The Winter Meetings are upon us, and all 30 MLB front offices figure to be quite busy over the next few days. While this is to be expected during the Winter Meetings, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times expects the Cubs to be “very active” at the Winter Meetings this year. Wittenmyer says that no one should expect the Cubs to leave the 2011 Winter Meetings “empty-handed”.
Wittenmyer breaks his article down into three areas describing the current roster of the Cubs. Chicago currently has players that Wittenmyer would describe as “untouchables”, “touchables” and “please touch-ables”.
Wittenmyer finds it fairly hard to believe that a team such as the Cubs would have any truly untouchable players, but if he had to come up with a list it would include shortstop Starlin Castro and left-hander Sean Marshall. Wittenmyer lists Castro as “a budding superstar” and quotes president Theo Epstein as referring to Marshall as maybe “the most valuable left-handed reliever in all of baseball”.
Almost everyone else on the roster is thrown into the “touchables” category, even starting pitcher Matt Garza. While Garza posted solid numbers in Chicago last season, Wittenmyer thinks the right-hander might be able to fetch a “strong package of young players”.
Then Wittenmyer has his “please touch-ables” and you can probably guess the names on this list. Wittenmyer reports that the Cubs are willing to pick up more than half of Alfonso Soriano’s remaining contract to help facilitate a deal. Carlos Zambrano is another player that the Cubs would probably love to rid themselves of, and it remains unknown which club Biz Z will suit up for next season.
Along with trades, Wittenmyer said there is a chance Chicago is active on the free agent market this week. Some of the players Wittenmyer believes the Cubs will speak with in Dallas are Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Carlos Pena, Tim Wakefield, Jorge Soler and Yoennis Cespedes.
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