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It's June 15.
And if you had been a baseball fan up to the late 1980's (I'm not exactly sure when this deadline changed), you'd have been waiting to see if your team had made a deal today, because for many years, June 15 was the non-waiver trading deadline.
The Cubs made the Lou Brock trade on June 15. And they acquired Rick Sutcliffe on June 15, 1984.
Can you imagine if this 21-42 team, only about 40 percent of the way through the season, had to make its non-waiver deals by today? What sort of deals would they be pushed to make rightfreakingnow?
Instead, the Cubs have six more weeks to decide which players they are going to trade, and to whom. Many here have said the Cubs should do it now, but with many more teams thinking they have a shot at that second wild card, maybe waiting is better. More teams could get more desperate closer to the deadline.
There will be trades made by the Cubs, of that I have no doubt. But I don't see anything happening until early July. And maybe that's a better thing. What would happen in 2012 if the trading deadline were today?
Cubs lineup:
Campana CF, Castro SS, DeJesus RF, Soriano LF, LaHair 1B, Clevenger C, Barney 2B, Valbuena 3B, Dempster P
Red Sox lineup was not available at the time I wrote this post. Check the BCB Twitter feed for Boston's lineup today.
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Ryan Dempster didn't face the Red Sox last year when the Cubs went to Fenway Park. He faced them once at Wrigley when he was Cubs closer on June 11, 2005, giving up two runs but still posting a save. He's faced a few of their players from those players' NL days (mainly Adrian Gonzalez, Cody Ross and Scott Podsednik). Overall, current Red Sox are hitting .246 (15-for-61) against Dempster, a pretty small sample size. Dempster's been solid this year; I see no reason he won't be today.
Daisuke Matsuzaka is making his second start after returning from Tommy John surgery. He has never faced the Cubs, and players on the current Cubs roster are 6-for-18 total against him. In short, what Dice-K might do today is a mystery, except for this: Red Sox pitchers work... very... slowly. Get ready for a possible four-hour game.
Today's game is on CSN Chicago. Outside the CSN local area, it can also be seen nationally on MLB Network.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Red Sox site Over The Monster.
Today's first pitch thread will post at 1:20 p.m. CDT and the overflows at 2:20, 3:20 and 4:05 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section.
Discuss amongst yourselves.