Sounds like they will look to trade Castillo. Maybe Ross and Lester truly are a package.

@CSNMooney: Theo: "We're not shopping (Castillo) at all. The second that the Montero news came out, we got calls from a number of teams about Wely."

"


"...that we naturally fielded. We are currently working on negotiating the best package at the moment and should have something concrete in the next week or two."

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Nailed it


@thekapman: Cubs meeting w/David Ross' agent tonight. Jon Lester's catcher in Bos. 2 very good MLB sources tell me they believe Cubs lead for Lester.

Need a lefty in the pen unless that's the plan for Doubront and Wada.

Still would like a #1/#2 in the making in the minors.

Castillo is a great trading chip now (assuming they sign Ross).

Go get Gomes now too!

And Shields.

Fuck it!

cpguy feeling it!

Instead of Shields I'd like to wait next year for Zimmermann, Cueto, Porcello, Fister, Latos, Price class.

Price & Zimmerman will be huge deals. Shields should be no more than 4/80. It won't happen of course but WTF right?

Shields will be 5/105

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I think we made Shields very happy with the Lester signing. The cat has $100M in his sights.

Yea I don't see the Cubs doing another big deal via free agency (such as Shields) but maybe package Castillo with a prospect or two (Volgebach?) to get another 2/3 starter type so Hendricks is a 5. Maybe throw in Woods too??

Who the fuck is the 2/3 starter you think you can get for a backup catcher and the fat kid from Trouble With The Curve?

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

I dont think they''ll trade for pitching. There are guys available in free agency. I think if they make a trade its going to be for a bat.

Agree. Kemp, Upton, Cespedes, etc.

I think they sign another arm, but it's more of a reclamation project. Medlen, Masterson, etc.

Right. I would be very excited for Medlen and happy with Masterson or McCarthy

Any of those outfielders would work too, but I think Kemp is going to SD

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Santana?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ba ... story.html

hat’s next for the Cub after the Jon Lester signing?

More pitching, perhaps.

The Cubs aren’t done looking for starting pitching, despite signing Lester and Jason Hammel at the winter meetings.

After I congratulated a top Cubs’ executive on the Lester deal in the hotel lobby late Tuesday night, he already had moved on.

“Yeah, I’d like one more,” he said.

“An outfielder?” I said.

“One more starter,” he replied.

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The Cubs have the resources to sign another starter, but since they already have enough fifth starter types to fill a row boat—including Tsuyoshi Wada, Felix Doubront, Jacob Turner, Dan Straily and kids like Dallas Beeler and Eric Jokisch—it’s not really a necessity.

But as long as they’re trying to win a championship, might as well splurge.

Ideally it would be someone with a short-term contract like the two-year deal Hammel signed. C.J. Edwards should be ready by 2016, and his path should not be blocked.

There are a few second-tiered free agent starters that would be enticed by the Cubs’ aggressive game plan, but the one name that kept coming up Tuesday night was Braves right-hander Ervin Santana.

The problem is Santana reportedly is seeking a five-year deal. Good luck with that.

But what if the Cubs came up with a one-year deal so enticing he could build his value on a contending team and become a free agent again in 2016?

It may be a longshot, but then again, who expected the Cub to outbid everyone on Lester?

The Braves veteran, who turns 32 this week, went 14-10 with a 3.95 earned-run average last year, throwing 196 innings and averaging 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings. He settled for a one-year deal for $14.1 million after going 9-10 with a 3.24 ERA with the Royals in 2013 and asking for too much on the market.

With Lester’s deal done, he’s the biggest remaining free-agent starter after Max Scherzer and James Shields. The Giants are reportedly interested after losing out on Lester, but would have to give up their first-round pick since Santana received a qualifying offer from the Braves. The Cubs would only have to give up a second-round pick.

Santana is 119-100 in a 10-year career, and has made 30 or more starts in six of the last seven seasons. A rotation of Lester, Jake Arietta, Santana, Hammel and Kyle Hendricks would give the Cub five solid starters, and lefty Travis Wood could either go to the bullpen and become a spot starter or be moved in a deal for an outfielder.

Wrigley Field is suddenly a hot spot. Let’s see if the Twitter-happy Santana wants to join in.

Kerry Sayers said the Cubs' odds in Vegas went from 40-1 to 12-1. The Betting Public, ladies and gentlemen.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I should have thrown some on there before the Maddon hire.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Buster just dropped a nugget... basically if the Cubs would have missed out on Lester, they would have gone Conservative this off-season. Guess this really sort of did #fasttrack the plan.

For Wade Miley:

Duane Underwood
Jake Stinnett
Marco Hernandez

Would you do it?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

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Kenny Williams fell for the banana in the tailpipe

Dry reading for some; interesting for others. Choose or perish.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yes-the-cubs-really-are-contenders-now/

... if you look at the updated projections after adding Lester and Montero, as well as adding in half a season of Kris Bryant at third base, this is what the projected WAR totals for the National League teams currently look like.



There’s the Nationals and Cardinals at the top of the heap, and the Pirates sitting comfortably in third place, so no, the Cubs aren’t the favorites to win the NL Central right now. But note where Chicago lies on the spectrum. Fifth place, nearly tied with the Dodgers, ahead of the World Champion Giants. In a league where five teams make the postseason, a team with the fifth most projected WAR could probably be describes as a legitimate contender.

But it’s worth noting that team WAR is not really an ideal way to project team performance. It’s an okay shortcut, but there are nonlinear interactions between teammates and run environments that WAR misses, which is why our projected standings and playoff odds reports run off the BaseRuns calculations instead. And just this morning, David Appelman has added projected BaseRuns totals for 2015 to the standings page. So let’s look at those numbers instead.



There’s some changes in the middle — specifically, the Rockies move down a bit because of their run environment — but the top five remain the same. The Nationals and Cardinals still look like the best teams in the league, with the Pirates just behind them. But then, there are the Dodgers and Cubs in a virtual tie for fourth place with the Giants. Right now, those six teams look like the class of the National League, with a step down to the Marlins beginning the next tier.

...

As currently built, we have the Cubs as roughly an 84 win team, five wins better than their BaseRuns mark from last year. Is that really an unreasonably optimistic forecast, given that they won’t be trading Lester and Hammel away at midseason this time around, and the kids are probably more ready for prime time than they were a year ago?

Rob (Neyer) is right that you don’t want to overreact to a few big offseason additions, and he’s right that the Cardinals are still the class of the NL Central. But we’ve got the projected difference between the two at four wins, and the Cubs probably aren’t done yet. If the Cardinals aren’t feeling threatened by the Cubs last 24 hours, they should be. This isn’t a great team yet, but we’re in an era where we don’t really have great teams anymore; we just have a lot of pretty good ones. And right now, the Cubs look pretty close to being a pretty good team.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

If you ask me, Baseball sealed its fate when it started allowing nonlinear interactions between teammates. What's next, nonlinear interactions between players and broadcasters? Batboys? Hell, even Mascots? Forget it. If I wanted nonlinear interactions between teammates I'd watch figure skating. Or gymnastics. Or hockey.

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Soccer 1,2,3
Spanish Honor Society 1,2,3,4
Forensics 1,2,3,4

"Smiles with Nostrils"

"...no Hmong, go find some blacks"

That's what you get when you allow homogeneity in the clubhouse ...

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

https://twitter.com/ESPNChiCubs/status/542865802765295616

Cubs have PTBNL coming from Oak (Samardzija/Hammel) and will send one to Bos after the Rule 5 draft on Thur.

Not terribly exciting, but a news item nonetheless.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

who are they sending to Tampa for tampering?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Wadda about Wada?

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."