tartan222

hmm gross he looks like the kind of guy we'd want to be upgrading from if he was already on the roster

interesting that it's only alcantara mentioned...

we got castro, per heyman

charlie morton get ready to change hotels

idk, i think both of you have a point and the reality is probably somewhere...in between

this whole thing is the bargaining stage. and we're actually pretty close to the end

double post. ignore me!

yeah he caveated everything he said with "things could change in the last 90 minutes, who knows" i do think "big SP with team control or middling SP rental" squares with everything we've been hearing for a while now though

just watched this and the gist of what he said is that the cubs are trying to get more stuff done, but they're being reticent to pony up big prospects. it sounds like they still know pitching is a need and they're trying to address that, but they're not wanting to give up a top guy for a rental, so it's a question of whether one of the team control guys is attainable. my read is - it's not like a trade for a big name is lined up and we're sorting out the details, but they're still pushing hard. probably won't pay the price necessary for a top rental arm, so it's either they land a gore/cabrera type or a cheaper rental option

need us to at least land castro in the next ~15 minutes to tide me over for the wait til 5 pm

brinkmanship? the closer you get to a deadline, the closer people are willing to move to their true minimum acceptable price, even if they don't have to get rid of that player by 5 pm (i do tend to agree that at least this year, we're not likely to see teams move all that much in the final hours before the deadline. but if no one's gonna beat you to the punch for the guy you covet, you might as well exhaust all your options before you finally decide to take the plunge)

i don't think there's any way we get to the deadline without at least 1-2 more moves. i'm telling myself things are quiet because they're still focused on big-game hunting and there are less leaks around those types of targets, and we'll only shift to our (more attainable) fallback plans once we get closer to the deadline.

espn reported a few days ago that the nationals wanted shaw for gore, so the interest isn't just something a fan made up not saying we'd put him on the table but still

a solid dependable medium leverage reliever is absolutely a piece this team would benefit from

i have a feeling that the FO sees the lefty-heavy lineup as one of the more major weaknesses of this team and is more concerned about shoring that up than a lot of fans (including myself!) who just see a top-5 offense and think "probably wouldn't put a bat near the top of our needs list!"