Hairyducked Idiot

It seems to me like the decision to rebuild was a personal choice. Theo wanted to do the "fresh start" thing to renew his sense of enthusiasm and focus, and Ricketts was really in love with the idea of drafting/developing being the right way to build a team. I think the way they've gone about it this offseason has been nothing short of brilliant, but I'm still not convinced it was the best direction to go.

It may be out of his hands at this point. Or at least, it's at the point where he's going to have to make a choice he doesn't want to make, such as Vitters or Lake.

Ace/Brett over at bleachernation.com is reporting that multiple sources have told him that Vitters is in the discussion in the compensation talks. I know a lot of people don't love Vitters, but that's a lot higher up the scale than we are hoping to give up.

I just don't see much 100-loss downside of this team. If nothing else, they've got a nice amount of depth. I mean, what sort of downside is there, really? Garza traded and Castro hurt? Otherwise, it's just a mass of above-replacement, under-average fungible players.

They've started to implement the plan but I'd have a hard time saying what they've done has been a hell of an offseason. Just selling off all your guys isn't that amazing of a series of moves. Well certainly that depends on what you get for them.

77-85

=D> =D> =D> =D> =D> Everyone else can fawn over Junior Lake. I've got Torreyes and his elite hit tool on the top of my "guys I'm curious about for 2012" list.

If Barney hits like his AAA stats suggest, then he's not worthy of a roster spot either, despite his defense being significantly better than Cardenas'.

I agree with all that. We're making this move because Cardenas has some pedigree that says he might take a huge leap forward. But that's what it's going to take for him to be useful: a leap forward. There's nothing in the statistical record that says that he deserves an MLB roster spot right now, or will ever be a starter as he develops.

How did he do *last year* in a full season at 23 in AAA? What was the MLE on his line?

And lately, most of that's come in the very homer-happy PCL. You don't slug .418 in your third trip through the PCL and then only lose 30 points going to the majors. I might be underselling the BA/OBP a bit, but the power is definitely not there.

2Bs hit .260/.319/.388 last year; it's not hard at all to envision Cardenas being above average at the position, offensively I'm having a hard time imagining a .388 SLG out of Cardenas. A very hard time. The BA/OBP sounds about right, though.

He's a worse version of DeWitt, but with that small chance that he suddenly lives up to his former top-100 prospect status. Everyone's getting boners lately for bad players who were in BA's 75-95 range four years ago.

Fleita was in Tennessee yesterday to present the Smokies with some MiLB award. Had a lot of stuff to say about who is going there this season. Beeler, Rhoderick, McNutt, Ha, Soto, Lake and Bour are going to start in AA, according to Fleita. And he says Lake has grown "another couple of inches" since last season.

Plugging Cardenas into the ol' MLE calculator, his 2011 comes out to 271/318/353. So, basically Dewitt with less power, but some "former top prospect" hope for improvement.

I just have trouble believing we were planning on keeping him around, then Cardenas changed our minds. You can pretty much bank that between December and March, the waiver wire will have a couple early 20s middle infielders who can kinda hit but not really and play bad defense.

I think I said when Cardenas was released that I wasn't all that in love with him. If the brain trust likes him, then I trust them, but the statistical record is meh and the scouts don't love his defense. I just don't know what I'm supposed to like about him. Fringey defense, average contact, average patience, terrible power. I'm not sorry to see Dewitt go, but why not just non-tender him rather than sign him to a $1.1 million contract then DFA him. Do we have to pay that?

Why the vindictiveness? Still salty from Bigbird/Brian Roberts? Nothing against them. Sports fan misery porn is awesome in all its forms.

Let me second that the implosion on OriolesHangout is delicious.

In the rather far-fetched scenario that we run out of 40-man space and have worthwhile prospects that need to be rostered but can't, I'm sure it won't be hard to find teams that will give us solid value for those guys in a trade.

I'm really curious what the Cubs saw in the private workouts. I have this (probably overoptimistic) feeling that he's going to show up to camp throwing 94.

I think Turner-plus is a better package than the original Garza trade. I'll grant that my bias for ready-to-break-in prospects colors that, but Turner impresses me more than post-2010 Chris Archer. That said, it doesn't matter because I don't think anyone's offering Turner-plus or comparable value, now or later. But I don't blame our front office for trying. You can't compare a trade for three years of cost-controlled Garza to a trade for two years of cost-controlled Garza. You don't measure whether or not you are "selling high" but what an asset was worth in the past. All that matters is what he's worth now vs. what he's worth later. I just find the "keep him" scenarios to be particularly uninspiring. In my estimation, we'll be paying $22 million or so to get 7-10 WAR (probably closer to 7, imo), at least half of which will come in a season where we have virtually no chance of contention. Then at the end, we either get draft pick compensation or a market-value extension for a 30-year-old pitcher. Even a single blue-chip prospect would be preferable, if that's all we could get. I trust Theo and Co. to judge the risks of trading him now vs. trading him midseason, but I just can't see any scenario where it makes sense to keep him long-term. Someone out there is going to need immediate help at starting pitcher a lot more than we do, and thus Garza will be a lot more valuable to them than he is to us. Personally, I'd like to get while the gettin's good rather than wait and risk letting him drop a 1.6-WAR deuce on his trade value.

Fangraphs with a poorly-written but interesting article on Junior Lake. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/chicago-cubs-junior-lake-fangraphs-baseball-scouting-report-video/

Agreed. I trust Epstein and Hoyer to evaluate all of the risks properly, but if it were me, I'd be looking to deal him sooner rather than later if I possibly could.

No, the risk is that he returns to pre-2011 ability levels and we waste an opportunity to sell high.