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There's a decent bit of risk in Cameron considering his age and lack of contact, however if he produces for us like he did in Milwaukee he is a very big upgrade. We're probably talking a few wins from defense alone and then he's an offensive upgrade from what we got last year as well.

I wouldn't like the contract or the loss of draft picks. Is he a fantastic fielder? Boston has had SS issues, right? I don't even know who the incumbent is. Is it there one weak spot? Boston has had trouble at SS for going on 5 years now. They haven't been able to get more than a half season of good shortstop play out of anyone since Nomar left. And except for maybe Jed Lowrie they don't have anyone internally who can fix that problem.

How often does Hendry way overpay in trades? Pierre's the only major one I can think of. He's good at trades, it's free agency he's bad at. The only way he's getting Granderson is if he is willing to overpay. Detroit is not going to just give him way. They view Granderson as a guy still in his prime, fairly inexpensive, plays one of the toughest positions on the field, hits from the left side of the plate and does it pretty well. Besides all that, other teams are going to be interested in Granderson. The market for him will require that someone overpay if they want him. Detroit basically announced to the world "here is Granderson if you want him". And if someone is willing to pay Detroit's price, they can probably have him. The only way Granderson goes to the Cubs is if some of the Cubs best young players/prospects are wearing Tiger uniforms in 2010. Personally, I don't think Granderson is a difference maker when stacking up his abilities with the rest of the team. Oh gotchya, I assumed you meant he'd overpay in a "Hendry's an idiot sense" not in a "the Tigers don't need to deal him" sense. And say what you will about Hendry the guy has come out ahead with trades, particularly in knowing which of his own guys to dump.

How often does Hendry way overpay in trades? Pierre's the only major one I can think of. He's good at trades, it's free agency he's bad at.

I think the big thing is that at the end of last year we had a bunch of guys at the lower levels who were intriguing guys but no one of impact all that close. Now we have Jay Jackson, Chris Carpenter, and Andrew Cashner all as front or mid rotation types or power relievers all at AA or above. Then of course there's Castro who last year wasn't even in A-ball and is now knocking on the door of the big leagues. Then you have a few position players having good years like Vitters, Hak Ju Lee, and Kyler Burke. And then after that throw in the 09 draft class. I think largely whatever could have gone right for the Cubs minor league system this year did go right for the minor league system this year.

The only good reason for this is if like someone else said Harden has a major injury we don't know about, like Ben Sheets last winter. Because if Harden is fine(by his standards) then this is just dumb. He's a good enough pitcher that even about 100 IP out of him would probably be worth the 8-10 million he'd earn in arbitration.

I agree defensively it makes a lot of sense. However Theriot doesn't have the bat to handle 2b. Theriot's value is that he has a decent bat and decent glove for SS, and is making near the league minimum. While defensively he probably fits better at 2b, offensively the bar is much higher and I personally don't think he can reach it, PLUS he's about to finally start making money in arbitration. I think if/when Castro establishes himself as a major leaguer that's about when we need to start looking to trade Theriot. the mlb average for 2b last year was .271/.336/.414/.750 and at ss was .270/.326/.392/.718. that's really a pretty small difference, and when you factor in that theriot's deficiencies (lack of range, marginal arm) are less important at 2b, he becomes more valuable as a defender at that position. overall his value may decline very slightly at ss but it's really not enough of a difference to run him off the team. I probably should have emphasized the money part of it more than I did, because I think in my post I glossed over it while in my head it's a pretty big deal. I don't know if you buy into WAR and UZR and all that, but if you do then the past 3 years while Ryan Theriot's been a starter he's averaged -7 runs per year with the bat, and he's roughly a +5 run defender at SS. That, along with him playing almost every day(and also the positional bonus for SS) makes him a 2.5 WAR kind of player. A guy making league minimum producing 2.5 WAR is a pretty nice commodity. However, as a 2b he probably is a few runs better defensively, but he also loses value because of the positional adjustment from SS to 2b. As a 2b he's probably a little closer to a 2 WAR guy. And since he's about to start making decent money(I'd guess but I'm horrible at figuring out what people will get in arbitration), and since honestly I don't trust his bat, I think once Castro is up and established we'd get more value out of him trading him to a team desperate for a shortstop than he'd provide for us as a 2b. A 2.5ish win guy at league minimum is pretty big deal, but a 2ish win guy making whatever Theriot is going to make in arbitration the next few years isn't as good and I think we can do better. I didn't mean for it to sound like I want him run out of town, I just think Fontenot/Baker/etc. at 2b + whatever we'd get in a trade for Theriot is signficantly better than Theriot at 2b.

I agree defensively it makes a lot of sense. However Theriot doesn't have the bat to handle 2b. Theriot's value is that he has a decent bat and decent glove for SS, and is making near the league minimum. While defensively he probably fits better at 2b, offensively the bar is much higher and I personally don't think he can reach it, PLUS he's about to finally start making money in arbitration. I think if/when Castro establishes himself as a major leaguer that's about when we need to start looking to trade Theriot.

This isn't really news I guess but I just listened to the Baseball America NL Central podcast and Ben Badler sounds like he is a pretty big Jay Jackson fan. He went so far as to say he thinks he might take him over Shelby Miller of the Cards. Although that could possibly mean he's just really down on the Cards farm system. And both guys considered the Cubs to have the best farm system in the central, although it was pretty close between us and Cincy. Cincy has more safe guys and guys who are closer to major league ready, while we have more potential stars.

Ugh, I'm not sure how much I like this. On the one hand I LOVE the commitment they're showing to him. On the other hand I think production wise there's a good chance he won't be able to hack it this soon. I think I'd rather they hold him down and he can hopefully hit the ground running when he reaches the majors, rather than hoping he can hold his own being a major leaguer at age 20. Luckily though, as Elvis Andrus showed as last year, even if he doesn't hit if he can do enough of the other things right he can still be a pretty damn good player.

The big deal is his age. The average player in the FSL last year hit .252/.322/.363. And the average age for a hitter at High A was 22.6. So basically, he played against guys 3 years older than him, hit better than the league average, all while playing a good defensive shortstop. He put up good production when at his age simply holding his own would have been impressive. Then, not only that, at the end of the year he jumped up to AA, hit even better, against players who on average were about 4.5 years older than him(the average age for hitters at AA last year was 24.3). Then of course he continued to kick ass in the AFL. While he hasn't shown a ton in the way of secondary skills yet, he's done well in leagues against guys MUCH older than him, which generally is a good indicator that a prospect is the real deal. Not to mention he has a lot of room for projection. He shouldn't play in the majors yet, for the reasons you pointed out, but he's a very very good prospect.

I think they mean that while on that list he was the 14th best prospect, of the guys on that list he's probably the 7th best prospect overall.

That seems to be the plan. He wants to have a young homegrown core of impact players like the Bosox have with Youkilis, Pedroia, Lester, and Papelbon. But he's also said we're going to continue to have a big payroll, so I'm sure once the current crop of big contracts runs out if a superstar comes into free agency in a position of need we should be in the mix. Hopefully Soto and Marmol bounce back and at least two of Vitters/Castro/Lee/BJackson/Cashner/JJackson work out like we hope so that we can have that good young core to build around.

While I agree that would be good to get from CF, that's the HIGH end of what to expect from Byrd. More than likely, you'd probably get an OPS in the .770-.790 range. The one good thing I can say about him is that he hits lefties and righties pretty much equally over the course of his career. To me, he's just not the bat the Cubs need, especially for the money and contract length he wants. I agree, I would rather we sign Cameron. Offensive production would be similar, Byrd would probably hit for a higher average, while Cameron draws more BB. OPS wise they come in about the same give or take .010 points. Cameron is going to play superior defense and is apparently a great clubhouse guy. IDK what kind of guy Byrd is, I would assume with the Bradley fiasco "character" and "team chemistry" is going to play a factor in who we bring in this offseason. I would rather have Cameron for 1-2 years for $4-6 per. Than Byrd for a 2-4 year deal for around $8-10 per. I'd definitely rather have Cameron too. I was just pointing out that Byrd's a pretty good option as well. That being said though, Cameron comes with plenty of risk too. He's going to be 37 next year. Next year could finally be the year where he stops producing. However if he keeps hitting and playing D like he always has then he's definitely the best and most cost effective solution. The difference he makes to our club, just defensively alone, would be huge. If you trust UZR, then conservatively, Fukudome's something like -10 runs in CF and +10 in right field; Milton Bradley's probably something like -5 runs in RF; and Cameron is a +10 guy in CF. So we're talking about something like a +20 run swing in CF and a +15 run swing in RF. That's even before taking into account the offensive improvement from a typical Cameron year to Bradley's down 2009. Just a potentially huge improvement, although it does come with some risk.

I think Seidman is crazy to call Byrd a 4th OF. While we would all love to see Granderson on the Cubs, I don't think Byrd is a bad option. Of course, you would have to factor in the cost (in prospects) of getting Granderson with the cost (in dollars and years) to get Byrd. 2007-2009: Byrd - .295/.352/.468/.820 Granderson - .277/.350/.499/.849 Looking at those numbers, there aren't many teams that wouldn't love to have Byrd's numbers for their CF. I think it's a tough decision if you're talking 3-4 players from Marmol, Vitters, Castro, Casner, Jackson, etc. for Granderson as opposed to $16 - $18 million over 2 years for Byrd. Byrd is a 32-year old that benefited greatly from playing in Texas. Away from that stadium, his slugging percentage is around .415 over the past three seasons. If the price for Byrd is $16-18 million over two seasons, then pass. You can't just look at what a player does on the road and call that his true talent level. The majority of players play better at home than they do on the road. Just this year there was a .037 point difference between road and home OPS across the league(.267/.340/.429 home to .258/.322/.406 away). Not to mention, if you believe in Baseball-Reference's park factors, Wrigley Field is a more hitter friendly park than Arlington is. I'm aware of that, and I never called it his true talent level. However, his differences were much greater than .037: 2009: .133 2008: .139 2007: .201 Furthermore, he's 32 and is going to demand a multi-year deal worth a few million more annually than he's ever made in a single season. His OPS over the past three seasons is .820. On top of that, he's probably a tick below average defensively in CF, where his offense would have more value. Would you really want to wager that kind of money that he's going to continue to produce at that level in a Cubs uniform over the course of a multi-year contract? Let me put this another way, were you happy with the production the Cubs got from Jacque Jones in the first year of his contract? I ask because that's most likely the high end of what Byrd would offer in terms of offense, and it would probably cost the Cubs more than it did to get that from Jones. Jacque Jones' 2006 out of a CFer would be damn good. He hit .285/.335/.499, for a CFer that's pretty damn awesome. But really, if the rumors of his demands are true, that he wants 2-3 years at about 8 million per year, he should most likely be worth that much, with a good bit of upside. Even looking at it conservatively: let's say he's a slightly below league average bat, with a slightly below league average glove in CF, and he'll give us 600 PA's in CF. That would make him roughly a 2 win player, which would make him worth a little more than his 8 million per year. However, his bat the past three years has been a good bit above average(roughly league average on the road, well above that at home) averaging a little over 8 runs above average per year. And that's park adjusted too so it should deal with most if not all of the Arlington effect. And according to UZR his glove is almost exactly average, while the Fan's Scouting Report likes his glove as above average. Conservatively he's about a 2 win player, more than likely around a 3 win guy. I mean the splits are a little scary, but that could be explained by any number of things such as random variation, the fact that he has to play a bunch of road games each year in pitchers havens Safeco and Mcafee, or he could simply be a guy that does much better at home because he prefers sleeping in his own bed. I mean it happens sometimes, Derrek Lee for instance the past three years is a .284/.365/.454 guy away and a .326/.404/.578 guy at Wrigley.

I think Seidman is crazy to call Byrd a 4th OF. While we would all love to see Granderson on the Cubs, I don't think Byrd is a bad option. Of course, you would have to factor in the cost (in prospects) of getting Granderson with the cost (in dollars and years) to get Byrd. 2007-2009: Byrd - .295/.352/.468/.820 Granderson - .277/.350/.499/.849 Looking at those numbers, there aren't many teams that wouldn't love to have Byrd's numbers for their CF. I think it's a tough decision if you're talking 3-4 players from Marmol, Vitters, Castro, Casner, Jackson, etc. for Granderson as opposed to $16 - $18 million over 2 years for Byrd. Byrd is a 32-year old that benefited greatly from playing in Texas. Away from that stadium, his slugging percentage is around .415 over the past three seasons. If the price for Byrd is $16-18 million over two seasons, then pass. You can't just look at what a player does on the road and call that his true talent level. The majority of players play better at home than they do on the road. Just this year there was a .037 point difference between road and home OPS across the league(.267/.340/.429 home to .258/.322/.406 away). Not to mention, if you believe in Baseball-Reference's park factors, Wrigley Field is a more hitter friendly park than Arlington is.

I'd almost rather have Halladay for one year than for one year, plus another 6-7 @ $100M+ (ballpark). Agreed, humongous contracts for pitchers are bad news. The risk of them getting hurt or just having hteir production fall off the table is too great. Particularly considering Halladay will be 33 next season.

Off to a good start. Assuming we dont trade for or sign a starter, any chance that he'll be in the mix for that 5th starter job? I'm guessing they will want him to work on some breaking pitches at AAA before bring him into the rotation. Smardz has the inside track for the last spot assuming they don't bring Harden back. If Samardzija is being given a chance for the #5 spot, so should Diamond. Of course he'll get a chance but Samardzija has the inside track due to his contract status. I'm not saying its a good reason to favor him over Diamond but it will be easier to leave Diamond in the minors. Samardzija definitely deserves to be well above Diamond on the depth chart, regardless of how much money he's making.

Same here, luckily though Hendry's got a good eye for young players. Two guys who should most likely be good 7th inning relievers and a high upside guy like Archer is a pretty good haul for one year of Derosa.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings091119&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines ](*,) I really hope expectations don't reach these irrational levels. I can see Starlin coming up, putting up decent numbers as a 20-21 year old and getting panned because he's not Hanley Ramirez, getting booed because he's not living up to the hype and finally getting sent out of town. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Hanley comp because I don't think he'll have nearly that kind of power, but I figured I'd post it anyway.

From a Jason Stark article: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings091119&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines

I havent' seen him pitch, but I was under the impression his mechanics were fine and his command issues were just typical for a young pitcher, maybe made a bit worse since he was two way player and just started focusing on pitching full time.

I'd heard Trey McNutt mentioned as a nice steal out of the draft, but I had no idea he profiles as such a power reliever. 93-96 and a power breaking ball out of our 32nd rounder? Nice.

Not surprised about the Watkins love. I wouldn't rate him that high myself but there are a lot of people in the organization who love him. He needs to get a chance to play SS again but that's tough with Castro, Lee and Lake around. Yeah, I like him, and I see where the excitement comes from, I just can't see a slap hitter in short season ball being ranked where he is, even if he is blazing fast. I also submitted a question asking about Burke. But I was a little bit of an ass so I doubt it gets answered.