Hairyducked Idiot

Internal options?

The Cardinals are about to be even with the best Cubs result of the last 67 years. For the fourth time in the last 9 years.

No, but he plays another fairly premium defensive position. He's not a 1b/corner outfield guy. Brilliant observation here. It's not like he played 1B or DH in 120 games this year. EDIT: Oops, yes he did. That's a fair point. But he was a 3b most of his career before this season, and that's when he was a valuable player. As a 1b/DH, he's essentially replacement-level.

One of the PSD insidery guys mentioned that the Cubs have taken notice of the A's use of platoons this season and are looking at that as a way to get more production offensively without committing too many years to free agents. Actually good, full-time players would be preferable, but if we were to go that route: Valbuena would be an interesting LH half of a 3b platoon Castillo could use a left-handed hitting vet to complement him, although he wouldn't need a full platoon partner. Soriano/DeJesus/LaHair might be an interesting outfield against right-handed pitchers, albeit terrible defensively Sappelt could probably take the RH 4th outfielder role if you had a good LH CFer and overlooked how terrible he was in Iowa this season. It really wouldn't kill us to have a RH lefty-masher who could play 2b to get a little more out of the position and the bench (Barney shows no noticeable split). Looking at the free agency list, I don't see much I like to fill any of those roles. Ick.

No, but he plays another fairly premium defensive position. He's not a 1b/corner outfield guy.

All the reports are in the comments section here: http://www.bleachernation.com/2012/10/16/an-early-look-at-the-cubs-arbitration-situation-garza-samardzija-volstad-stewart-more/ It's got to be Bush. We have two assistant to the GMs, one of whom is one of the rare remaining holdovers from the old FO and doesn't seem particularly friendly to their way of doing things, historically.

If for some reason we end up in a real 40-man crunch this offseason (through trades or maybe an FA spending spree or maybe there's just a dozen soft-tossing AAA RHPs on the waiver wire at the same time and Hoyer can't help himself), would it be worthwhile to DFA Concepcion? If he cleared waivers, he could be outrighted off the 40-man but still kept. Would you be worried about hurting your reputation with IFAs if you did? Would you be worried that someone would claim him with 4x$1.2 million left on his contract? Would you be hoping that someone claimed him?

BN Brett said that the FO maneuever was not voluntary, so I don't think this is it.

I think that was a strike, but it couldn't possibly have been closer. Unhittable.

those are easier to come by Easier than what? DHs? That's technically true, but misses a key point about the way the Cubs field a team.

Rodriguez to any NL team makes no sense. He can't play the field full-time now, let alone in a few years.

Lazy afternoon random list time. I'm considering Castillo graduated because he looks like the likely starting catcher for next season, but Vitters and Jackson are headed to AAA. 1. Baez (started to separate himself from the other two) 2. Almora 3. Soler 4. Vizcaino 5. Panigua (heard some very good things about him since he came to the statse. So few pitchers in the system have his kind of upside). ----- (Very large dropoff here, we're down into the B prospects) 6. Vogelbach (maybe too high, but power is so hard to find, and the kid just mashed) 7. Villanueva (thought about putting him lower, but being headed to AA next season makes him advanced by our system's standards) 8. Candelario 9. Johnson (My favorite of the various recently drafted pitchers) 10. Marco Hernandez (I don't know as much about the various low minors infield guys, but he seems to be the one people are highest on right now) 11. Torreyes (still love him) 12. Watkins (getting overhyped right now, but there's something there) 13. Vitters (ick. The breakthrough season came crashing down in the majors, but walk rate still improved). 14. Underwood 15. Lake (Okay slash line at AA, but expecting advanced pitching at AAA to give him the Brett Jackson treatment next year. Can we convert him to a pitcher already?) 16. Alcantara 18. Jackson (fine, I have to put him somewhere, I guess) 19. Maples 20. Amaya 21. Szczur (still so much I just don't like here) 22. Wells (waiting to see what happens with his arm) 23. Cabrera (fascinated by the difference between his minor league numbers and his MLB performance this year) 24. Carreno (A starting pitcher who throws with the first digit as a 9 and whose K and BB rates don't make my eyes role. That's very rare in this system) 25. Zych (I love potentially fast moving relievers, though I'm probably overrating him). Guys who feel like they should be top-25 prospects but couldn't find room for them: Rosario, Peralta, Bruno, Blackburn (could shoot up if he displays velocity next season after some time off), McNutt, Martin, Scott (just for being on a BA top-20 list), Ha Probably some big oversights here, I'm not quite the prospect guru some are. But I just can't get over how deep the system is. This started as a top-15, but I started listing guys who felt like they could be top-15 candidates and I got past 30.

They were talking about the 40-man roster and the Rule 5 draft over at BN, and I thought it was interesting to realize that when the season ends, we'll have an immediate roster crunch. We'll have five players come off the 60-day DL and we have only one player due to become a free agent (Camp). Our various non-tender candidates won't become free agents until Dec. 1 We have a ton of junky pitchers we could get rid of to solve that, of course.

I think this is an example of too clever by half. Also, wishful thinking trying to get to the desired result (that this kid has a chance to sign with the Cubs). 1) He has to decide if he wants to play in Japan or the USA, and he seems to be legitimately not sure. But he has to decide before the NPL draft, which I believe is later this month. 2) Teenagers are never smart to delay signing by a year. His stock and health have nowhere to go but down right now. 3) If it were necessary, I think it'd be highly likely that a team would be willing to break their pool for him, especially a team that expects to have a low pool next season (Dodgers? Ranger?).

Paul Sullivan ‏@PWSullivan Jack Morris has an MLB press conference but no one really has any questions or any idea why he's talking.

Bush would be a heckuva guess. It's the only one that makes sense. If someone were trying to poach a McLeod or something with a promotion, we'd hear about it sooner, right?

Well, now I'm confused. How am I accusing "everyone else" of being "unreasonable" if I changed my mind to agree with them? The first report said he "reaches 88-89," which presumably means he's not working there consistently, and I think that's plenty to write off a 21-year-old as a fringe prospect. Subsequent reports had him throwing a bit harder, and CaliforniaRaisin called them to my attention. I conceded that my original post was wrong and that he and others were right. You asked me if that was sarcasm, and I said it wasn't. After that, I can't figure out if this is one of those times I'm supposed to feel bad for being a contrarian who disagrees with everyone and tries to start trouble by arguing with everyone who disagrees, or if this is one of those times I'm supposed to feel bad for being a flip-flopper who changed his mind after another poster convinced me with their argument.

Okay, I apologize. In the future, I promise to make my initial evaluation of pitching prospects while keeping in mind that immediately subsequent reports may add several MPH to their fastball.

If he's working below 90 at 21, he's filler. I contradicted myself because new information contradicted the information I was working off of.

The only hard part is Wright. There's plenty of decent CFs and second-tier starters out there.

It's serious. If he's working at 88 in game action, then he's organizational filler masquerading as a prospect. If he's working 90-91, he's got an interesting chance to be a back-of-rotation starter.

That's not true. They've were -5 pythagorean wins, they had 17 wins worth of sub-replacement players, and they have $60-75 million to spend if they want to. They could contend if they felt like it was a priority.

I think it had to be expected. Why? They don't have a history of lowering prices after a crappy season, and if their intention is to actually try and field a team that has a shot of not being terrible you'd think they wouldn't have to worry about luring in people. This smacks of expectations that they're going to suck again. Which had to be expected. They may not lose 100 games again, but they've been telegraphing another no-effort-to-win offseason for awhile now.

Tanking revenue so they can cry poor in 2014 and go with their all-homegrown lineup.

Fringe prospect, don't care about him. Not a bad return for Jeff Baker, by any means, but don't care about him. He's definitely no longer working in the upper 80s. Okay, then I care about him a little. Not bad.