Gilby

Judging from gameday, Almora left with an injury after grounding out.

I never said there needed to be a top 20 prospect in return for Shark. I just meant I'm not as excited about Skaggs' past rankings due to a drop in velocity.

Hmm, I didn't realize he was as highly thought of coming into this season as he was. I thought most of the hype was from pre-2012. But anyway, there's been concerns of a drop in velocity for a couple years now. They've shut him down the last two Septembers with velocity concerns. http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diamondbacks/articles/20130921arizona-diamondbacks-pitcher-tyler-skaggs-takes-off-all-month-unwind.html Not enough upside for my liking in return for Shark.

I want someone who has the potential to be a TOR arm in return for Samardzija. Neither Delgado nor Skaggs project to be that. Skaggs is not the same player he was when he was a top 20 prospect.

Maybe something like Cole/Goodwin/Storen...?

Yeah, I'd be happy with Cole as the lead piece for Samardzija. Very good stuff, has shown excellent control, and has already gone above 130 IP twice, so he shouldn't be too far away from a full season's workload.

Yeah, this is so not happening.

OK, now do it for players who got 500 PA at age 20 then posted a .280 wOBA at age 23. If that's too specific, you can goose the parameters a bit. It's almost as if that's an outlier that may have little predictive power! But to cut through this terrible attempt to back into logic and get to the point, Castro is the very rare player who has the talent to produce from an incredibly young age, and therefore nonsense about "lots of players never improve after 22 because they aren't good enough!" doesn't apply, as the chart above indicates. That said, last season still happened, and it's not impossible that Castro is actually terrible or not good or whatever qualifier you want. That doesn't mean that that argument shouldn't face an incredible amount of skepticism since it flies in the face of thousands of MLB plate appearances from Castro, the standard of how players mature with age, and every comp of Castro's that we can find that has shown what he has shown. Believe whatever you want, I'll be the crazy one that thinks that Castro is still likely to improve after age 23. Is he going to improve on his age 23 season or improve on his age 21 season? He's a guy that gets value from making a lot of contact (been worse at this every season) and being able to pass at the league's toughest position (he's been passable at this one year out of four.) Like I said, there's enough good and bad history that either outcome is possible, but going "hey, look at ARod and Ken Griffey Jr at the same age" means about nothing to me. Castro is certainly not any of the guys on that list. I'd say he's been passable at SS more than 1 year. I think you're getting too caught up in exact UZR numbers if you're saying he wasn't passable when he was -2 to -3. Derek Jeter isn't passable at SS.

I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but it's not as if his K's, BB's, power, and defense have all been getting worse since his first season. The K's and BB's, prior to this season had been fairly constant, the power was increasing, and he's not the terrible defender he's made out to be. Yeah, this past season was bad in all of those categories except defense I guess, but we do have information he was trying to change his approach. It's not quite as convenient as fixing a bad season by getting eye surgery, but it is something.

The line about not giving up a draft pick makes no sense to me. They'd prefer to keep a draft pick vs. giving up multiple established, talented, and developing minor leaguers? This is from Peter Gammons, so... Jesus. Well, Nolasco could be a target for us. He was traded midseason, so like Anibal last year, he wouldn't cost a pick.

Lineups for the All Star game tomorrow night are out. Bryant and Soler are starting. Aaron Sanchez, who is a possible target in a Samardzija trade is the starting pitcher on their team. I'm irrationally excited to watch this. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20131101&content_id=63610944&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

While I have doubts the Cardinals would do it anyway, I wouldn't be a fan of a Castro for Martinez swap. Love the arm, but the innings count would likely prevent him from being a full time starter for a couple years. Then you think about the velocity with that body size, I think we'd have a Neftali Feliz situation where we'd still be unsure if he can start after recovering from some sort of injury.

I guess I don't find it very likely Castro's struggles against fastballs is due to something that cannot be corrected. He didn't lose all of his bat speed at the age of 23. I would put the odds of him being "terrible" going forward at much less than 50%.

Starts at 2:30. Darvill is the only Cubs position prospect in the lineup. Boring.

Watch us place the highest bid but with the changes in the process, he chooses to sign with the Yankees who had the second highest bid. Nah, but seriously, really curious what the changes in the posting process look like (if they even happen this year) and what the cap would be.

I think the strikeouts will prevent Bryant and Baez from being better hitters than Rizzo next year.

Zimmer is the one who has had arm problems though.

I'm in love.

I was hoping for some more velocity out of Rivero. Bryant has managed to reach base via error all three times up so far.

If he's up by the deadline like davell said, that could be about 3 months at Tennessee and 1 at Iowa, or 2 and 2. Javy spent about 2 months at Double-A. Bryant doing the same is definitely the positive/aggressive outlook but not totally out of the question with a prospect as good as he is.

Does his OPS need to be over 2.000 for him to be in the top half of the lineup? I think it's funny that he's probably been the best hitter on the last two teams he's played for (counting the Solar Sox) and hasn't hit above 5th.

As a hitter (not counting defense) Javy's pie-in-the-sky comparison is definitely not as good as Sheffield. I love Baez and the bat speed comparisons sound legit, but Sheffield's plate discipline was other-worldly.

I haven't been watching every single pitch, but when I have, CB's been missing just about every call back there.

I think someone (davell?) posted a Phil Rogers article a few weeks ago mentioning Tony Pena. Wonder if he's being considered or if he'd come with Girardi as his bench coach like he was in NY.

Still kind of surprised by this, as I don't think Dale is a bad manager. One question though - is it at all possible the idea to mess with Castro's approach in the first place came from Sveum and not Theo? Otherwise, I'm not sure I see the point in blaming him for that when there were two other hitting coaches on the staff. Rizzo can be party explained away by BABIP and Castillo made big strides this season.