Questions: CJ Wilson, Soriano as DH, Castro, labor agreement.

1. No on Wilson. I’m just not sold on him as an ace/near-ace which is what his salary demands are. Unless he comes cheaper than the rumors, no.

2. Hard to tell whether Soriano would hit better as a DH. Some players don’t like sitting around waiting to hit. It depends on the player and whether they can handle it. If you believe the story, some of Adam Dunn’s issues were due to the change to a DH. Not sure I buy it but I can understand the different mind-set needed for a DH. As for his value, I expect the Cubs would need to pick up at least 2/3 of the deal to find a taker.

3. I wouldn’t say anyone should be untouchable but I’m not giving up on Castro at SS. He will be 22 next season. Let’s see him under a new professional regime before throwing in the towel. I think next year is key year for his future.

4. As for the new draft concern, yes the Yankees can do it. Boston has done it for years but the point is that the small market teams can at least compete with the bonuses offered by the big guys. I think it will take some time to see how the new rules play out. I do think that it will cause baseball to lose some top talent regardless of team as they can’t buyout two sport stars as easily as they can today.

• No to Wilson. Because he’s the only elite SP on the FA market he’s going to command way too much and more than he would get in a different offseason. He’s right around 30 I believe, so while his arm doesn’t have a ton of mileage he doesn’t project to get much better either. And how good is he really? I’m not sure he’s a true ace, but he’s going to be paid like one and he really struggled in the playoffs too.

• I could see a team taking Soriano and paying 4-6 million a year for him, in which case I would pull the trigger. He would probably looked at as an average or possibly slightly above average DH. He can still hit you 25+ HR, but you can’t expect him to hit over .250 and we all know about the plate discipline. But if he’s traded (or Byrd for that matter), you have to find another outfielder somewhere. The only ready in house candidate MAY be LaHair in LF. I think he could possibly provide similar if not slightly better production and it’s not like he’s a huge downgrade on defense considering who he’d be replacing. I’d have liked Sizemore, but who knows, maybe we’re in for Cespedes or maybe Jedstein has a trade up their sleeves.

• Castro still certainly could be a very solid defensive SS. There aren’t many guys out there with his combination of arm strength and range, and his problems occur in areas fixable with more repetition (hands, and especially footwork). Improve on these things and the arm accuracy will come. Go look at other good defensive SS and there numbers at similar ages, they all make tons of errors in their early 20s. Even Theo himself raved about Castro’s defensive potential and noted how many errors Jeter made early in his career. For every person suggesting to move Castro off of SS, there is another person saying how bad of an idea it is. The only scenario in which you move him off SS is if you magically acquire a SS who is already a strong and polished defensive SS.

As for trading Castro, I’d make him untouchable. Sure some people will say “nobody is untouchable”, think about it for a second. Even if we suck this year, why couldn’t we trade him for even more next offseason? Even then I’d be very reluctant. Castro still has four years before he can be a FA, and he should continue to improve every year. And so far we’ve seen improve not just in baby steps, but he seems to take huge leaps every year, continually exceeding expectations and progressing incredibly quickly. So even if we suck for two more years, think about his value after the 2013 season. He’d still have two full years left before FA. He’s still only going to be 24 in the 2014 season. And I could see him being a .320+ average, 15-20 HR, 20-25 steal guy in 2013 with at least slight plate discipline improvements and much improved defensive numbers at SS. A 23 year old coming off of that type of season would have even more value than what Castro has now, so even if we suck for two years we can still get a haul for him, and I’d say by 2014 we should be competing anyways. Not to mention it would not be good for PR and revenue if we were to trade Castro this off season. But the bottom line is I don’t want to see him traded because I think he is going to be really, really special and potentially an all-time great Cub by the end of his career.

At 22, Jeter had 22 errors and a .969 fielding percentage. At 23, 18 and .975. At 24, 9 and .986.

Not saying he’s going to get to Jeter’s level, but let’s hold off the Castro-will-never-be-a-good-SS talks until he gets older. (Castro was 29 and .961 this past year)

1. I agree with those who are not sold on CJ Wilson as an ace. Considering what he’s likely to get on the open market, I’m not interested. I’ll repeat my plug for Mark Buehrle, even though some around here hate his guts for being an outspoken Ozziean.

2. I don’t think hitters values change much as being just a DH as opposed to playing the field. Edgar Martinez’s last season in the field at 29 he hit .343/.404/.544. He fell off the next two season due to injuries, but his next seven seasons as a DH were right in line with that.

3. I don’t know that we could get anything close to equal value for Castro. We could get a top veteran approaching free agency (Joey Votto?) but then we’d be looking at giving him a huge contract. Since he’s approaching free agency anyway, you’re giving up Castro for two years of Votto when we aren’t likely to win anything in the next two years.

You could also deal him for a package of prospects, but you’d never get anyone with Castro’s upside. You wouldn’t get one of the top prospects in the game (Trout, Harper, Moore) because those guys are untouchable. So then you’re looking at getting a bunch of B+ prospects, none of which have Castro’s upside.

4. I’ve said my piece on the CBA.

Where have you been? For a second I thought you changed your name to jeffmills197xxxx, anyway…

CJ Wilson – meh. And I heard a rumor that he plans on doing a LeBron like “special” about where he plans to go. If this is true; pass.

Soriano – We don’t like him because of the money. His defense and speed continue to worsen. But, he did hit 28HR and 89RBI (IIRC), so as a DH he could work for someone. I pick Baltimore because that’s where former Cubs go to pasture.

Castro is just a young lamb, who had 200+ hits last year. He stays, we coach.

The CBA. Last week I went a bit too far in Josh77’s CBA thread; that is it frustrated me a bit more than a blog should anybody. Having said that, I have begun to think myself away from the luxury tax penalties of “$$$ good, draft picks bad” train of thought. This new deal may just lead to a better balance if rich teams value selections over a monetary penalty. Sure, youngsters may lose some initial money, but that doesn’t bother me too much.

Lastly, please quit being so humble in your posts. Noone else does it. Most of the folks that will snark at you rarely have anything substantive to say in the first place.