End of the Road for Alfonso Soriano? And Other Bullets

Jul 07, 2014

Here’s your you-may-have-missed the you-may-have-missed thing: early this morning, I collected the crazy amount of stuff that happened over the holiday weekend. Catch up, if you weren’t around. And then this morning, we’ve already talked about Kris Bryant and Juan Paniagua (and Kris Bryant again), and Kyle Hendricks very likely getting the call this week from the Cubs.

The Yankees have designated Alfonso Soriano for assignment after a rough stretch in the first half this year. He’ll be released, and then become a free agent. This won’t have an impact on the $13 million the Cubs are paying him this year, but it’s important nonetheless because … well … I’ve still got a spot in my heart for Soriano. He may catch on as a bench bat in the second half, but, if he doesn’t, the 38-year-old’s career may be over. It’s sad to see it end, but obviously everyone has to hang ’em up at some point. Soriano was a great player, teammate, leader and person, and he was far more productive for the Cubs than folks give him credit. If he wants to do it, he’s got coaching days ahead of him, and it would certainly be great to have him in the Cubs’ organization. But let’s not jump the gun – his playing days may not be over, and, even if they are, he may want some time to just rest and live life before jumping into a new role.

Jeff Samardzija made his Oakland debut yesterday, and it was a typically dominating Samardzija affair. Good for him. Better for him? It came against the Toronto Blue Jays, who reportedly refused to meet the Cubs’ asking price for the big righty. After the loss, I can only imagine that Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos was off somewhere doubting himself, and comforting his dark thoughts with chocolate.

Speaking of Samardzija, he was honored by his All-Star selection, but bummed he won’t be able to pitch (Carrie Muskat). He’ll wear an NL jersey, but will sit in the AL dugout.

Oft-injured Cardinals lefty Jaime Garcia will have season-ending surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, a nerve issue in the shoulder. It’s a pretty serious, career-threatening injury, so I’m not going to make light of it. I will, however, point out the SCardenfreude part: Garcia didn’t tell the Cardinals he was planning to have the surgery before telling the media. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak was pissed: “I sound frustrated, look frustrated. I’m frustrated. You try to be patient with people, and I think this organization does an amazing job protecting players. Certainly we would have loved to have heard from him.” You see? This kind of thing happens to even the “best” organizations. (As for the organizational impact, the Cardinals are hurting a bit on the pitching side with Garcia going down in tandem with Michael Wacha. They’ll restock and be fine, because they always are, but some of their depth took a hit.)

Here’s how you help get Anthony Rizzo in the All-Star Game, by the way.

Baseball Prospectus re-drafts the 2012 draft, and the Cubs (6th) wind up with none other than Addison Russell, the newest Cubs prospect. That’s just a coincidence, by the way. Albert Almora slips to 14th in the redraft, which turned out to be a pretty deep pool of top tier talent.

Daniel Schoenfield writes at Beyond the Box Score about the Cubs’ approach to asset management.

Your morning BN Blogathon update, with more coming later today about how awesome you have all been so far:

You all are amazing – we've topped the $6000 mark for MakeAWish. Keep it coming! #BNBlogathon http://t.co/MrSSg9wRqK pic.twitter.com/Wt2qKvNzMy
— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) July 7, 2014

written by

Brett Taylor

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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