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This is exactly why I'm not particularly worried about this bad stretch. Since they fired Jaramillo, I believe they've been actively overhauling Starlin's approach. As amazing as Starlin is, I wouldn't expect him to produce well while he's going through an overhaul. He'll be fine.

Here we go - first report was from ABTY7 on PSD posted Feb. 14, second was from Wittenmeyer on March 18.

I think the reports have conflicted over it. Initially, I remember it the way you do - that both teams made their offers, Cespedes took the shorter years and the Cubs didn't/couldn't respond. I think it was a bit later, though, that a story came about with comments from Cespedes where he really wanted to play in Chicago, but the Theo regime wouldn't shorten the years. I think it was all documented in the Cespedes signing thread, I'll take a look later and see what I can find.

Colvin also has a .357 BABIP (81 points above career average) with a LD% only slightly higher than his career average. Could this be a breakout season? Sure, but it's pretty unlikely and not something that can be accurately predicted given the peripherals. It's way too early to say it was an awful trade from the Cubs' perspective and the most likely outcome is still that it was a pretty irrelevant deal for both sides.

I'd rather keep Dolis and cut Soriano than trade both for Wade Davis, to be honest.

I kind of feel like there's two different things going on with LaHair in this thread. As bukie said, I think you have to separate your view of LaHair's performance to this point from your expectations of him going forward. Based purely on his production to this point, he's very deserving of making the All-Star team. But, at the same time, I think it's highly doubtful he'll continue to be an "all-star level player" going forward. That doesn't make it bad that he was selected to the team, though.

I guess I just feel like we need to be extremely picky about who we trade Garza for. Taking a deal where we get a couple guys with mid-rotation ceilings as the first two pieces just doesn't seem like being picky to me. I'm all for adding assets to the system, but when it comes to as integral a piece to the major league roster as Garza, I want real upside assets, not just what appears to be the best deal we can find.

Very good post, but I do have a question. Why is Garza being 31/32 when we get really good a bad thing? Would it be ideal for him to be 26/27? Sure, but he could well still be a very good pitcher at that point and hopefully we'd have somebody (maybe a Blackburn or Underwood) close to taking his place at the top of the rotation by then. I wouldn't go out and acquire Garza at 31/32, but since he's on the team now I wouldn't trade him for less than very good value just because he won't be at the ideal age when we decide to start trying again.

At the moment I'm not sure I'm thrilled with keeping him either, but we do have another year of arbitration for him. If all we get is a couple mid-rotation arms in offers for him, I'd rather keep him, see how he rebounds over the next calendar year and reassess next year. Chances are his value won't drop much from its current point (barring him getting worse) and it very well may rise substantially if we can get him back into the 2011 area. I'd also much rather have Garza at 5/90-100 than have to potentially pay Hamels something like 8/184 ($23 AAV). And if we want to seriously compete inside of 4-5 years, we'd probably have to do the latter if we deal Garza.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't think I'd much like trading Garza for a couple of, at best, mid-rotation arms. In dealing Garza, we'd likely either push our contention clock back an extra year or two or we'd have to splurge on a ridiculous contract to Hamels. If we can't get some legitimate upside in a Garza deal, I'd much rather just keep him.

I don't think the publicity would have been all that bad unless Z threw another tantrum. And really, I don't think selling this team is all that tough. The majority of fans and media were clamoring for a video game rebuild and Theo gave them what they wanted. I don't think it'll be as easy a sell after this year as I expect the casual fans and media members to expect us to start winning big next year, but I think most fans are perfectly content with this year's team.

Very possible, though there's more of a chance to find a sucker (Ned Colletti) at the deadline who will overpay than finding one in the offseason. I don't think the differences would have been huge, though.

I don't think gooney was arguing that he'd be a gate attraction, just that you wouldn't have some mass exodus of fans if he were still on the team.

It's actually 2.9 fWAR in his previous 39 starts if you include his offensive production, which is part of what's made Z so valuable over the years. I still have to think that had we kept Z, he had posted the 3.71 ERA for us that he has for the Marlins, and had remained quiet all year as he has with Miami, we'd be able to get better value for him than Volstad. That was my main issue with trading him no matter what.

This was my biggest problem with the Reed re-signing. We had just gotten rid of Hendry whose biggest problem (at the major league level) was giving bad role players too much money. Then we get Theo in and one of the first things he does is pay a bad role player $1.25 mil when we could have either brought up somebody from the minors or looked for somebody who might have some sort of a future. It was too much of a Hendry move, basically.

I'd agree with you if Theo/Freidman/etc had given him that type of contract. Those regimes have the scouts I trust to fly in the face of all other reports. Given that it's Ned Colletti's regime, I have my doubts that he didn't just overreact.

More than happy to let them have him at that price.

If the Theo regime feels differently about him than the little bit of reports we've seen, I have no problem with them giving him whatever it takes. That said, if the reports we've heard are accurate, then throwing Soler money at him wouldn't put a den tin our available money, but it wouldn't be a smart allocation of funds. Soler got that money because of upside, something this guy doesn't appear to have.

If Cabrera gets counted as third baseman even though this is the first time in 5 years that he's played there and he's awful at it, then Bautista has to be counted as a RF. That said, I'd definitely take Longoria/Wright/Cabrera over Headley and omit Bautista from the list. On Hanley, he was awful offensively last year and has been about the same as Headley offensively this year and worse defensively. There's more upside with Hanley (clearly) and if he can get back to where he was 2+ years ago, then he's much better. I'd probably take Hanley because I still believe he'll get back to where he was 2+ years ago, but the comparison isn't as laughable as reputation would have you believe. I'd take Beltre if all we're talking about is this year. I'd also take Sandoval over Headley. Zimmerman is kind of like Hanley - pre-2011, I'd take Zimmerman. But he was down last year and has been awful this year. I'm really not sure I'd take him over Headley. ARod is 37 years old and has been declining offensively and been bad defensively (outside of the 2011 outlier) - I'd take Headley. Encarnacion is bad defensively and about the same offensively (his .933 OPS is propped up by being very lucky so far: BABIP right at career average, but LD% 5 points down from average) - I'd take Headley. Youk is 33, battling injuries, and was just dealt for scraps - even looking prior to this year, he's been about the same as Headley the past couple of years. I'd definitely take Headley. I guess Trumbo has an argument to be better than Headley if you don't put any stock into BABIP/LD%. I'd definitely take Headley. Prado is better if you prefer a SLG heavy OPS to an OBP heavy OPS. They're pretty similar players, but Headley is much more patient. I'd go with Headley, but could understand taking Prado. It is a different argument, and if we're looking at going forward then there's no way I'd take Beltre and I wouldn't even consider guys like ARod and Youk. That said, I'd take both Moustakas and Lawrie anyway. So that's about 5 guys I'd definitely take over Headley (Wright/Longoria/Cabrera/Moustakas/Lawrie) and then 3 that I'd either take with reservations (Hanley/Beltre) or it'd be close (Sandoval). So upon reflection, Headley is still definitely a top 10 third baseman, but probably not top 5.

But the downfall is that we forfeit our second season in a row and very likely a third straight one in 2014. Is it really worth forfeiting 3 full seasons in order to go from a few guys who might be good in 5 years to a few guys who might be really good in 5 years? Especially when we already have a ton of talent on the offensive side already? I really hate arguing against the farm system and I'm really not intending to do that. I just don't believe in putting more importance in the farm than the major league roster for 2-3 full seasons when you're in the kind of market the Cubs are in.

I still don't see why it has to be one or the other - the farm or the major league team. The major league team is awful not because the minor leagues are awful, but primarily because we've not added much in the way of real MLB talent. Using a balanced, measured approach to building an organization from the top to the bottom is a perfectly acceptable way to do things. Even getting beyond the Headley debate, there's no reason we can't spend a moderate amount of money to bring in Upton/Liriano/Sanchez/Drew and not get locked into a commitment longer than 4 (maybe 5 tops) years. That, along with promoting Rizzo/BJax/maybe Vitters, makes the major league team somewhat competitive. At the same time, we've already stockpiled what you called possibly the best offensive talent in all of baseball, so we work on developing the pitching side through the draft and moving any impending FA we don't feel are necessary. With this general plan, we continue to build up the farm system and through quality evaluation and development we slowly turn it into the best in baseball, but we don't ignore the major league squad in the process.

Second best, no. Top 10, definitely. Top 5, maybe/probably.

He's posted a 4.9 fWAR two years ago and is on pace for 5.6 fWAR this year. I guess if you don't buy into defensive metrics then you might consider him just the 9th best out of 31 (going by OPS), but going by fWAR he's the second best third baseman in the majors at this point this year (way behind Wright, slightly ahead of Moustakas and Lawrie). Is he an elite superstar? No, but he is one of the better third basemen in the game.

Thanks Andy, Tim, and MR. That looks like "peak" would be about 26-30 or maybe 31.

Why is building up the minors the primary concern? It's not a prerequisite to have the #1 farm in baseball in order to be able to compete. I'm not the least bit against building up the farm - it's very important that we do - but I don't see why it must be built up before we start paying attention to the major league roster. Part of the reason this front office is getting paid what it is is because they're really good at evaluating and developing talent. So even with the new CBA, we should be able to build the farm while picking in the middle of the draft. It may take a little longer, but you've already made the argument that we have as much or more offensive talent as any farm system in baseball - so clearly this complete talent deficiency isn't there anymore. This is exactly the reason I'm so amazed that so many people are arguing that we shouldn't make a trade for one of the best third basemen in the majors. Last offseason it was said that we shouldn't sign any FA because we should focus on acquiring prime talent through trades. So now a prime talent comes available through trade and it's argued by many that we shouldn't pursue that because it'll cost us young talent. I'm starting to think that Kyle was right when he said that people would just keep making excuses every year for why we shouldn't make any moves to improve the major league club.