Matt Garza is Trying to Ignore Trade Rumors and Other Bullets

The Draft is tomorrow, and what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in the Cubs’ war room. What’s their board look like? Do they have any pre-Draft understandings? Which lower talent might they consider if they could get him to sign under slot? Are the Cubs waiting to surprise us all?

  • You’re already obsessing about Jorge Soler, but you might be able to relax for a few days: Soler’s agent, Barry Praver (with whom the Cubs have worked many times – he was, for example, Carlos Zambrano’s agent), has apparently told teams to submit offers for his client by Thursday, June 7. So, it seems pretty unlikely that Soler will sign before then. Also: do it, Cubs. Blow other teams away.
  • Dale Sveum says Jorge Soler looks pretty impressive on tape, but not quite as impressive as high school shortstop (and possible draftee) Carlos Correa did in person the other day.
  • Matt Garza is aware of the constant drumbeat of trade rumors and/or extension rumors, but he’s doing his best to tune it out. “Five days is the farthest I look,” Garza said after yesterday’s loss, according to CSN. “I can’t control anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen or what might happen or anything like that. So my job is to get ready every five days and go out there and give my team the best chance to win. That’s about it. That’s all I can do.”
  • Dale Sveum offered more thoughts on Friday’s gaffe by Starlin Castro (getting throw out stealing without a slide because he thought he heard Joe Mather foul the ball off): “Not to know what [Mather] did, thinking it [got] fouled off and didn’t even know he swung – and you’re two runs down. What if [Mather] hit a line drive to the outfield and [Castro] got doubled up? Those things are not acceptable. He knew that. Sometimes you have these brain farts, but that’s one you can’t have happen.”
  • Doug Padilla notes that, no matter how the Cubs mix and match in the lineup, little seems to be working.
  • Steve Clevenger thinks that the Matt Garza pitch that resulted in a bases-loaded walk last night was either a ball or a strike. He only made one statement about it, mind you, but Cubs.com’s take sounds like Clevenger is saying the pitch was a ball inside (“[The pitch] was in a little bit; it was definitely in,” Clevenger said. “It’s baseball — that’s the way the game works. The ball was definitely in.”), whereas the Tribune’s take sounds like Clevenger is saying the pitch was a strike (“The pitch was definitely in (the zone),” he said. “But that’s just the way the game works, but the ball was definitely in.”). I’m guessing he meant it like the latter, but the use of “in” made it a bit unclear.
  • Ian Stewart’s wrist continues to bother him, and he probably won’t start again until tomorrow, at the earliest.
  • The international signing bonus limitations that kick in on July 2 thanks to the new CBA don’t quite restrict spending per team to $2.9 million, as has been discussed widely. The limit is $2.9 million to spend however you’d like, plus six additional bonuses of up to $50,000 that don’t count against your cap (so the total can go as high as $3.2 million). Remember, that’s just for this year – after this year, your bonus amount will be a sliding scale based on the relative crumminess of your team in the previous year (like the Draft). (h/t Jeff Passan)
  • Congrats to Ash and Sean on winning the Cubs headphones, by the way. For those of you who didn’t win, thanks for trying, and hopefully we can do it again sometime.
  • written by

    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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