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The Cubs won the bidding for Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (on Twitter). The Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers were among the many teams linked to Soler, a top international prospect.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/06/c ... um=twitter

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS

Soler got about $30M in cubs deal

Theo overhauling that Cubs farm system!

blackflash234 wrote:

The Cubs won the bidding for Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (on Twitter). The Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers were among the many teams linked to Soler, a top international prospect.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/06/c ... um=twitter

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS

Soler got about $30M in cubs deal

Theo overhauling that Cubs farm system!

30 mil for a prospect... is an expensive way to do it!

He's a pretty nice prospect and I'd like to have him (of course), but the whole last guy before capped IFA market thing seems to have driven his price up into kind of ludicrous territory. I'm not at all surprised the market went beyond what AA was comfortable bidding. I guess Chapman and Cespedes went in similar price range, but from what I think I've read Soler is far more of a development guy than either of those players and 30m is a pretty large sticker price for an actual prospect (as opposed to a guy whose a prospect only because he hasn't played yet, but will be in the bigs very quick after signing).

Al_Oliver wrote:

blackflash234 wrote:

The Cubs won the bidding for Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports (on Twitter). The Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers were among the many teams linked to Soler, a top international prospect.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/06/c ... um=twitter

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS

Soler got about $30M in cubs deal

Theo overhauling that Cubs farm system!

30 mil for a prospect... is an expensive way to do it!

It's $30 million over nine years. Think of it this way, it's less than the cost of having either Frankie Francisco or Francisco Cordero on the Jays staff each year. It's also less than the cost of DFA's one Mark Teahan or Adam Lind per season.

9 years 30 million is a great deal. Even if he ends up as an average player that's still less then we've been paying some of the scrubs on our team.

Raptor_Guy wrote: Even if he ends up as an average player that's still less then we've been paying some of the scrubs on our team.

Soler is an A-ball player that hasn't even played competitive baseball in nearly a year. He is literally nothing more than a prospect. Its a nice signing for a team that needs to make moves, but you have to analyze the situation realistically. Those "scrubs" we've been paying have all been major-league players, Soler is probably 3 years away from even being able to say the same.

He can opt out when he's arbitration eligible. So basically if he never turns out he'll still be making > $3 Mil in 2020.