Cubs start dealing in midst of trade season

The Cubs have traded RHP Scott Feldman to the Baltimore Orioles, along with C Steve Clevenger for pitchers Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop and international bonus money.  The Orioles needed to add a starting pitcher, which Feldman is likely to do well in Baltimore.  Clevenger's agent said he was excited for the trade and it was like a dream come true, since Clev grew up in the area.

RHP Scott Feldman has been traded to the Orioles

Since Feldman was scheduled to start tonight's game against the Oakland Athletics at 9:05pm CT, LHP Chris Rusin will now get the start.

RHP Jake Arrieta comes to the Cubs in the Scott Feldman/Steve Clevenger deal

RHP Pedro Strop also comes to the Cubs in the Feldman/Clevenger deal with the Orioles

After a few days of speculation, the Cubs have also traded Carlos Marmol to the Los Angeles Dodgers for RHP Matt Guerrier and also give up their No. 4 international signing bonus slot.  The Cubs will pay nearly $2M of Marmol's salary and the Dodgers get $209K in the international slot.  Cub fans everywhere are rejoicing that Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod were able to get an actual player for Marmol. 

Carlos Marmol was traded to the Dodgers for RHP Matt Guerrier

The Cubs have also acquired the Houston Astros' 2nd/3rd international signing bonus slots for Double-A INF Ronald Torreyes.

In other Cubs news, Ryan Sweeney is going on the 60-day disabled list with a broken rib and Dave Sappelt is being called up from Triple-A Iowa to take his spot on the roster.

There are sure to be many more moves before the trade deadline at the end of the month and we'll be posting about those trades as they happen.

Theo Epstein, Jason McLeod and Jed Hoyer continue with 2012 draft selections; Cubs to play Brewers in Milwaukee at 7:10pm CT

Today is day two of the 2012 MLB First-Year Player Draft.  Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein, along with SVP of Scouting and Player Development Jason McLeod and GM Jed Hoyer followed through with their plans to replenish pitchers as they selected seven pitchers out of their nine picks today and also selected two pitchers yesterday.

Here are the Cubs' selections for Day 2:

RHP Duane Underwood, Pope High School in Georgia with the 67th overall pick

RHP Ryan McNeil, Nipomo High School in California with the 101st overall pick

RHP Joshua Conway, Coastal Carolina University with the 134th overall pick

LHP Anthony Prieto, Americas High School in Texas with the 164th overall pick

RHP Trey Lang, Gateway Community College in Arizona with the 194th overall pick

3B Stephen Bruno, University of Virginia with the 224th overall pick

LHP Michael Heesch, University of South Carolina Beaufort with the 254th overall pick

C Chadd Krist, University of California with the 284th overall pick

RHP Chad Martin, Indiana University with the 314th overall pick

Cubs' first round pick Albert Almora says he is focusing on college (Chicago Tribune photo)

Yesterday, the Cubs selected high school outfielder Albert Almora with their first pick (No. 6 overall).  It sounds like Almora isn't in any hurry to come to an agreement with the Cubs as he has a scholarship to the University of Miami and says, "My main priority now is college.  I just graduated high school and I have a full scholarship to the University of Miami, and that's all I'm looking forward to right now."  Almora's agent is Scott Boras, who has a history of playing hardball.  We'll see what happens.

The Cubs also selected Missouri State right-handed pitcher Pierce Johnson (No. 43 overall) and high school right-handed pitcher Paul Blackburn (No. 56 overall) yesterday.

Tonight the Cubs will play the first game of a three-game series against the Brewers in Milwaukee at 7:10pm CT.  Ryan Dempster will start for the Cubs and try for his first win of the season.  Let's hope Dempster will get some run support from his teammates.

Travis Wood's impressive performance wasted today as Cubs shut out by Giants; Preview of tomorrow's Draft Day

The Cubs were shut out 2-0 by the San Francisco Giants today, which was their 15th loss in their last 18 games played.

Travis Wood started for the Cubs and threw four hitless innings while facing the minimum 12 batters before Angel Pagan doubled with one out in the fifth inning.  Wood was impressive and threw seven strikeouts, which was one shy of his career high of eight strikeouts.  He allowed one run on three hits over seven innings pitched.  Today was Wood's best performance of the season, although it ended up being wasted with the weak Cubs offense.

Travis Wood had his best outing of the season as he allowed just one run and three hits over seven innings today (photo from espn.com)

"It's the same press conference every day," Cubs manager Dale Sveum said.  "It's a broken record.  I don't even know what to say to come up with something different.  It's just frustrating.  I mean, golly.  We hit a few balls good ..but other than that there weren't a lot of good at-bats."

On another note, tomorrow is draft day and the Cubs have the number 6, 43 and 56 picks.  Cubs' president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, scouting chief Jason McLeod and GM Jed Hoyer are the best in the business of drafting and developing talent, which some say makes this the biggest draft in Cubs history.

"We're looking for impact players, and you'll hear that from us a lot," said McLeod, who spent six seasons with Epstein with the Red Sox, five as scouting director, and held the same position the last two years with the Padres.  "We're trying to get impact players.  Pitching is always important if the pitcher is great, but we're not taking one position over another." 

Sveum said, "I think Theo, Jason and Jed, they've had a whole different system in the draft, and obviously it's worked pretty well."  Let's hope it continues to work well!

Live coverage of the 2012 First-Year Player Draft begins with a one-hour preview show on Monday at 5pm CT on MLB.com and MLB Network.  You can also keep up to date by following @MLBDraft on Twitter and using the  #mlbdraft hashtag.

In other Cubs news, Marcos Mateo, who has been on the disabled list since April 5th due toproblems with his right elbow, had a setback and underwent Tommy John surgery on Friday in Chicago.  He is expected to be out for the rest of the 2012 season.

Tomorrow the Cubs and Giants will play the last game of the four-game series at AT&T Park at 2:45pm CT.  Jeff Samardzija will start for the Cubs and try for his sixth win of the season.

Cubs win one and lose one in chilly AZ and Vegas today

On an unusual weather day where it was 30 degrees warmer in Chicago than in Arizona, the Cubs lost 7-5 to the White Sox in their split-squad game today in Mesa.  Casey Coleman had a better outing than previously as he allowed two hits, zero runs, zero walks, and three strikeouts over three innings.

Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol during the fifth inning of today's game against the White Sox. (photo from Jake Roth/US Presswire)

The Cubs won their other split-squad game 3-2 against the Rangers in Las Vegas.  Chris Volstad, who is in the competition for a spot in the starting rotation, was impressive, allowing four hits, one earned run, no walks, and three strikeouts in four innings pitched.  The Cubs' spring record stands at 7-11.

It seems possible that Jeff Samardzija has locked in the fourth starting rotation spot with the impressive spring he's had so far, even though he's only started in five major league games in his career.  The first three spots in the Cubs' rotation seem to be locked in to veterans Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster, and Paul Maholm.  If Samardzija wins the fourth spot, that would mean that Randy Wells, Chris Volstad, and Travis Wood would all be competing for the fifth rotation spot.  It doesn't sound like the final decision regarding the fourth and fifth starting spots will be made until closer to the end of spring training. 

Tomorrow, Travis Wood will pitch against the Seattle Mariners, where he will have another chance to redeem himself, since he hasn't had a good spring so far.  The game will be broadcast live on a free  cubs.com audio webcast at 3:05pm CST.   Meanwhile, Randy Wells will start in a "B" game for the Cubs against the Cleveland Indians in Goodyear at 10am, where he also has a chance to continue building his case for a spot in the starting rotation. 

On the other side of the Cubs organization, here's a link to an article in the Chicago Tribune about Cubs' Senior VP of Scouting and Player Development, Jason McLeod's key role in the team's rebuilding process. 

Jason McLeod, left, is a key part of the Theo Trio (photo from Phil Velasquez/Tribune)

18 more days until Opening Day!