1:28pm: Silva says that there is "no chance" of him reporting to Iowa, tweets Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune. The soon-to-be 32-year-old added that he felt pitching coach Mark Riggins wasn't up front with him about how they planned to use him, Sullivan tweets.
12:20pm: After annointing Andrew Cashner as the fifth starter, the Cubs have told Carlos Silva that they will try to trade him according to MLB.com's Carrie Muskat (on Twitter). The team would like Silva to consider a stint in the minors for depth purposes should they be unable to move him.
Silva, 32 next month, is owed $11.5MM in 2011, but the Mariners are paying $5.5MM of that according to Cot's. He's been simply awful in camp, allowing 32 hits and 27 runs in just 17 1/3 innings. He posted a 4.22 ERA in 21 starts (113 innings) last season, though he missed time after having surgery to correct an irregular heart rate.
Both the Yankees and Nationals were scouting Silva earlier this month, but the former has since finalized their rotation plans.
Hahahah, Good Luck!
It’s nice to see the Cubs giving Cashner a shot.
Agreed–this is the best thing they could have done for Cashner’s development. I think that can mess with a young pitcher when they bounce them back and forth between the rotation/bullpen, so I’m glad they’ve decided to just make him a starter and let him take his lumps as he continues to develop. Really looking forward to seeing what he does with his shot this season
Rockford Riverhawks??? The guy is awful
“Awful” is harsh. Way overpaid, to be sure, but still a viable back-of-the-rotation option on a lot of teams.
viable back of the rotation option on a lot of teams? Cubs suck and they dont want him in their rotation.
Well, actually the Cubs are currently tied with the best record in the regular season…
But seriously (and I say this not being a Cubs fan), I don’t think their starting pitching “sucks”. It’s overpaid and they have a chance to start a league minimum guy instead of an $11.5M guy, so it’s a smart move. But Silva’s numbers, while not good, still warrant some teams looking at him.
this scrub is getting paid 11.5 million this year and im scraping up 100$ to pay my student loan this month…. what a joke
Find a skill people are willing to pay to watch you do…
I guess nobody is watching him do liberal arts huh
Sounds like it might be time to give Carlos Silva the same advice.
Ha!
You can thank Bill Bavasi for that contract. Whether Silva earned it or not is another question but it took more than just his signature to get paid like that.
Smart move to have the young guy start instead of someone with very little upside like Silva. However, if I was getting paid 11M, I wouldn’t care if I made the rotation or not. I’d be the waterboy as long as I was getting paid. Also, this goes to show that spring training isn’t as meaningless as some think.
Silva needs to learn to be more professional. There was no reason to take the comments public and he is well paid vs his production. If anything, he could have kept his thoughts between himself and the staff, because not only will this not endear himself to other teams, but he is going to be harder to move.
I’m somewhat confused by Silva. I read an article on cubs.com two or three days ago where he said “as long as I’m wearing a big league uniform,” he would go to the bullpen, and he was obviously in competition for the last starting spot.
So if he was either going to win a rotation spot or be in the bullpen, and everybody including him knew it going in, how could he possibly feel misled?
Maybe to the Mariners..
I’m kind of shocked that the Cubs made this decision. I thought they’d use Silva’s final outing as an excuse to put Cashner in the bullpen. I’m pleasantly surprised that Ricketts would sign off on this, since it demonstrates that A) it’s possible they’ve learned their lesson on shuffling guys from the rotation to the bullpen and back again while they’re developing as pitchers and B) that they want to put the best team on the field, regardless of contracts. That final point bodes well should guys like Kosuke or Soriano underperform. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come.
hey there, ollie perez, didn’t recognize you in the Cubs hat!
Key word here is “try”
Hendry : *rings up rest of 29 clubs* “anyone need Silva?”
29 clubs : *hysterical laughter heard on other side.*
*rings up the Hiroshima Giants “Do you guys want Carlos Silva?
Giants “How much does he make?”
Cubs “Ohhhh, about 12 million.”
Giants “12 million yen? That’s not too bad.”
Cubs “No. 12 million dollars.”
Giants “….”
Do you mean the Hiroshima Toyo Carp or the Yomiuri Giants?
The only way they’ll be able to unload Silva to another team is if is they eat at least 60% of his contract and are will to get lower level prospects that are very unlikely to ever sniff a Major League 40 man roster.
Why would anyone do that? Unless they felt they couldn’t live without Carlos Silva, or were afraid someone else is interested, any team can sign him as a free agent in 48 hours and only have to pay him 414,000 if he gets released. NO ONE is going to trade anything for Silva
Who said he will be released? The Cubs obviously don’t want him and that’s fine — but much like Michael Young in Texas, “we will try to trade you” doesn’t necessarily mean “and release you if we can’t.” Silva could be dumped into the bullpen as a long reliever. With Cashner’s inability to even sniff the outside of the deep end of games during the spring, with fairly high pitch counts (80 pitches in 4 1/3 if I remember correctly), a decent long reliever will be a must. He’ll almost be a sixth starter, pretty much guaranteed a few innings on the back end of Cashner’s starts. (Unless he gets it together of course.)
He didn’t make the bullpen either. Mateo did. He was told that in no case will he be on the team, unless an injury comes before opening day.
Starting to get ugly. May be time to cut bait & release him. Cashner is the sensible move.
Silva blaming pitching coach for him giving up jacks to guys who will be playing in double A, Dude can’t own to the fact he’s not that good.
So that’s two fat guys named Carlos on the Cubs that can’t keep their mouths shut. Hmm.
yahoo sports is reporting that they already cut him.
Where have you gone, Carlos Silva?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
(Woo woo woo)
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Crazy Carlos’ has left and gone away?
(Hey hey hey – hey hey hey)
The Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee in todays game made a comment about the Phillies pitching staff and hinted about a possible trade for a late inning guy. Because Brad Lidge is going on the DL with a shoulder issue. Does anyone here think Carlos Silva is getting traded to the Phillies?
While I suppose you could insert Silva in a game wherever you please, calling him a “late inning guy” would be entirely too generous.
If he can approach the kind of success he had last year, he’s not a bad back-end starter–particularly if the Cubs pass along the $5.5MM the Mariners are sending them this year as part of the trade–and he probably wouldn’t be terrible as a long reliever and spot starter, particularly since long relievers tend to be mop-up guys. But a late inning guy? I wouldn’t even consider it.
Not unless the Cubs eat 90% of the contract. with a week before the season, i think they may be desperate enough.
The Yankees or Rangers may be on the phone….
Carlos is just showing his immaturity right now by the way he is handling this.
He first comes to ST out of shape.
He gets extremely angry at his defense in the 4th game of ST, not the 4th game of the World Series, but Spring Training.
All of his starts except for 1 were beyond horrible.
He pitches like crap and expects that 5th rotation spot.
He blasts his pitching coach to the media bc he didn’t like the way the news was delivered.
He refuses going to AAA after pitching horribly. He is still getting paid the same, the mature MAN would look at the upside of this *Hey! I’m still a multimillionaire!*, he can then work hard at pitching the best that he can and hope for an injury/callup/trade. Instead he freaks out and only thinks 5 seconds ahead of himself.
I really do think his actions have cost him a job in baseball again. Being out of shape and a total jerk. He did it all to himself.