While sifting through all the news about Jon Lester, we also learned that the Cubs are in trade talks with the Arizona Diamondbacks about one Miguel Montero:
The return for Montero wouldn’t be big, reports Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (twotweets). The DBacks would receive low level prospects with the Cubs assuming most or all of Montero’s $40MM contract. Rosenthal hears Arizona would receive pitching prospects (via Twitter).
Now I’ve been somewhat against bringing in Montero because of the contract and because I’m not convinced he’s as good as folks say, and I also think Welington Castillo should be given every chance to be the primary starter. However, I also recognize that the people in charge are far smarter than I am about baseball and if they were aggressively pursuing Russell Martin and still insist on going after a purported good defensive catcher, then maybe it’s not such a bad idea to have Montero start as the strong side of the platoon and Beef as the very capable backup who already proved he could handle starting as well.
As former Cubs legend John Baker tweeted:
Are the @Cubs going to platoon Montero and Castillo? Solid catching corp. take care of my pitchers guys! pic.twitter.com/heDCDxZ7Dk
— John Baker (@manbearwolf) December 9, 2014
Yeah, gonna miss that guy. Now, if the stars align:
If #Cubs get Lester, industry source says next move would be to pursue big bat and try to accelerate revival. A bat in addition to Montero.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014
The Cubs would have a potent catching platoon, assuming that Montero’s bat bounces back to his pre-2013 production (anyone’s guess) and Beef continues to rake against lefties. The rotation would also be pretty darned good with the top four set and multiple capable options for the #5 spot. It could be fun.
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Filed under: Chicago Cubs
Tags: Arizona Diamondbacks, catchers, Chicago Cubs, John Baker, Kyle Schwarber, Miguel Montero, Welington Castillo
Maybe LaRussa is not as smart as we thought. But Major League was on channel 9.3 last night, and since the story is about a team that tanked, maybe Charlie Sheen was 25 years ahead of the curve on that.
I doubt Castillo will stick around.
I smell another trade to happen.
Castillo will go to add more pitching.
Florida, Colorado, Orioles could all be in play for Castillo.
If Lester signs with the Cubs, we will also add Ross.
Latest Theo Epstein comments suggest that Welington Castillo is staying put.
I guess the question is how much the Cubs need a backup. You didn't say how much of the $40 million contract is outstanding,* but the Cubs are not paying that kind of bucks for Montero to be the backup, so one would deduce that Castillo's role would be backup.
*Yahoo Sports says that the $40 million is owed for the next 3 years. In an exercise of relativity, they say that is less than the $82 million they would have had to pay Martin.
It sounds like it would be a platoon situation, but because Montero is the strong side of the platoon, he'd be the de facto starter and Beef would be the backup anyway.