Cubs rumors

6:17 PM CST: Yanks allegedly making a late push for Lester. I think it went something like this.

Cashman checks his twitter account and reads, " Lester's agents waiting to see if one of his suitors will go to $150 million."

Calls Lester's agent, "Cute Seth, you can just call me next time. Do I make the check out to you or Lester?"

5:18 PM CST: Rosenthal says Lester choosing between Giants and Cubs "barring late change." Then Lester's agent said that is "totally false...liar, liar, pants on fire. We'll totally take anyone's money still as long as it's the highest offer." (I might have paraphrased a little there).

2:20 PM CST: A little last-minute money squeeze by the agents, as it's being reported that Lester and Co. are hoping to get someone to pony up 6/150M to get the deal done.

1:37 PM CST: Apparently Hammel can void the 2017 club option, but must reach some very high performance-based thresholds to earn that right.

1:21 PM CST: Mooney says the 3rd year option on Hammel is for $12M, so 3/30M if the Cubs pick up option or 2/20M if they buy him out.

Once upon a time, I rocked the the updates during Winter Meetings, feverishly updating the site with every little bit of bullshit that was spewed. Those were different times of course, finding those sources, meant about 20 open browser tabs and constant reloading of rotoworld, NSBB forum, MLB trade rumors, the Chicago papers, etc, etc, etc. I felt like I was providing a service to you rumor-hungry readers.

Now everything is on twitter and I just favorite it, and it's up in the left sidebar for you two seconds later. I have as much use as a switchboard operator now...ah, how times have changed.

Regardless, since I have a bit of time this morning, here's a few tidbits.

A couple of quick hits for everyone...

- The Cubs have indeed hired former Cub and rumored backstabber Dave Martinez as their bench coach (not Davey Lopes if you're following Bruce Levine on twitter). That'll move Brandon Hyde to first base coach and newly hired Doug Dascenzo to outfield/baserunning coordinator.

The GM Meetings have begun and every agent wants the Cubs excess in their clients' pockets.  So where we at...

- Russell "31-year-old Career Year" Martin wants Brian McCann money, something in the vicinity of 5/75-80M. Beefy seems to be just fine back there, don't you think?

The Cubs seem to be intent to on playing Monopoly with the entirety of future position prospects as rumors from Buster Olney indicate they may be in the lead to acquire Cuban outfielder/infielder Rusney Castillo. Own the entire board and they'll have to come to you and pay overmarket prices for your property.

It's a little less than 4 days before Decision Tanaka is due and nobody knows nothing except that everybody seems to need speculate on something. Bruce Levine reported that the Cubs will not be outbid. Gordon Wittenmyer said that's rubbish and Cubs remain a longshot. Jayson Stark kept hearing from important baseball people that the Cubs were going to make a splash and so on and so on.

- Dale Sveum's ass must be pretty chapped from the hot seat he's been sitting in over the last week. Although he hasn't been fired yet, rumors earlier in the week had the Cubs targeting Joe Girardi and now another catcher is in the fold. Peter Gammons is saying that Brad Ausmus would be a person of interest if the Cubs do indeed decide to go another direction.

TheJedi have already knocked out a number of trades earlier in the month, that today shouldn't bring too much excitement, but there's still a few pieces left on the trading block. One is Nate Schierholtz whom Jayson Stark reiterates is the most likely Cub to be dealt today. The Pirates and Rangers seem like the most likely spots at the moment.

- Alfonso Soriano had a "scheduled" off day on Wednesday versus the Diamondbacks despite some gaudy career numbers against Ian Kennedy (6-for-13, 3 HR's, 7 RBI's, 3 BB's). The Twitter-verse was having none of it and the conspiracies flowed that the Cubs were just awaiting his approval on a deal. Soriano showed up though for a pre-game chat with the reporters and spilled the beans that he would accept the a trade to the Yankees and apparently gave TheJedi a list of a few other teams he'd be willing to say yes to...so it's Soriano waiting on the Cubs and the rest of the league. As of now, a trade has not been made, but somehow Soriano didn't manage to even get an at-bat in a 12-inning affair last night that the Cubs eventually won 7-6.

The N.Y. Post is reporting that the Yankees and Cubs are close to deal that will send Alfonso Soriano to the Yankees for a mid-level prospect. The Cubs owe a little over $6M for the rest of 2013 on Soriano's deal and then $18 million next year and the Cubs will pay the bulk of it, and whatever the Yankees are contributing will be for this year as the Yanks are trying to avoid luxury tax hell next season.

Not yet...