Yankees close to re-acquiring Alfonso Soriano

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I didn't say they'd make it. To me, finishing with 3 or 4 games of the second wild card spot is worthy of being called a "playoff contender." I don't think we'd be any better than Cincinatti, St. Louis, or Pittsburgh, but I think we'd be over .500.

I just don't see the point in adding a scrub pitching prospect from NY when we could win some games next year.

Rizzo
Castro
Soriano
Lake?
Olt
Schierholtz
Castillo
Baez?

Cubs seem interested in a guy like Choo or Elsbury this offseason. If they could add Garza again and a bullpen arm or two, that's a playoff contending team IMO.

Obviously it wouldn't play out exactly like that but there's no reason it couldn't. Instead we're just going to suck for another season or two and wait for Olt, Castro, Rizzo, Baez, Soler, Almora, Alcantra, Bryant, etc in 2016-2017

I had these visions over the past decade as an Oriole fan. Average team at best, but we pined for the Garza's or Ellsbury's to be added to the roster to get us over the hump. And guess what? When we brought in a guy like Tejada, the team really didn't improve much either.

You've got to restock the farm, and it takes time. For the Orioles, it started with MacPhail, but has really continued when Dan Duquette came on last year and really expanded the vision of the club as far as international scouting goes. Chen and Gonzalez, two huge pieces to our success, came out of that expanded focus.

It takes time, but the Cubs will be in a great position soon. You've got to be patient.