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If Garza turns into an ace (which is why I questioned the trade, I wasn't sure he'd do this) then I think the trade is good for the Cubs so long as both Lee and Archer don't become awesome. The reason being trading from a strength to fill a weakness. The Cubs have lots of nice pitching in the minors, but nobody who profiles as a true ace of the staff. Conversely, the Cubs have Starlin Castro being a star at SS and a number of other middle infielders with a ton of potential. Lee was a bit redundant in the system simply because his best position is filled for the next 10+ years (Castro) and there are other options that may be better fits at second than Lee. There is no ace of the staff in the Cubs' system, though, so if Garza becomes that, it was a good deal.

I could see them going with Gillick with the idea that his assistant would be someone young who could be "mentored" by him and take over when he retires. I could see Gillick being the one in charge of overhauling thought and whatnot, retiring after 2-3 years and then his successor taking over to lead the Cubs long term.

Jon Jay .788 career OPS 1.4/1.4 WAR -5.4 OF UZR 26 years old Colby Rasmus .774 career OPS 2.8/4.3/1.5 WAR -1.9 OF UZR 24 years old I realize Jay has a historic name, but trading Rasmus because you have Jay seems like really bad reasoning - even if it is just PR reasoning.

There's also the third option where nobody - including the Cubs, the new team and Aramis - don't know whether his 2012 option has vested or not.

Yeah, it seems if Ricketts were so desperate to hire Sandberg, he'd have done it this past offseason. It seems more logical to force a manager on an existing GM on the hot seat than a brand new guy - not that I think Ricketts is the type of owner to force a manager on his GM.

Mateo, Marmol, Wells, and Russell all in the past 2-3 years. We've not produced any top of the line pitching (other than Marmol), but we've gotten some nice production from recent AAA graduates. That's also part of the reason why there's not much depth at the AAA level, we've graduated our better pitchers to the majors in the past few years and then traded Archer. Even still, though, it was a good bet at the start of the year that at least one out of the group of Jackson/Diamond/Bibens-Dirx/Chen would be better than the rabble we've had in the 5th spot this year. Cabrera and Struck are the only two in Iowa who are way over their heads at the moment, I think. The rest of those guys, as I've said before, weren't expected to be world beaters but should have been much better at Iowa than they've been this year. Immediate pitching help wasn't nearly as important as some form of offensive power in this draft, I don't think. As immediate long term rotation options we have Garza, Wells (unless he's truly fallen apart), Cashner (if he can stay healthy), Whitenack, McNutt and further down the road the potential of Cabrera, Struck, and others in AA. The offensive power potential we had before the draft was Vitters and . . . . We took Zych in the fourth (I think) round, a college pitcher who should fly through the system and then there's interesting FA options like CJ Wilson coming up this year and next. I think our pitching will be fine.

Robert Whitenack was coming on really strong until he had to have TJ surgery. He hadn't pitched much in AA this year, but had been pretty dominant before his injury. The top end of farm took a hit when we traded Archer, called up Cashner (and he got hurt), moved Carpenter to the pen and with the implosions of Diamond, Jackson, and Chen. Coming into the year the latter three arms would have been expected to be, at worst, similar to what we've been running out there in the 5th spot this year and maybe better. The strength of the pitching on the farm is in the lower minors, however, with guys like Ben Wells, Luis Liria, Austin Kirk, and others.

To be useful next year, Baker wouldn't have to be an everyday starter. He'd just have to be the right handed side of a platoon at either 2nd or 3rd (isn't Flaherty a lefty?). That's his best role and one he could thrive in. Also, I'm not sold that Baker would garner that much interest in trade. A team with a pressing need for right handed power might overpay, but it was just a couple of years ago that we got Baker for Al Albuqerque, a nice reliever now but a lightly regarded prospect at the time. Baker's done more since the Cubs acquired him, but he's still the same basic player he was then - a power bat against lefties, bad against righties and a couple years older.

The other teams that are able to win here and there without signing marquee guys are the teams that don't have the resources the Cubs do. They're the small-mid market teams. If you want the Cubs to not sign any players like Pujols or Fielder then the Cubs will become a team that spends around $90-100 million a year and wins every now and then. However, because of the resources the Cubs have access to, there's no reason not to go out and get a guy like Fielder or Pujols who will be significantly overpaid late in their contracts, but will give you 6-8 wins a year early in the deal. Doing smart things like that is what pushes teams like the Yankees and Red Sox into WS contention every year and not just when everything falls into place.

We do, they're just not quite ready to pitch in the majors yet. Trey McNutt would have probably been up by now and almost certainly would be better than the Ortiz/Davis/Bush/etc group. However, McNutt has spent two stints on the DL and is just now coming back from (I think) a rib issue. There are a number of other guys who are better than that group of vets, but it doesn't really make sense to rush those guys up right now because they're not completely ready and still quite young.

By the end of the 2012 season, there's a good chance the Cubs will have 6-7 cheap, productive players in significant positions on the roster. Starlin Castro (SS starter), Andrew Cashner (starter or setup man/closer), Darwin Barney/DJ LeMaheieu (2nd base starter), Ryan Flaherty (utility or 3rd base starter), Brett Jackson (CF starter), Trey McNutt (starter), and Chris Carpenter (setup man) could all be playing significant roles on the team by that time. All of those guys are seen as fairly sure things to be at least somewhat productive major leaguers and relatively soon and the Cubs haven't seen that amount of young, cheap production in a long time. Not having players like those in the past is the reason the Cubs are in the financial state that they are and now that they have them on the cusp of the majors, they can afford to spend big on the right superstars in FA.

The Cubs' problem really hasn't been having a bunch of albatross contracts hamstringing them. The problem has been because the farm system didn't produce much of anything in the mid 2000s, we've had to spend significant money on almost every single position on the roster. The Cubs have had no players since Sosa make more than $20 million a year and only two players making more than $15 mil per year since Sosa (Soriano and Z). Those two players make up just $37 million of a payroll between $134 and $144 million the past three years. $100+ million is plenty of room to fill out 23 spots on the roster if you can mix young players in with the vets. The problem is, the Cubs had five players making $10-14 million per year over that period and another 3-4 each year making $5+ million. Most of those guys weren't significantly overpaid, but there were just too many middle range players the Cubs were having to pay because they weren't developing young, cheap production. There's no reason a team with the resources of the Cubs shouldn't have any trouble having 1-2 players signed to 6-8 year contracts who they know will be significantly overpaid for 2-3 years. The key is to pick the right guys to give those contracts to (guys like Fielder and Pujols who will give you great production early in the deals to offset the poor production late) and having young, cheap production fill in a large part of the roster. The problem hasn't been having too many big money deals, it's been those latter two issues - not getting the great production from the huge contract and having very little cheap production over that time frame.

I think he may be more careful with who he approves long term/huge money contracts for (none to players like Soriano, for instance), but I haven't seen anything to indicate he won't approve any long term/huge money deals. You're relegating yourself to small market status if you won't take at least 1-2 long term/huge money contracts.

I wouldn't trade for him and have to take on his salary for next year. I'd consider picking him up for the rest of the season and seeing if he pitches well enough to give him another contract next year.

The preciousness of outs is an important part of baseball, I think. As long as you have outs, you have a chance to win the game so giving them away on any sort of a semi-regular basis is a bad idea, statistically and logically.

Silva might not have blown up over a bullpen role to start the year, especially if Hendry/Quade had sold him on the idea that Cashner almost certainly wasn't going to pitch a complete season. However - and this is where I think the mistake was made - the Cubs went with Mateo over Silva in the pen. At the time of the Gorz trade, Mateo wasn't really on the radar. He pitched well in spring training, though, and won over Quade and Hendry - thus, the Cubs tried to demote Silva and he bolted. I think they should have kept Silva as immediate depth in case it was needed and keep Mateo at AAA to start the year, since we could send down Mateo without losing him and we couldn't with Silva. As for McNutt, as the 7th option after the Gorz trade, the hope, I'm sure, is that he wouldn't be needed for the first month or two of the season. By June or July, he would have had a few months of AA experience after dominating his entire (short) pro career. But then Wells and Cashner both got hurt and, before they even had the option of thinking about calling up McNutt, he got hurt. With Jay Jackson completely falling apart at the same time, that left only the Coleman/Davis/Ortiz/etc group. Calling up McNutt in April or May wouldn't have been the best idea, but it's still very possible he would have been better than the guys they ended up running out there. That wasn't likely to be necessary, however, since we didn't have a particularly injury prone pitching staff (relative to any pitcher). There was no way to expect two starters to go out for an extended period of time five days into the start of the season and 4 of 5 starters missing time in the first 3 months of the year and our #2 prospect hitting the DL twice in that same time frame. And just a nitpick, but McNutt entered his 3rd year of pro ball this season. He pitched in 2009 and 2010.

DeRosa, Gorz and Archer weren't selling at peak value? Archer I can see, but I can't imagine DeRosa and Gorz having more value than they did when the Cubs dealt them.

At the time of the Gorzelanny trade, the Cubs had a veteran pitcher who was likely to be as good as Gorz (Silva), their #2 prospect on the verge of being ready (McNutt) and another top 10 prospect who had struggled closing out last year but was still a very good talent (Jay Jackson). If you're going to complain about their depth issues, you should complain about cutting Silva (though his hissy fit made that much more difficult) than trading Gorz for intriguing prospects - a return many people on here thought was more than his value in the first place. And that brings me to the second point - the Cubs didn't needlessly get rid of Gorz. They received an offer of three intriguing young players - one a former 1st round pick - for a guy with a career ERA in the 4.50+ range. Given the depth they had at the time, it would have been rather dumb to pass that up. Gorz wasn't an integral part of the team, so why not get a power hitter with upside (something we didn't have much of at the time), an intriguing arm and a potential future cheap reliever for him? Arguing that trading Gorz was a bad decision is similar to arguing that trading DeRosa for Archer/Gaub/Stevens was a bad idea. The DeRosa trade was fine, it was signing Miles that was the mistake. Likewise, trading Gorz was fine, but cutting Silva and then having 3 starting pitchers (Wells/Cashner/McNutt) get and stay hurt and another young pitcher falling apart was the problem.

The Cubs got a former first round pick who had OPS'd .810 or better 3 out of 4 years in pro ball and who was only 22 and a tall, projectible 21 year old lefty who many on here liked quite a bit. That's hardly nothing for a guy who had a career 4.69 ERA and a 1.463 WHIP. They've lost some of their intrigue, as CCP pointed out, but at the time they were very intriguing prospects.

Bunting is for people who can't hit. Sac bunting is. There's definite merit in bunting for a hit, for certain players. How true. All the great players know how to bunt. According to STATS, Babe Ruth had 113 sacrifice hits and Lou Gehrig had 106 sacrifice hits. They knew the fundamentals and when asked by their manager to lay one down, they did it. I was talking about bunting for a hit, not sac bunting. Sac bunting is very rarely a good idea for anybody, short of the pitcher.

That's why I qualified it by saying certain players. Great hitters pretty much should never bunt, but there are benefits to the very occasional drag bunt for players whose speed is part of their game - and those types of players may become more prevalent if the recent power outage remains.

Right, but if Gorz was not an essential part of the team at the time of the trade, why is he all of a sudden now?

We aren't paid executives in charge of the decision making. I'm just curious what has changed that took people from thinking it was a great trade at the time to thinking now that it was a terrible trade at the time. If Gorz wasn't the greatly superior option at the time, what has changed to make him clearly that at the time of the trade?

And Morris still hasn't even pitched this year, has he? Nope.

Since this has been an ongoing complaint for a little while now, I figured I'd dig up the original Gorz trade thread. Mostly positive, some questions. Everybody liked Burgess, a few liked Hicks and nobody liked Morris. Almost nobody viewed Gorz as a high-end replacement starter that we needed to keep because he was so much better than everybody else we had.