Flurry of Pitching Rumors: Teheran, Carrasco, Ross, Kimbrel, Shields, Karns

That all came out so quickly (in addition to the initial Carlos Carrasco stuff) that there’s not a great way to do this outside of one big post here, with Tweets and then my comments to follow …

This seems to be in response, at least in part, to the early-morning rumor about the Cubs talking to the Braves about Julio Teheran. You’ll note that there’s not really a conflict there – the Braves may want it known that they’re not putting Teheran “out there on the trade market,” but that doesn’t mean there aren’t conversations being had with specific teams.

Since the Red Sox are out of it this year, Ross still makes slightly more sense (and thus, a higher price) for the Cubs than the Red Sox, but I can understand why they’d be considering all controllable starters, just as the Cubs are. Speaking of which …

As I said earlier, there’s no reason to think tons of teams wouldn’t want a breakout starter with tons of cheap team control on his deal. The Indians must really want some upside bats.

Even if the Padres get Mateo, by the way, I highly doubt it reduces their interest in more big league ready shortstop types. I wonder if, at some point, a team could agree to take on Upton for a marginal prospect inclusion in order to get an offer for a pitcher over the top. That would have sounded crazy a month ago, but Upton has fallen quite a bit.

Good. Leave fewer suitors out there for the starters available. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Kimbrel, as it sounds like it could come down to the Yankees (and money) or the Astros (and prospects).

This is, of course, correct and also an admission of just how bad the contract was that they signed Shields to. Sort of a strange thing to be pushing out to the media, no? “This contract is so bad for this player that you can get him in August if you want!”

Discussed Karns a little yesterday. He’s intriguing. I don’t have a great sense of what he would cost.

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Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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