Surprised? No. Anderson’s got good stuff and is close to being ready.

In 2007 Jim Hendry understood that the Cubs were in a win-now kind of framework. Why then pass on Matt Wieters and take a 17 year old kid in Josh Vitters?

The near-unaminous opinion on Wieters is that he is going to be an elite player in the majors.

but the Fish are an awfully good team that few people seem to be talking about. Wouldn’t surprise me if they won the NL East this year. Love the rotation, the bullpen has enough assets, and the offensive dropoff should be balanced by the defensive improvement, and if Hermida bounces back offensively, then the offense might not dropoff much.

But … there are rumors that the Cubs may fast track him to Daytona, so in a positive scenario, there’s a shot that, if all goes well, he’s ready at some point in 2010. By ready, I mean more than a cup of tea in September.

I’m still learning towards 2011 as being more realistic.

Kevin Gregg gets crapped on by this board, but he will be a distinct asset to the 2009 Cubs in their win-now mode. Jose Ceda is a prospect, that’s it. And now a prospect that has a bum shoulder to go along with being too damned fat in my estimation.

Ceda’s a closer prospect. Look at the list and take a look at how many pure closing prospects actually made it on. Only two off the top of my head. Some may end up in the pen, but they still have the potential to be starters.

He’s still, assuming he’s healthy, a guy that, on paper, should be a dominant pen arm, and perhaps a solid middle reliever as soon as this year. This isn’t coming out of my mouth – check around, all the reports were fairly high on Ceda, and last year, his mechanics were improved and he controlled his weight a bit better.

Btw, early reports on the shoulder injury suggest that it isn’t anything more than early spring kinks for Ceda.

Add Vitters to the list of guys with unrealistic values. He has a chance to be a good hitter at the MLB level in my opinion, he just isn’t going to be a superstar.

But my argument against the Gregg trade at the time (and my opinion on it hasn’t changed, but what’s happened has happened) was that

a) I thought Gregg was overrated. I said it back then, but I would’ve preferred signing Brandon Lyon as a FA (he ended up with basically the same salary) and saving Ceda than dealing for Gregg. There were other free agents out there.
b) I thought we had Gregg level arms already.
c) I think that Ceda will be ready at some point this year. You look at the changes last year – improved control, sharper 1-2 punch, better weight management, cleaned out his delivery, and I thought all the signs portended to a positive future, and a potentially positive future soon. I knew, with Cashner drafted and Marmol in the bigs, that it wouldn’t be with us, for the most part.

The idea of trading Ceda this offseason was always out there, so I wasn’t too worked up on that. Here’s hoping I’m dead wrong on Gregg.

On a side note, I wasn’t on BCB back then, but Greenberg was given high value?

But the anecdotal assumption with catchers has always been that they may take some time to blossom, so as long as the physical tools are there, sometimes they get the benefit of the doubt. For all the positive opinion I’ve had on Welington Castillo, he’s still an offensive AND defensive projection, something people should keep in mind. A lot of guys fail. A few years back, George Kottaras was decently thought of, and he flatlined at AAA.