Bruce Miles Gets a Job Offer and Other Bullets

Matt Garza is a cold-blooded spoiler. “People damaged our playoff hopes for the first four months,” Garza said after the Cubs beat the Giants last night. “So I’m fine with paying it back. If we’re not in it, might as well play the spoilers. Playing the spoilers is not as fun, but why not do it and make some people mad at you?” Whatever you do, don’t tell Garza about what happens at the end of this week’s ‘True Blood.’

  • 2011 top pick Javier Baez is headed to Low A Boise for the rest of the season. Joining him are overslot pitchers Tony Zych (4th round) and Michael Jensen (26th round). Don’t get too excited – the Hawks have just four games left. After that season ends, the kids well head off to various instructional leagues.
  • Bruce Levine chatted yesterday. Not much in the way of factual information, but Levine thinks the Cubs should go hard after both CJ Wilson and Prince Fielder. It sounds like he doesn’t think they actually will, though.
  • Speaking of Wilson, Tim Dierkes makes a compelling argument that Wilson could land upwards of $100 million this offseason. The super short of it: Wilson is a 31-year-old ace, pitching in a tough ballpark, with little mileage on his arm, in an extremely weak free agent class. If the Wilson talks do approach nine figures, I think you can count the Cubs out, no matter who the next GM is.
  • AAA Iowa catcher Welington Castillo has been placed on the disabled list with an ongoing hamstring problem. The severity of the injury and the impact on a presumed September call-up are, at present, unknown.
  • Paul Sullivan runs through a number of decisions Cubs Chairman and Owner Tom Ricketts will have to make in short order, other than the GM decision.
  • Tom Ricketts has reportedly hired economics professor Stephen J.K. Walters to review the finances of every level of the Cubs’ organization, and to make budgetary recommendations. Some quick Googling on Walters suggests he’s an economics whiz, but the organizational connection (indeed, any connection to the Ricketts family or TD Ameritrade) is unclear. I don’t even really see Walters’ connection to private industry, let alone MLB. I think it would be easy to overreact and fear that Ricketts is going miserly on us, looking to squeeze every turnip; but I suspect this is just a matter of Ricketts doing the business thing – why shouldn’t he want to review the budget of every department and try and save money where possible? He’s said every dollar that comes in will go back into the organization at some level, so, by all means, spend it wisely.
  • Also in the realm of organizational hires, Phil Rogers says the Cubs should grab Orioles’ VP of Planning and Development Janet Marie Smith to spearhead the team’s revamp of Wrigley Field. She has worked on the development of Camden Yards, as well as the improvements at Fenway Park.
  • The Daily Herald is headed to an online subscription model (i.e., you want to read it, you gotta pay for it), which is a considerable bummer for fans of Bruce Miles like me. Miles’ blog on the Herald (it’s a combo Cubs/Sox blog, on which Miles does the Cubs stuff) is one of the better beat writer efforts, and, if it’s subject to the paywall, I’ll be disappointed. That’s not to say I won’t consider paying for access, but Miles’ exposure is going to drop precipitously. Let me say officially: Bruce, if things do play out for the worst, and you’re ever looking for a large audience, you’re always welcome to write for Bleacher Nation.
  • Ron Santo and Pat Hughes are up for the Ford C. Frick award, which honors baseball broadcasters. Details here. Voting here.
  • In retrospect, the Cubs’ 2005 draft was the worst in baseball. The same link, from Baseball America, has some thoughts on DJ LeMahieu.
  • From Fangraphs, cool guys don’t look at ejections:
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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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