for years.

http://www.usopen.com/en_US/video/liveVideo.html There's the link, looks like the are starting the broadcast when those guys tee off or they are just showing that group the whole time. TV coverage starts at 4 on ESPN, I think.

If Theo was really telling the truth about wanting guys to play a full season at each level in the minors, 162 games, yesterday on his interview then I don't think Vitters qualifies to be called up. I'd also imagine there are some things in his game (patience, being more selective in the zone, defense, walking more) they'd like him to work on before they call him up. The whole line about 162 games could have been Theo's way of sidestepping the question on keeping Rizzo down just to keep him under team control longer, which for obvious reasons Theo isn't going to come out and just flat out admit that's the reason they are keeping Rizzo down.

Doubt he'd sign with us this year anymore, he probably wants to be on a team that could make the playoffs. Plus if he is only looking for a 1 year deal there probably isn't enough time for him to get signed, get in game shape and start pitching effectively before the deadline for it to be worth it for us to sign him and try and turn him into a prospect(s). I'd like to take a run at him in the offseason and see how it works out. We probaby won't be much better next year anyways and don't have a lot of pitching ready to come up, if he works out he could be a nice trade piece.

That and by the time we are serious/annual contenders Rizzo should be in his prime while Fielder/Pujols will be exiting theirs or already out of it and I think Rizzo in his prime will be greater than those two out of theirs Not that I disagree with davell, but that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Part of the reason Pujols/Fielder would be out of their primes by time we were serious contenders is because we didn't try to become serious contenders during their primes. That's true, but in order for us to "try" and be contenders while those two were in their primes it probably would have required us to sign one of Wilson/Darvish/Greinke/Hamels (if not 2 of them or 1 and a lesser/cheaper pitcher E. Jackson/A. Sanchez), re-sign Aramis, re-sign Garza long term, sign one of Upton/Hamilton/Cespedes to fill an OF spot/middle of order bat, overspend on some bullpen arms, need at least one (probably two) of Vitters, Castillo, Jackson, Baez, Szczur, Almora, Soler, or some other pick to turn into a 4-5 WAR player in the next 2-3 years. Then hope some of the complementary pieces work out really well (like DeRosa did 07-08). Not saying it's not possible to put a contender together when those two are in their primes but the team would have to of been built largely through FA and the payroll increased to around $200m. I'd take the route we are going anyday of the week, not that I think you are arguing otherwise.

Figured I'd start a thread since guys are starting to tee off in about 30 minutes. The Tiger/Mickleson/Watson group tees off at 9:33 CST. Hole 16 looks like it could provide us with some very interesting moments this week, 670 yard par 5, they are saying if you miss the fairway on your drive or second shot you are easily looking at a 6 and 7 or 8's are very much in play on it this weekend. Should be a good tournament.

That and by the time we are serious/annual contenders Rizzo should be in his prime while Fielder/Pujols will be exiting theirs or already out of it and I think Rizzo in his prime will be greater than those two out of theirs

Why is Paul Sullivan obsessed with this sort of thing? He's got this hangup about non-baseball personnel ever stepping foot on the grass of Wrigley Field. What is embarrassing about an employee of a baseball team holding a bat on a baseball field? Cubs allow Paul Sullivan in Wrigley Field again. Embarrassing, yet true.

Ignoring his rude responses, he did have a good point about all of the possible conspiracy theories. Leading up to the Draft Lottery, all I kept hearing on sports radio was, "we will know this lottery is fixed when the Nets win it." The only other option I heard was "the league will want to pay back Michael Jordan by giving him the first pick." No one said the Hornets. Then as soon as they won, everyone knows it is a conspiracy. The hornets conspiracy theory probably does make the most sense--getting someone to buy the team on the promise of the #1 pick. But people will find a way to think it is a conspiracy no matter what. I wasn't saying he was a prick for what he said, just his tone and overall pompous attitude whenever he's interviewed. He's a smug asshat. I've headr him interviewed by other media members about all sorts of NBA related topics, he's been on with Simmons a few times and he's just an [expletive].

Stern is such a [expletive] prick

full list: 1 Ty Cobb 765 2 Buddy Lewis 753 3 Robin Yount 717 4 Mel Ott 715 5 Al Kaline 710 6 Freddie Lindstrom 689 7 Ken Griffey 652 8 Alex Rodriguez 648 9 Vada Pinson 626 10 Cesar Cedeno 618 11 Edgar Renteria 611 12 Sherry Magee 605 13 Ted Williams 563 14 Mickey Mantle 561 15 Jimmie Foxx 560 16 Orlando Cepeda 549 17 Stuffy McInnis 545 18 Ed Kranepool 543 19 Dick Hoblitzell 538 20 Arky Vaughan 524 21 Hank Aaron 520 22 Bobby Doerr 520 23 Claudell Washington 519 24 Travis Jackson 513 25 Frank Robinson 512 Castro's ZiPS ROS has him due to finish with 543 career hits by season's end, which should comfortably position him within the top-20 of this list Anytime you can be mentioned in the same breath as Stuffy McInnis you know you are a [expletive] boss

OKC has looked like they have the makings of one for three years. They haven't snuck up on anyone. Is that why they were 3 to 1 to win the championship when both series were 2-2 when I was in Vegas last week? Miami and SA were closer to 1 to 1. Vegas odds aren't always, or even usually, indictive of likely outcomes more often they mirror where the general public's money is going or not going

I'll believe it when I see it. How reliable is this guy? Hearing rumors slowly making their way around Twitter that it has something to do with Soler. Something with Soler would make sense, Badler handles a lot BA's prospect/scouting stuff. His twitter says he writes for BA covering prospects, scouting and player development. I'm not going to be productive this afternoon now until I hear what it is