CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs today acquired left-handed pitcher Scott Maine and first baseman Ryne White from the Arizona Diamondbacks for right-handed pitcher Aaron Heilman.  White is a native of Chicago and is a 2005 graduate of St. Rita of Cascia High School.

Maine, 24, combined to go 4-5 with seven saves and a 2.90 ERA (20 ER/62.0 IP) in 48 relief appearances between Double-A Mobile and Triple-A Reno in 2009, reaching Triple-A in only his third professional season.  The southpaw struck out 61 batters and issued 22 walks in 62.0 innings pitched between the stops, an average of nearly one strikeout per inning and 3.2 walks per nine innings.  He allowed only two home runs in 62.0 innings pitched.  Maine last month also made a pair of appearances for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League, allowing three runs in 1.2 innings.

Read more: Cubs Trade Heilman for Two Prospects

With the end of the 2009 season and the Arizona Fall League wrapping up, a handful of the NSBB Minor League Forum regulars (Tim, Transmogrified_Tiger, CaliforniaRaisin, Outshined_One, UK, toonsterwu, and craig) got together to have a chat about their personal top 30 prospect lists for the Cubs’ system. In the process, those posters created a composite top 10 list based on a comparison of our lists.

This is part one of a two part article. The first part is the composite top ten prospects list. Each entry will provide an overview and various comments from the chat, which have been edited to fit this format. The second part will cover a number of the prospects who did not make this list, but merited discussion.

The following is a press release from NPR about an upcoming interview with Tom Ricketts. Some very interesting information in there. We could do a lot worse than trying to use Boston as a model for how to run the franchise.

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NPR EXCLUSIVE: NEW CHICAGO CUBS BOARD CHAIR TOM RICKETTS

SHARES IDEAS FOR IMPROVING FRANCHISE

October 30, 2009; Washington, D.C. – In his first national broadcast interview since his family completed their purchase of the Chicago Cubs, the franchise’s new board chairman Tom Ricketts tells host Scott Simon on NPR News’ Weekend Edition that he plans to retain the team’s management, saying of General Manager Jim Hendry and Manager Lou Piniella: “Jim has done a good job of kind of bringing the team up to the level that they are at,” and “Lou is one of the best managers in baseball.” The exclusive interview with Ricketts will air tomorrow, Saturday, October 31 on NPR News’ Weekend Edition. Excerpts of the interview are below; the full audio will be available Saturday at 10AM (ET) at NPR.org, where there is a companion story now: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/10/chicago_cubs_ricketts_owner.html

Read more: NPR Interview with Tom Ricketts