Him

Geez, I wonder where you got that one from. from sbanation Trading with the Cubs If the Mets were to trade Niese to the Cubs, it would make sense to ask for a young shortstop in return. The Cubs have a trio of shortstop prospects and the Mets have a stockpile of young arms, so naturally the two teams have long been mentioned as possible trade partners. Chicago currently has Starlin Castro and Addison Russell in the major leagues and top prospect Javier Baez in Triple-A, where he is rehabbing from a fractured finger. Due to his recent struggles, it would appear that Baez would be the most likely trade candidate of this trio. He was named the fifth-best prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America before last season, but his stock has dropped somewhat over the past year. Baez batted just .169/.227/.354 in 52 games for the Cubs last season and failed to make the big league squad out of spring training. Even though his stock may have fallen, a straight trade of Baez for Niese appears to be highly unlikely. Fox's Ken Rosenthal reported that the only way the Cubs would trade Baez for Niese would be if it was part of a larger deal. So if the Mets want Baez, they would either need to eat a large sum of Niese's contract or trade a prospect or two with him. Or both. This scenario seems very unlikely. Another more realistic option for the Mets on the Cubs' roster could be third baseman Mike Olt. Olt, who was once a top prospect in the Rangers organization, has been a huge disappointment since the Cubs acquired him in the Matt Garza trade. The 27-year-old has batted just .158/.245/.333 in 111 major league games, and his future as a starter with the club is in serious doubt now that Kris Bryant occupies third base. Despite his discouraging batting line, Olt has shown some pop in the majors, hitting 12 home runs in 89 games last season. The Mets have a void at third base with David Wright's injury, so acquiring Olt for Niese represents a much more realistic trade option for the Mets. Attempting to catch lightning in a bottle with a player like Olt could eventually pay dividends. Nowhere in this article does it say the Cubs offered Olt. Aside from Rosenthal saying the Cubs wouldn't trade Baez for Niese (shocker), this is pure speculation.

Right division, right handedness, wrong team and player The guy gets $9 mil next year... And $10 mil or a buyout? Can I hire his agent to work my next deal? That's seriously like the most common thing. Like nearly every contract with an option year has a buy out. I was referring to MLBTR saying $9 mil next year and $10 mil/buyout for 2016. Next year = 2016.

Right division, right handedness, wrong team and player The guy gets $9 mil next year... And $10 mil or a buyout? Can I hire his agent to work my next deal?

Man Starlin needed that haha

Every day Schwarber is up this year is one more day we'll have to leave him down next year for service time considerations. That said the idea above about bringing him up for one series wouldn't be bad.

if we're going off similar recent trades, kimbrel really didn't fetch much and he's under team control for longer. Mevlin Upton's contract is to blame for that. The Braves still got a solid prospect in Wisler (#41 in Fangraph's rankings) even though the Padres took on $56 million in salary for Upton and Kimbrel ($80 for those two - the $24 for Quentin and Maybin). The Braves would've had to give a lot more if the trade had been just Upton.

According to the ESPN announcers I have not muted for some reason, Adrian Gonzalez is the first player in the history of MLB to have 5 homers in the first 3 games of a season.

Well there's your problem. This is a good point. Good? No. Literally anyone can tell you? Yes. Not making fun of CTCF. It's just not a hard thing to realize Dew. Come on bro!

Winning "it" will always mean a ton, but it's less meaningful with Ernie gone. RIP.

I think the safe bet is that he's a September call up at best, but there's a lot of moving pieces. Number 1 is his performance at Iowa, if he's got a .900+ OPS at the all-star break there's going to be some pressure to put him on the MLB roster. After that it depends a bit on MLB need and how the team is doing in the standings. Bryant's 3B defense and the bats of Baez, Alcantara, and to a lesser extent La Stella will all dictate that. I doubt they'll call Russell up before September if he's not going to be playing every day, so he'd need an opening, or one to be created for him with a deadline deal. Or if we trade Russell mid-season for an upgrade elsewhere.

I know many on this board don't like Cameron, but this was a good article on why the deal is essentially $170 million / 7 years. Hopefully it can clear up any confusion anyone has on the deal... http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/max-scherzer-and-when-210-million-isnt-210-million/

It's not looking good but we have to remember he was the youngest player in the league until September call ups and will likely be among the very youngest players on opening day. Yeah, but he was striking out at a pretty bad rate last year in AAA where guys like Eric Jokisch and Dallas Beeler are good pitchers and he's doing it now in a league (where I presume) most guys won't even make it to AAA next year. http://www.northsidebaseball.com/images/JavyKRate.jpg Unlabeled axis and no description of which line is which? What a terrible graph. Come on Tim, step your game up! :D As it has the least variation, I'm assuming the blue line is Javy's Cumulative K%, with it not starting until stabilization. So to the poster above me, I'd say he was never "very high" after stabilization. Just high to high. In AAA.

Meh. It feels like people want a loophole like this to be there so badly, but I'm just not sure the talent you get in year 1 is all that much more impressive than the talent you get for playing it straight. Better to get the talent ASAP. Start developing them all in year 1 instead of half in year 1 and half in year 2.

Have to assume they wouldn't be signing for these 25 if the other ~56 weren't close behind.

What? Montero would get more starts over the course of a season than Johnny Gomes or Ross. Plus Miguel is definitely better at baseball at this point.