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i have only seen it on other boards...not even mlbtraderumors says anything about this...

but are we really stupid enough to trade that type of young talent?

The Cubs aren't going to sign Castro to a huge extension in August, and then turn around and decide he's not a part of the future a couple months later. Phil Rogers is not to be taken seriously.

But what if they're trading him for a worse player who's older, more expensive, and signed for less years?

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I go out of my way to avoid Phil Rodgers because quite simply he's stupid on a Joe Morgan level. With that said, it all depends on what's offered. If the Dbacks were willing to part with Upton/Bauer/Wheeler for Castro/BJax then I'm game, but that's not going to happen.

I am not game with that.

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What? No.

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Castro isn't going to be traded. It's annoying how much the Chicago media brings this up.

It's also annoying how often it is being mentioned Baez dominated the AFL and how many fans will think he'll be ready next season.

I'm intrigued, what exactly would you expect? You can't seriously think it would be something like Upton+Bauer+ one of Skaggs/Bradley.

What would I expect if the Cubs traded Castro to the Diamondbacks?

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My favorite part is people saying he isn't a "Theo type player." Good players are Theo type players. Not everyone in Boston was a count working walk wizard.

Not even to mention the fact that Castro still has a lot of developing to do and just so happens to be doing it at the big league level.

A riot.

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What would you consider a fair return from the Diamondbacks?

Something ridiculous.

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Upton, Corbin, and one of Bauer or Skaggs for Castro. No way Arizona would do it, but it'd take that for me to deal him. I want him to be a lifelong Cub basically.

man, trading castro would be great, because then i would really, truly, honestly be OUT and not have to follow the cubs anymore

I first read this poster's name as Treymon and was thoroughly confused.

And the fact that the two things this front office likely wanted him to focus on improving (patience and defense) are also the things he improved the most this season.

BB% by year:

2010: 5.7%
2011: 4.9%
2012: 5.2%

I get it that his second half was much more patient than his first half. That doesn't change the fact that 2012 didn't really represent an increase in patience from Starlin. It's certainly not an area where you can say he "improved the most this season".

Based on the entire year you could probably say the improvement was minimal, but I'm sure you saw just as I did how drastically different Starlin's approach was in the second half. It's clear he was intentionally working on this.

1) I was responding to a post that said that it represented an improvement on the season - not during the year
2) I caveated about the in-year improvement in my first sentence in the body of my post
3) His season walk rate was actually a step back from the average of the two previous years, not a slight improvement
4) He had also had stretches in previous years where his walk rate was much higher, but it didn't represent permanent change

In short, I'm hopeful that the approach he showed in August/September is what we'll see going forward. But it is certainly a cautious optimism based on Starlin's entire track record. And it is impossible to say that his patience in 2012 as a whole represented an area where he "improved the most this season".

To be fair, Castro's walk rate in 2010 was not indicative of his plate patience whatsoever because when he first showed up they were batting him 8th and he would be pitched around to get to the pitcher. In 31 games hitting out of the 8-spot as a freshly called up rookie he drew 17 walks. When he moved up to the 2-spot he drew 10 walks in 71 games. He had a 14.6% BB% hitting out of the 8th spot in the batting lineup which is, according to FanGraphs, excellent. His BB% out of the 2-spot was 3%. His BB% in 2010 probably would've been much worse than 4.9% had he not been hitting in front of the pitcher for a 1/4 of his season, and in that situation, this year actually would've marked an improvement over years past.

That being said, the numbers are there so technically they don't mark an improvement over years past, but 2010 was an aberration IMO.

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"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game."
- Jacques Barzun

Given how historically impatient he was to start the year, the year-end stats aren't going to reflect much of an improvement. I should have clarified he improved on that from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

And just because the year end BB% doesn't reflect drastic improvement doesn't mean it's "impossible" to say it was an area of improvement for him.

I'm not going to rehash this entire argument again. The last couple months of the year are very promising. But we shouldn't just pretend that the first half of the year didn't exist, either.

And the projections; my God, how it hurt the projections.

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It hurt them a lot more in mid-August when I went on that rant.

But I'll stick by the statement that Starlin's lack of offensive progress on the year puts his career more on a Templeton/Cabrera track than HOF. Let's hope the gains he made in August/September carry through to next year and he builds on that progress even further.

One way or another, he's an almost certain bet to outperform his contract and be valuable to the team. But he needs to build on that second half progress to be the player people wouldn't trade for the combination of Upton, Bauer & Davidson.