2013 Free Agent and Trade Ideas Thread

[hoosiercubsfan]

Also depends if hes willing to take a 1 year deal to come to a non-contender. Though, I find it hard to believe you will find a single team outside of the top 10 draft slots willing to lose a first round pick over a 1 year deal.

Another question I have is with his market drying up this winter how many teams would be vying for him at the trade deadline? That being especially true if he has a down year or gets hurt. Are the Cubs at that point really going to get anything more valuable than the 2nd round pick and more importantly the pool money to work from? Also have to figure if he does sign a one year deal they will make sure there are terms in the contract barring the Cubs from making him the qualifying offer. I am more afraid of signing him for the 1 yr (assuming he would take that contract) with intentions on flipping him and at the end being stuck losing him after one season for nothing. He is not the impact talent that is going to put the team over the top so I am OK with him signing elsewhere and not with the Cubs.

[Cubsfan365]

Will Sori now accept a trade to Baltimore as Kubel is not moving from AZ?

Is Baltimore really that much better than us?

[Assman22]

How about Marmol and Sappelt for Porcello? They need a platoon partner for Dirks and Sappelt is good against LHP.

Will likely platoon Sappelt and Dejesus in CF. Campana is on thin ice I'd say, barring a trade.

[Str1fe5]

Gotta say this Upton deal is disappointing. It's dramatically less than Starlin Castro and dramatically less than what they got from Seattle. I was willing to do Vizcaino and Baez personally. I understand that Delgado is basically an MLB pitcher already, and that matters... but the rest of that package is so underwhelming. I guess 3B positional scarcity has really become a big deal.

[ZamboniCub]

man so many Prado haters i dont understand it.

[Dfan25]

So i would think that with what they have right now the roster looks something like this :

Againts RHP :

DeJesus CF
Castro SS
Rizzo 1B
Soriano LF
Schierholtz RF
Castillo or Stewart - 3B or C
Castillo or Stewart - 3B or C
Barney 2B


Garza
Shark
Jackson
Baker
Feldman


Marmol
Fujikawa
Camp
Russell
Wood
Villanueva
?

Hairston
Sappelt
Clevenger
Valbuena
Navarro

Lots of options for that pen spot with Bowden- Wade- Lewis - Takahashi among others. The order of the rotation obviously is a question but i really don't care at this point. When everybody is healthy that's the group we'll see most likely. I am also thinking Wood is out of options right ? Did i leave anybody out ?

[KyleJRM]

man so many Prado haters i dont understand it.

He doesn't show up on prospect rankings, why would you even want him?

[ZamboniCub]

Clevenger will be 3rd Catcher your missing Narvaro

[Dfan25]

Ah thanks i had a feeling someone was missing.

[Cubsfan365]

Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale
The #Dbacks will now try to package SS Nick Ahmed and pitching prospect in trade for #Tigers starter Rick Porcello, one NL official says

Nightengale is also the guy that claimed we had agreed to a deal with Anibal Sanchez, so we'll see. What would be similar to Ahmed from our system? Lake or Alcantara?

[hoosiercubsfan]

Arizona's return boils down to this: One year of Martin Prado, six years of a fifth starter in Randall Delgado, two fringy prospects, and one non-prospect. If that sounds like a good deal to you, I have some beachfront property in Phoenix to sell you.

Prado is a versatile player who'll probably be Arizona's full-time third baseman, solving a need for the club in 2013 but at an exorbitant cost, since he's a free agent after the 2013 season. He's an above-average defender at third who generates most of his offensive value with high contact rates; when he hits .300, which he's done three times in the last four seasons, he's potentially a three- to four-win player at third base. (His WAR figures overstate his value somewhat with inflated defensive figures in left field.) He doesn't walk much or have power, nor is that likely to change given his age -- he might creep up closer to 20 homers playing 90 games a year in Chase Field and Coors -- so this is a bet that he'll keep making contact and fill the void at third. That's enough to offset the loss of Upton's bat and glove for one season.

Randall Delgado's ceiling might be as a 4th or 5th starter.
Delgado is a fastball/changeup guy in search of an average breaking ball, without success so far, surviving by changing speeds and by keeping the two-seamer down enough to generate groundballs; if he were to bump up his control by a grade or two, he's got a chance to be league-average in some years, but the lack of an average curveball or slider will make it hard for him to miss enough bats. He reminds me in some ways of Pat Corbin, another changeup guy who's serviceable in the back of the rotation but who looked dynamite out of the pen in brief stints for Arizona in 2012. (You can be very good in a relief role with just two pitches.)

Nick Ahmed was the 9th-best prospect in Atlanta's system, a good defensive shortstop with a plus-plus arm but very little offensive upside; he loads his hands very deep, leading to a long swing, and doesn't have the plate discipline to allow him to compensate.

Zeke Spruill was 7th on my Atlanta rankings, with a low-90s fastball that has some tailing life, keeping the ball down but not enough to make him a true groundball guy; he's got an average slider in the 82-84 mph range and a hard changeup (almost split-like) in the 85-87 range that was very effective against left-handed hitters this year, giving him no platoon split at all in Class AA. He's very slight of build and tends to sling the ball a little from a low 3/4 slot, so I don't know how durable he is. Add in the fact that he doesn't miss a lot of bats with three average pitches and it doesn't bode well for him to be more than a back-end starter.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/...cks-braves-mlb


After reading Keith Law's break down (a portion of the article is listed above if not allowed just delete it) I am pretty disappointed the Cubs weren't given a better shot at landing him. I think its going to take a significant contract to keep Prado off the FA market next season. His agent has to know that he has the Diamondbacks over a barrel in this situation. No chance can they let him hit the FA market after being the marquis name in the Upton trade. Just a really bad trade for Arizona.

[Dfan25]

Clevenger will be 3rd Catcher your missing Narvaro

Would imagine Clevenger would take some grounders at 1B-3B as well.

[MrPoon]

thats a ~ 70 win team at best. at least we wont break the century mark.

[KyleJRM]

thats a ~ 70 win team at best. at least we wont break the century mark.

That's crazybuckets. The rotation is four above-average pitchers and one average one.

[terencem]

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog/...cks-braves-mlb


After reading Keith Law's break down (a portion of the article is listed above if not allowed just delete it) I am pretty disappointed the Cubs weren't given a better shot at landing him. I think its going to take a significant contract to keep Prado off the FA market next season. His agent has to know that he has the Diamondbacks over a barrel in this situation. No chance can they let him hit the FA market after being the marquis name in the Upton trade. Just a really bad trade for Arizona.

The problem is that Tower's demands were really erratic, demanding a high return from some teams and a lesser returns for others. The Cubs don't have a package similar to what Seattle or Atlanta offered even though they might have been able to give up talent that would be greater than what Arizona got from Atlanta.