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Speaking of which, if the Phillies did in fact offer all three of those guys together, what in the world are the Astros thinking to turn that offer down? Pence is a nice player, but not that nice.

When you have one of the best trading chips on the market, however, you need to shoot higher than a couple of low ceiling, high floor guys who probably will be no better than league average their entire time with the Cubs. With a farm system as deep as ours, we're bound to get a handful or more players like Young and Slowey, so there's really very little benefit to acquiring them. Getting 1-2 of the top 5-10 prospects on another team is far more valuable since those guys have a much higher likelihood of becoming major leaguers than the vast majority of prospects and will also have much higher ceilings than Young and Slowey have. The only guarantee that Young and Slowey bring us is to not be terrible and you need more than that when you're trading one of the best third basemen in the game.

For what it's worth, from Muskat:

Wow. Good call. Totally thought he was saying a low tier prospect or two. Thanks. Isn't that what he's saying? The period after 2 makes me think he's saying the Angels would give up nothing more than mid- to lower tiered prospect (singular implied I'm guessing) or two of them. If that's not what he's saying then it's really poorly written. Later, in response to a tweet asking if the Cubs would get a high quality return, Nightengale responds:

I'd want a whole lot more than Young and Slowey for Aramis. Young is 26 this year, his best season is an .826 OPS and he has a .634 OPS this year. Slowey is 27 and has consistently been a mid 4.00s ERA and xFIP pitcher.

I was just questioning your assertion that Williams is a question mark and, apparently, Sims-Walker is not. I do agree that Floyd or Edwards would be much better options than either, unless Martz is confident he can "fix" Williams and get him back to his 2006 numbers.

USA Today has him tied with Greinke for 16th highest pitcher salary. That'll drop, however, starting next year when Cliff Lee's salary jumps from $11 million to $21 million. My range was a little high, but Dempster is slotted in around Lincecum, Greinke and Verlander. None of those three have hit free agency yet, however.

#1 pitcher money today is anywhere from $18-25 million a year. That's Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay type money. Dempster is making $13.5 million this year and has an option for $14 million next year. That's not #1 pitcher money. Since he became a full time starter in 2008 for the Cubs, Dempster has posted a 2.96, 3.65, and 3.85 ERA and a 1.21, 1.31, 1.32 WHIP. He had a horrid start to the year, but since April has been dominant - as good as he's ever been. He's had better ERA/WHIP numbers overall than Greinke and two of his four years as a starter have been as good (2008) or half a point of ERA worse (2009) than Sabathia. If most GMs view him as, at best, a #3 starters, then a lot of GMs are ignoring how well he's pitched.

We can't afford Aramis, Fielder and Wilson, that's the point. After arbitration raises and whatnot, we'll have something in the vicinity of $35-45 million to spend. That should be just enough for Fielder and one of Wilson or Aramis.

Sims-Walker isn't a question mark? His best season came two years ago when he caught 63 passes for 869 yards. The year before, his first year, he caught 16 passes for 217 yards. Last year, 43 catches for 562 yards. Williams had 530 yards on six fewer catches last year and 596 yards on 5 fewer catches two years ago. If Williams is a question mark (and he is), then Sims-Walker really is.

Martz used him well previously, and Williams has a relationship with Daryl Drake, the WR coach, from their days at Texas. Williams had 146 receptions for 2,148 yards and 12 touchdowns combined in his two seasons under Martz in Detroit. That included a 1,310 yard season and 81.9 receiving yards per game in 2006. If he's going to revive his career, Martz may be just what he needs. And if he does revive his career, he still can be one of the better WRs in the game.

MLB Trade Rumors

Assuming we pursue and get Fielder/Pujols and CJ Wilson, I'm guessing we won't have the budget to go get any FAs of any value unless Ricketts approves a payroll hike. With that in mind, I think our best option at that point is to platoon Baker and Ryan Flaherty at third and hope we get Baker's normal production against lefties (.850-.900 OPS) and see what Flaherty does. If we trade Soriano as well, then it all depends on how much of his salary we free up. That would open another hole in the lineup we'd have to fill, though it would also give us a few million extra to throw around. All of that may go into ensuring we get Fielder and Wilson or it may be used to fill either LF or 3B.

I think he still can be a star. I think the worse thing that happened to Vince was coming in and playing immediately on some pretty good Titans teams. With the obsession people have with QB W/L records, they (and Vince himself) were seeing a 17-11 QB record and taking that as Vince being a good QB already. What most people ignored, however, is that his numbers were mediocre to terrible early on. But I think the QB record made Vince feel like he was already where he should be as a QB and he wasn't working as hard as he needed to in order to continue to improve. I'm hoping playing behind Vick, another extremely physically gifted QB who relied too much on his talent early on, will help Vince to realize he needs to put more work in in order to be a great QB - which I think he can still be.

Yeah, Garza's in the same position as Dempster this season. Both have had much better years than their traditional numbers would indicate, but it's the traditional numbers that other GMs will use to talk down their return. I'd be pretty opposed to trading either this year because you'd almost certainly be selling low in comparison to the season they're having.

The problem with trading Soto now is that we don't have anybody behind him in the minors who is likely to be productive offensively. We can call up guys like Castillo or Clevenger, but neither projects to be anywhere close to Soto's production offensively. In trading Soto we'd be taking a big hit offensively with little to no gain defensively.

I'm with you on trading Pena and at least trying to dump Soriano, but there's no reason at all to trade Z unless a team blows us away. We probably already need a guy like CJ Wilson to fill one rotation spot next year, we don't need to dump Z and open up another hole in the rotation. Unless somebody just blew me away with an offer for Z, I'd keep him. I'd look to trade Pena primarily here at the deadline and then in the offseason make a run at Pujols/Fielder. I'd also either go after CJ Wilson and let Aramis go, or try to bring Aramis back on a smaller deal and go after one of the second tier starters. My preference would probably be to sign Wilson and turn third base over to a Flaherty/Baker platoon. There'd be a dropoff in production at third, but that platoon could still be league average or better. If that team doesn't contend, I look to trade off all expiring contracts at next year's deadline. I just don't see any reason to take this route. The division is filled with a bunch of mediocre teams that will probably just get worse from this year to next (with the possible exceptions of the Reds and Pirates) and there are impact FAs on the market. With our resources and the terrible division, there's just no reason to not make an attempt. Especially when you consider with the exception of Aramis and Pena, all the guys we'd be looking to trade for significant pieces are at their lowest value. Dempster's value can only go up as his luck evens out and Z could very well rebound next year and have decent to good numbers at next year's deadline. Other guys like Baker, Byrd, Marmol, Marshall, etc., will all be under contract again next year anyway and can be traded then instead of throwing this season needlessly.

There's really no reason to blow this team up. The division is likely to be mediocre, at best, next year and there are some really big time FAs on the market this offseason. The only reason we should trade Aramis is if somebody blows us away, but if we do I think we can still have a chance to compete next year with the right moves. Who would you trade as part of blowing the team up?

True, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying having a decent OFer to fill-in for Sizemore and Choo while they are on the DL is more valuable than money to the Indians. How much can the Indians up their payroll? They may have been trying to keep from adding much payroll either because they're right against their cap or they plan on pursuing another player(s) who will cost money.

That'd be a really explosive backfield. I still think Vince can be a good starting QB if he'll just put in the necessary work, though.

My guess would be despite what he said, if Brian Cashman called up Jim Hendry and offered him Jesus Montero for Sean Marshall, Hendry wouldn't hang up the phone. That might be what he meant, but I'm guessing he made that comment knowing that all the guys he was tagging as "untouchable" wouldn't garner the kind of fantastic value that would make them worth trading. You said you'd trade Jeff Baker for Al Albuquerque, but Albuquerque was a non-prospect at the time who is in his third organization and is only a middle reliever anyway. Why trade a guy who can give us an .850-.900 OPS next year against lefties for a guy who might become a middle reliever for us or somebody else 3 years from now? For all of the guys you mentioned, if somebody blew us away with an offer I'd be fine with trading them. But the likelihood of that happening is pretty significantly less than the Cubs' chances of making the playoffs next year. We can just as easily trade Baker for an Al Albuquerque clone at next year's deadline, so I don't see what the rush is to ship him and the other players out now when they're all under contract for next season.

Philly would be a great landing spot for Vince. He'd have a mobile QB to learn from and the Eagles wouldn't have to change the offense when he came in. Hopefully he'll be good wherever he goes, I'm still pulling for him.

Jeff Baker's highest season OPS is .791 and his highest season WAR is 1.3. At the time of the trade, DeRosa's highest season OPS was .857 and his highest season WAR was 4.3. Both players had similar starts to their careers but DeRosa broke out with the Cubs and became a valuable everyday starter, whereas Baker is a valuable platoon guy. DeRosa's value at the time of the trade dwarfs any value Baker may ever have. I could agree with your argument about not cobbling together a mediocre team next year if we were looking at the Cubs signing Edwin Jackson, trading for Aubrey Huff and overpaying for Hiroki Kuroda. Those are all short term, low impact moves that rely on luck to win. What people on here are advocating, however, is that the Cubs go after Prince Fielder and C.J. Wilson, two of the best players in the league at their positions and guys who can help the Cubs win for the next 4-8 years by providing 5+ wins each potentially. These are long term, high impact moves that, like the Garza trade, will help the Cubs next year and long term. Signing those guys and holding on to players like Barney, Baker, and Dempster allows the Cubs to compete for 82-85+ wins next year, possibly make the playoffs, and then continue to improve the roster in 2013 and beyond. Building a consistent winner doesn't necessarily mean you have to be awful for at least one year and maybe more before getting better. We can keep the current core intact, sign a couple of long term, high impact guys to improve next year and then start filling the roster with more FA stars (Kemp perhaps) and minor leaguers to continue the improvement.

Marshall, Baker and Barney aren't going to bring much on the open market. Marshall would bring the most, but he's still simply a setup man with very little closing experience, that's not going to draw a big return. Baker can be valuable in a platoon, but teams don't generally trade a lot for platoon guys. Barney is a young, cheap, very good defensive player who is our only backup SS on the roster. Most teams have guys like him so he's not going to demand much on the market. Byrd and Dempster would bring more, but both have their true values depressed heavily due to down years. Byrd is still coming back from getting hit in the face and teams are going to have questions about that. Dempster has pitched very well this year, but had horrid luck/defense the first part of the year and his overall numbers have been dragged down significantly because of that. We're not going to get his full value because teams are going to point at his average ERA and WHIP and claim he's declining when he likely isn't. Both of these guys would bring in more at next year's deadline if we're out of it then.