Corporate collusion? That's nothing to worry about. Stay focused on real problems. Like welfare cheats.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

You'd think they'd be so easy to catch since they're high on goofballs all the time ...

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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

Phew.

Yoan Moncada will not able to sign for another 90 days. Per the Int'l amateur free agent rules the Cubs will not be able to sign him. Straight up. Sorry.

If it makes you feel better the Rangers are out too.

Cubs could get him still. Make a deal where he doesn't sign until July. He would only miss three months of the season and he wouldn't start in MLB anyways. Would start same time as other draft picks.

And put himself another year away from free agency? Lol. His asking price just lept another $15 million.

He's a Yankee. No one ever had a chance.

WTF???

ChicagoCubsOnline ‏@TheCCO 43s44 seconds ago

#Cubs traded RHP Arodys Vizcaino & International slots 2,3 & 4 to the Braves for INF Tommy La Stella & International signing slot #4

Jesse Rogers ‏@ESPNChiCubs 2m2 minutes ago

La Stella is 25, hit .251, 1 HR, .328 OBP last season in 319 AB ..started 86 games at 2b

I don't get this trade???

La Stella is a 2B, right? Setting up a Castro or Baez trade.

Maybe. I think Valbuena is gone.

Luke Blaize retweeted
Andrew Green ‏@andruwgreen 2m2 minutes ago

Remember watching La Stella when he was a 2013 Mississippi Brave. All he did was hit. Had a .343 AVG & .422 OBP in 81 games w/ @MBraves.

I don't get it.

He tailed off severely last season.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Let's all get real mad, because Vizcaino brought so much value to the organization.

It may be a precursor to another move.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

who is getting angry?

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

I find the use of three consecutive question marks, done twice in a single post, to be a sign that someone is fairly upset.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Interesting move. Could be a precursor for an interesting offseason trade. Cole Hamels?

On the surface it doesn't make sense Vizcaino is finally healthy and they trade him? A pitcher who was once very highly regarded? They have plenty of middle infielders. However, if it's made as part of a bigger move, that's understandable.

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Go Cubs!!!!

didn't vizcaino come from the braves in the first place? to me it's interesting that they'd move to take him back, especially when la stella seems like at least a decent hitter and at best a nice low-to-no-power hitter at 2B. i remember in my deep fantasy league being all DADGUMMIT when i missed out on a waiver auction bid to get him after the callup*, but IIRC he started off hitting .300+ with MAYBE 1-2 HRs but i think power isn't a part of his game, so then if he's defensively cromulent (because i dont remember him to be a + defender) it still says something about the braves philosophy that even with seeing the downside of dan uggla they still seem to want pop @ 2B. let's see what his stats look like:

Tommy La Stella :: 2014 Stats :: ATL GP: 93 AB: 319 AVG: .251
HR: 1 RBI: 31 SB: 2 CS: 1 R: 22 H: 80 2B: 16 3B: 1 OBP: .328
SLG: .317 OPS: .645 BB: 36 SO: 40 BB: 36 SO: 40 H: 80 HR: 1 R:
22 WAR: -0.3

AHA well there you go. his early .300+ simmered down to .251 and he looks primed for a sophomore slump where he hits ~.245-.265 with something like 4HR nad 48RBI or something. considering that the cubs have starlin castro and javier baez..... is la stella insurance in case baez hitting .169 last year is more of an indicator than a trend? is la stella a guy you get and secretly hope that he's maybe a .275-.300 hitter with no power for a couple'a years but then he decides he wants to make a hundred million dollars in his lifetime so he cycles up and gets on the juice to maybe become a 10-20HR guy along with .275-(ideally).300+ cuz then you've got something.

but if he's a low-to-no-power 2B who has to hit .300+ to have decent value, shoot, you can see why the braves gave up on him. i guess they still have a boner for their fleeting months of good uggla to see what having a jeff kent type 2B is like and they must really really like vizcaino, eh?

* = i ended up trading for kolten wong later in the year and winning the league. sometimes it's the moves you don't make, eh? =D

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I think it's part of another move.

Either trading Baez or maybe someone wanted Baez and they're saying, how bout La Stella instead?


Interesting idea about being Baez insurance, but they have so many options for 2b, I think that's unlikely the reason


I like La Stella. I think he'll end up being a good hitter.

I'm going to be sick.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/ ... er=ya5nbcs

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Rosenthal report 4 for 64. While it would be nice not to gurantee that 5th year, AAV of 16 for a guy playing a position where guys get old extremely quick is something I'm not all that comfortable with.

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Team Cutler.

16 million, as crazy as it sounds, isnt back breaking.


Im not totally on board with it either but I dont worry about it. 4 years is a short period of time.


Also, it tells me they want to compete soon (good) and that they dont have any catchers in the organization close to major league ready (necessary)

I didn't want 4 years and $40M so you can imagine how I feel about an extra $24M. It's stupid to pay him that much money. Lester has to be worth $30M now.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

True RPB, and other than a free ajent pitching sign, no huge contracts likely to hit the books within the next year or two.

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Team Cutler.

I dont know. I guess they dont believe in Castillo though.

Maybe Im crazy, but it seems like they shopping list this year is to add one good veteran player in each phase of the game

Position player- Martin
Starter (Lester or whoever)
Reliever (Robertson, Miller, etc)

Like they want leadership to bring the children along

So the Cubs essentially had to trade some of their int'l signing slots because they have so much more money than they are allowed to spend as penalty for overspending last year (that's the gist of it, Im trying to learn all the rules with this stuff)


So maybe EpHoy floated the idea of picks for LaScalla and Braves were like "We want Arodys back too"

take a look at who Vizcaino has been traded for. Maybe the people who actually work in baseball don't think nearly as highly of him as the parasites in independent analyzing organizations and their lap dog readership.

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

Vizcaino was bad in AAA last year and not good when called up. At best, right now, for the Cubs, he's a middle reliever. They basically traded him for his position-player equivalent.

I would think the Cubs believe La Stella has more upside at this point than Vizcaino does. Problem is, even if La Stella turns into everything they could ever want (.300/.360, LH 2B), how do they get him on the field?

Martin signing with the Jays for 5 years.



Can't fault the Cubs for not going that many years. Too bad.