I think the Cubs have enough depth at pitching that they’ll be fine there. If a shut-down starter becomes available, the Cubs should pursue, but otherwise, go with one of the Seans and/or Lieber.

but I believe the Cubs are only in the market for a lefty bat (a Top-Of-the-Order-Lefty, “TOOL”). I would ask this, though – how much do you think Greene would be an upgrade over Cedeno, given the additional trade cost involved?

And teams with a good, young SS are the ones least likely to need Greene.

In a fire sale, you have enough moving parts that you simply try to maximize your value. This is sheer spitballing on my part, so don’t read too much into it – it’s simply for illustration purposes. Say the Cubs want Greene, and the Padres are having the Big Tent Sale at the break – they could maybe get that done for Pie and one of our various pitching prospects, I dunno.

Then they deal, say, Giles or Wolf or some other piece to another team that nets them a shortstop.

Furcal and Hudson both would be rentals, but both should be Type A FAs.

As for Marquis – I still think that Lieber can match him start for start over a whole season and I’d trade him in a deal for any of these guys not named Felipe without blinking.

Here’s a question about Kelly Johnson – compared to what we know is the high price of Brian Roberts – who do you think you get more for given what you pay for? PECOTA has KJ being worth $16 mill in 2008, and 14.5 in 2009 & ‘10. Roberts is at $17.25 in ‘08 and 16.3 in ‘09.

that Bobby Cox used DeRo in the lead-off spot whenever Furcal wasn’t in the lineup—a sure sign that he values OBP more than raw speed in that spot. (Furcal has both OBP and speed.)

Lou is simply in love with speed, speed, speed—which neither DeRo or KJ offer in sufficient quantities.

Simply because he’s lefty. It is an interesting question I’d like to see someone ask Lou – if he could have a choice between a speedy hitter and a lefty hitter at the top of the lineup – which would he prefer. I’m assuming that the presence of Fontenot so often at the top of the lineup tells us it’s the lefty part.

Thanks, though, for a good perspective on this particular scenario.

Aybar has a higher ceiling and had a hotter start. At the beginning of the year they said the two would split time evenly. They may end up going back to that once Aybar cools down (and now that Maicer is heating up). Though Aybar has a .346 AVG, his OBP is only .350. That may be a problem – even for the Angels – if his AVG drops back to .300 and his OBP is only .305-.315.

And it’s not like Maicer Izturis is really, really good. He doesn’t excel at anything. He’ll hit a few doubles and be able to steal some bases, but he’s not a speedster or a real power source. Maybe a good way to describe him as being like Eric Patterson, but with better defense and already settled into hitting ML pitching. Maicer’s not someone you look to acquire if you have Brian Roberts and Rafael Furcal already, but he’s better against RHP than both Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot and that makes him worth something to us.

We know Roberts and Lopez are available for the right price.

Furcal and Hudson are in the last years of contracts and therefore theoretically available for the right price, although in each case I admitted the unlikelihood of them being traded.

There’s been a lot of buzz around Johnson, but I don’t think he’s really available.

Maicer is expendable to the Angels and it seems like when the Angels have two switch-hitting SSs and the Cubs have 2 RH SSs, that there might be room for a swap if the teams were motivated.

is if they wanted DeRosa to play 3B and we were willing to give him up, and even then they might be more likely to trade Hu, who’s not a TOOL.

and perhaps that deserves another fanpost, but I’d like to see Felix Pie and Reed Johnson continue to get their PT. Re: Kenny, in particular, if Jim Hendry wanted him, I think we’d have him by now. Kenny may be making some strong contract demands for him not to get signed at all.