Cubs rumors

Undoubtedbly the Cubs wil be selling as the July trade deadline approaches with Matt Garza, Scott Feldman, Kevin Gregg & Nate Schierholtz being the most likely chips on the table. There certainly may be others, but those players make the most sense. Let's take a look at some potential trade partners:

First off, Darwin Barney is a "finalist" for a Gold Glove at second base...as if they dont' already know the winner. But they've decided to drum up interest by naming the top 3 or 4 at each position and then announcing the winner in a televised event on ESPN2 tomorrow. Holy overkill Batman!

3:16 PM: Nevermind, looks like 3B Christian Villanueva and RHP Kyle Hendricks. Villanueva was #100 on BA's top 100 prospects in baseball list before the season. He was #7 on Goldstein's top 11 list:

Year in Review: After impressing last year in the complex leagues, Villanueva was a Sally League All-Star in his full-season debut.
The Good: Villanueva has outstanding bat speed and impressive power for his size, projecting to hit for average with 15-20home runs annually. He's an impressive athlete with average to slightly-above-average speed; he has improved his defense at third base, and has good hands with a strong arm.
The Bad: Other than the bat, Villanueva is not exceptionally toolsy. His approach could use improvement. He's filling out and getting stocky, and will likely lose some of his speed down the road.
Ephemera: Villanueva was used in six different spots of the Hickory batting order in 2011, but had the most success in the six-hole, hitting .357/.410/.629 in 20 games.
Perfect World Projection: Above-average third baseman.
Fantasy Impact: A good batting average with some power and more speed than your average third baseman.
Path to the Big Leagues: Villanueva is buried in Texas at the hot corner, and the Rangers have experimented with him at other positions. He'll begin the 2012 season at High-A Myrtle Beach.
ETA: 2015

Not finding much on Hendricks.

3:14 PM: Heh, on that note, one dude is hearing that it's Odor and Roman Mendez. Don't take that too seriously yet.

3:12 PM: Pure speculation on my part, but Rougned Odor (that's a terribly unfortunate name) is a Class A position player in that top 20 list.

3:06 PM: Rosenthal says a Class A pitcher and a Class A position player are headed to the Cubs.

3:03 PM: Here's a Rangers top 20 prospect list to start speculating upon. It won't be Profar or Olt.

3:00 PM: And fin. I'll try and get the prospects for Dempster up before I take off here.

2:58 PM: Scott Miller of CBS saying Rangers as well for Dempster...and so is Buster Olney.

2:57 PM: Whomever Ken Gurnick is, he's dropping the Rangers as the destination for Dempster. I believe he's the Dodgers beat writer for mlb.com

2:50 PM: Bowden saying Yanks "may have" acquired Dempster.

2:49 PM: Dodgers beat writer for the L.A. Times Dylan Hernandez says Dodgers are out on Dempster and they're done making deals today.

2:41 PM: The NL Central has been busy, Pirates get Gaby Sanchez and Travis Snider (that happened last night). Cardinals get reliever Ed Mujica and Reds get Jonathon Broxton.

2:15 PM: Nightengale saying that Soriano likely staying put, but of course he'll easily clear waivers, so an August deal is always possible.

2:06 PM: Kaplan says Tigers and Cubs are hard at work trying to complete a deal for Soriano.

2:03 PM: Dempster has allegedly said he'd waive his NTC for the Yankees, Rangers and Dodgers.

1:25 PM: Heyman tweet claim Dempster has already told Cubs he'd agree to a trade with Yankees...sure. Rothschild and Hendry are over there, so it does make some sense.

1:09 PM: Some Dempster to the Yankees or Diamondbacks rumors floating.

12:33 PM: Olney saying that Diamondbacks are working on something big and then teases a Justin Upton for Matt Garza deal as making sense. Of course the Cubs are on Justin Upton's no-trade list.

So the latest on the Dempster saga is that Ryan Dempster was "blindsided" by the trade yesterday and because of this, he's going to take the full week to decide. Rumors are that he strongly prefers to go the Dodgers and seems to be trying to push the Cubs into accepting a deal from them, although it certainly won't be as good as getting Randall Delgado from the Braves.

Other things Dempster has been blindsided by (a few I'm stealing from Twitter):

- His Birthday

- the birth of his chidren

- the start of the season

- spring training

- warmer temperatures in the summer

Yeah, it would have been great if the Cubs got to him before the news leaked out, but you work in a multi-billion dollar business with reporters that are good at their job, throwing a temper tantrum over it isn't particularly professional.

David O'Brien started it all with a tweet saying that the Braves were close to finalizing a deal for a starting pitcher and then Jon Heyman, Jerry Crasnick and

UPDATE #2: @Sean_McAdam: Red Sox will be responsible for only the pro-rated minimum - about $400K -- of Marlon Byrd's $6.5 million salary. Cubs eat the rest.

UPDATE: @Sean_McAdam
Baseball source: Byrd to Red Sox for Michael Bowden and PTBNL done. Cubs will pick up "most'' of Byrd's $6.5 million.

Nick Cafardo was the first to report that the Cubs and Red Sox are working on a deal to send Marlon Byrd to the Red Sox. It would also make sense of the earlier roster move today where the Cubs called up Tony Campana to put Ryan Dempster on the disabled list since they still need to lose a body to make room for Randy Wells tomorrow.

Bruce Levine is saying the Cubs will get a left-handed reliever and a minor leaguer in the deal and it should be completed today. I'm presuming Cubs will pay a healthy portion of Byrd's roughly $6.5M salary as well, but no word on that yet. Franklin Morales and Justin Thomas are the 2 lefties on their current active roster. There's also Michael Bowden, a righty, that was DFA'd last week by them.

Lineups for today's loss after the jump...

So John Lannan lost his arbitration case to the Nationals and wil be paid $5M for next season (as opposed to $5.7M he was asking).