Um, sure, other teams were just beating down our door to get their hands on the likes of Roberto Novoa, Todd Wellemeyer, Sergio Mitre and crew. The excitement is/was just palpable!! Sometimes, it might be helpful to take off ones's Cub hat and for once, try and think as if you belonged to any other team. It is endemic to fandom I suppose, but you're not going to trade Wellemeyer and Cliff Bartosh for Bobby Abreu, OK? Or even a warm bucket of spit as far as that goes. "Lack of faith in our homegrown guys?" You better believe it, baby. And no other GM in baseball has any faith in these zeroes, either. Pffft. What if its the difference between giving up 3 guys for Pierre or two? If you only give up two, you still can take that third guy and use him as a throw in tp help deals. Its a valid point, even if not on a large scale. I believe you said in the Pierre thread that getting him sends a message to Furcal that we don't need him. Well this is kinda the same thing, but opposite and on a smaller scale.