Reaper

He looked really good in the first 3 innings and has been missing his spots by quite a bit so far in the 4th. DP ball to end the inning! :D

Wrigley is empty today. :?

I can't stand this argument. By this definition, there are only a handful of impact players ever worth acquiring and the odds of it happening are slim, as only 1-3 such players are actually available any given off-season. By only considering such players, a team might never doing anything. If you can upgrade your wins by 1-2 with an acquisition that doesn't cost too much in prospects over the life of the contract acquired, then you do it. Incremental growth can be a formula for success without having one of the rare under 30 MVP candidates. The Cubs won 75 games last season. Incremental growth?

Well that is a vague qualifier. I think it could greatly improve the 2011 rotation, not in comparison to 2010, but in comparison to what 2011 would be without him. Is Silva going to get 25 starts this year? He could easily suffer a setback after a brief glimpse of decency this past year. Does a guy like him, as good a bet as any of them to give you 200 innings and make every start, make it easier to stretch out Cashner? Dempster, Zambrano, Garza, Wells and Cashner could be a stable rotation that actually provides some room for real upside. And then you let those other guys fill-in where needed. (Gorz/Silva/whoever). Maybe you put yourself into position to trade pitching at the deadline for much needed bats. I think on his own he'd improve the rotation a fairly significant amount. When you talk about cost of prospects though, that could be negated. Garza is a 3 WARP player (in a good year). Silva put up a 2.0 last season, FWIW. If we were going to drop prospects and pay big dollars, we should have done it on an impact bat (Adrian Gonzalez). That is an impact player. Garza is a highly paid Randy Wells.

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chicago/chat/_/id/36264 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=GARZA19831111A What am I missing?

The Cubs aren't going to the playoffs next year. Why trade away prospects for short term production? Does anyone really want Garza around long term?

This move could be really good if Pena is healed up.

Would someone please post summaries of BP's take on McNutt and Archer? :D

Really? Under 100 ABs of domination elevates him to that level? I do love how he has responded to the prospect hype, but every player goes through highs and lows throughout a full season. he hit really well all of last year, including a very strong showing as the second-youngest player in the arizona fall league. he has to still be one of the youngest hitters in the southern league and continues to rake. the three editors of the BA prospect handbook ranked him at 13, 16 and 29th best prospect in baseball, and obviously he's not moving down anyone's list at this stage. by midseason i'd expect some of the guys ahead of him to not be rookies any more (heyward, matusz, escobar, neftali feliz, maybe guys like strasburg, carlos santana, pedro alvarez) so assuming he continues to play very well, he'd almost certainly have to be considered a top 10 prospect. I guess we will see how he performs in the long haul. He can hold his own with the bat for a SS. Can he play D? Hopefully he isn't Ronny Cedeno with the glove - lots of promise and no consistency. I won't read too* much into his error totals as some of those fields look like the surface of the moon. Graduating to the Top 10 via absence of elite prospects speaks more to the nitpicking of what defines a "prospect" vs comparing Castro to his peers (service time)- to which we will ultimately be evaluating his performance.. * edit spelling

LOL. Insanity has its uses, no? Or is it crazy brilliance.

Really? Under 100 ABs of domination elevates him to that level? I do love how he has responded to the prospect hype, but every player goes through highs and lows throughout a full season.