Illini Iceman

More like Miller won't be an automatic out at the catcher spot for 60 games or so that Estrada doesn't start. Miller's skills are on a decline so I don't see any reason the Brewers would not be getting Estrada in order to push Miller to a bench role.

he is a good player, but he's also overrated. he's being paid like one of the best players in baseball, and he clearly isn't. How is he overrated? Please no stats involved. Your opinion. And I agree with you that he doesn't deserve to get a $136 million dollar contract. But I will never consider him to be overrated. So you agree that he is overrated? Maybe overpaid, but that does that mean overrated? Who are these raters anyway? The ones signing the paychecks? The ones signing the paychecks pay him what they think he is worth. If he helps them meet their goals (e.g. - TV ratings, attendance, World Championship) then it doesn't matter how he rates compared to other players. He was the guy available that they felt could allow their team to accomplish those goals so they went out and got him instead of waiting for a .950 OPS guy to magically appear on the market.

he is a good player, but he's also overrated. he's being paid like one of the best players in baseball, and he clearly isn't. How is he overrated? Please no stats involved. Your opinion. And I agree with you that he doesn't deserve to get a $136 million dollar contract. But I will never consider him to be overrated. So you agree that he is overrated? Maybe overpaid, but that does that mean overrated? Who are these raters anyway?

Hendry has every reason from a career standpoint to prefer Soriano. A lot of the failure of the Cubs to win in the past few years has been injuries to "the core". Even if Hendry preferred Drew to Soriano my expectation would be that he would lean toward signing in Soriano. Their production is not much different but Drew definitely has a reputation as being a guy that is injured a lot. If Hendry signs him and he gets hurt while the Cubs crash and burn he will be accused industry wide as not having learned his lesson and therefore not doing a competent job. The fact that a bunch of stat guys on a message board would give him the thumbs up would not save his job. He can't take the gamble because if he loses it probably costs him his career.

I agree - 98 years of being patient and not wanting to sell out the future for the present have not worked out too well. McDonough and Hendry are going for broke and I say it's about damn time. Anyhow, the way salaries are escalating $17M may be a utility man's contract in 2014.

And we know that Hendry was close to losing Aramis how?About three or four more hours and Ramirez would have either signed for at least $20 million more than what Hendry offered or would be considering multiple offers for even more money. Ramirez and his agent knew that Hendry was significantly low-balling Aramis in terms of market value. Even at the very end Jim didn't bump up his price that much. I'd give more credit to Ramirez for staying than for Hendry keeping him. Of course, because Lord knows some people around here would rather walk on a bed of hot nails than give Hendry any credit. Hendry got lucky. Big time. All he had to do was throw in some more cash, probably as little as $1 million a year, and Ramirez doesn't wait until Sunday to sign. Yet he decided to take a huge gamble. It was not a good strategy. again, the armchair GM'ing. we have no idea what happened during the course of those negotiations. for all we know, the deal was in place for days and only took until Sunday due to logistical reasons. Even the post-deal quotes point to the exact opposite. And Jim bumped up his offer a few million dollars in the final 24 hours of negotiation, so there was no deal in place. Just a complete guess on my behalf, but it is possible that ARam left a few million per year on the table and told Hendry that he would do so if Hendry committed to use it to make sure he signed Soriano? They are both from the DR so they probably know each other and I could see ARam wanting him on the team. Just a thought.

If Barrett is going to be a major part of the offense he needs to get enough days off to keep from wearing out down the stretch. That makes it important to have a quality back-up. Maybe $1M more a year than necessary, but we can take it out of the extra $3-4M a year a lot of people on this board were imploring Hendry to throw at ARam to beg him to stay before his deal was announced. Soto seems OK but .272 BA and .739 OPS at AAA last year don't convince me he is ready to step in and contribute anything. If Hendry really is trying to build a contender he needs to have a back-up in place for Barrett that can hold his own if necessary in case Barrett is out for 7-10 games (which is not uncommon for a starting catcher at some point during the course of a season).

Funny. Remember that when we're watching Geoff Blum hustle his way to hitting .263 with 11 HR's next year for a 69-93 team. OMG, you're right, now that I think about it I am afraid the Cubs could go 66 - 96 and finish with the worst record in the NL without ARAM! Oh wait... I would like to have ARam back, but just like the hated Juan Pierre he did nothing when the Cubs needed him last year. His stats were built up in garbage time when the team was hopelessly out of contention. It would still be nice to sign him because it is one less hole to fill, but if not then take the money and try something new. Go get Nomar or Ensberg and take the extra money to help upgrade other areas if you can't re-sign him. It's not the end of the world.

My sources say that the Cubs wanted a clause that fined ARam $1M every time a routine pop up bounced off his head to lose a game for the Cubs and he refused to agree!

so, it would be better if they hadn't given him the clause and Aramis was already on another team? This is the point I think a lot of people are missing. ARam is holding firm in this case for the 6th year or another $3M or whatever, but there is an assumption he would have signed the last contract without the out clause but Hendry and MacPhail were just stupid and gave it to him. He had the leverage last time as well and it went to the final hour. It is very likely he told them he needed the out clause or he would not sign the deal. If Hendry had refused there is a good chance people would be complaining because he did not just "do what it takes" to get him signed. Seems like both negotiations are pretty similar but Hendry is ripped for giving in last time and now ripped again because he is not giving in quickly enough this time.

I never said he was dead set, but I think he wants to go. As for talking to the Cubs, one major reason: They can't negotiate with any other team until 15 days after the World Series ends. The only team he can talk to is the Cubs. So, they can use this window to "negotiate" with the Cubs in order to leak parameters to would-be suitors. You think he wants to go based on what? Not anything he or his agent has said so please be so kind as to divulge your inside source or just admit you are guessing like everyone else.

I think you're giving a little too much credit to Hendry for "putting together" the trade for Nomar. It is my belief that Nomar would have been traded to some team, Hendry just worked out the best possible deal for Nomar. I mean, all they got for him was Doug Menkavich Nomar was like Sammy. He was an outcast on the team and had to be dealt. Now, having written that, it seems that A-Rod is in a similar situation to Nomar. I don't know how desparate Cashman is to get rid of A-Rod though. I think Epstine was very keen on getting rid of Nomar. Regardless, Hendry is the king of the buzzards. He can pick up good players who are going to be traded. He got Aramis and Lee in salary dumps when no other team was able to make the trade happen. I hope Hendry recognizes the situation for what it is, A-Rod is damaged goods, he shouldn't have to give up too much to get him. If he does get A-Rod I hope he doesn't overpay. They also got Orlando Cabrera.

It was pretty much gospel in Tampa that he hates young players if he can have an alternative and doesn't understand the importance of OBP, and if you don't believe me listen to him talk on Fox, it's pretty clear that's where he stands. The last thing I want is a white, insane version of Dusty Baker. No it wasn't. He was playing Toby Hall, Jorge Cantu, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli among others. It actually seemed like he had a lot of patience with the kids, but his problem was that management would not give him ANY worthwhile veterans to mix in which made it almost impossible to win on a consistent basis.

There is no sense of urgency because there is no need for urgency. Based on everything I have read it seems that both Piniella and Girardi want this job more than any other one available and will probably wait on the Cubs before taking another offer (if one even exists).

Unless he "heard" that from Hendry (which has about 0% chance of being possible) I don't see how it could be reliable. Guys like Stark make these type of baseless comments knowing they have a 50/50 chance of being right then either crow about it when they are or just never bring it up again when they aren't.

Even though Girardi is well thought of and was formerly the bench coach for the Yanks? Not so sure he was loved by the Steinbrenner: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061006cubsmanagerevaluation,1,1294967.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines

The Yankees should be keeping ARod and looking to get rid of Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jared Wright and rest of the overpaid, underacheiving starting pitchers that really have cost them over the past couple years. This is an illogical scapegoat situation fueled by the morons at ESPN and Cashman should be too smart to get caught up in it.

That comment really is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. To imply that at least half of Maddux's earned runs were due to lack of defense is insane.

There's no crying in baseball, Derrek.

Son of a %$# :x Anyone that thinks that the problem with the Cubs is Tribune ownership just doesn't get it.

If you ask me Murton can put up the same kind of numbers Catalanotto can. They are very similar players. Both players will have a high OBP, hit around .300, and they both will hit for the same kind of power numbers. Why not let Murton have the LF job? Dosent make sense to sign a player the Cubs already have. Because in all likelihood he won't put up numbers as good as Catalanotto. EDIT: Furthermore, getting that production virtually guaranteed (while Murton is more likely to vary) also goes a long way in building the rest of the line. So in other words you prefer established veterans to giving the kids a shot? Interesting.

I hate to agree with Dusty about something, but I think he is right on when he says that fans need to be more patient with the young players and that they are not always finished products when they get the the big leagues. Murton looks very good to me. He has good plate discipline, drives the ball to the opposite field, and is once again knocking at the door of .300 in BA. It would be very short sighted IMO to give up on him to get a player like Catalanotto. The only way I see that he should not be given more time to develop is if they can get an impact middle of the lineup power hitter for LF. However, my preference would be for Hendry to find more offense in two of the three positions of CF, SS and 2B and then you could leave Murton alone in LF. It may be wishful thinking, but Andruw Jones in CF or Tejada at SS would be huge.

Exactly. He's a fantastic LOOGY. Problem is, he's faced 112 righties this year as compared to 79 lefties. What the hell Dusty's thinking with this guy is anyone's guess. His numbers against lefties this season have been really, really good. Against righties...things get ugly. Cripes, he has a .72 WHIP against lefties and a 1.04 WHIP against righties. This is like Mike Remlinger all over again. Ugh. Having a LOOGY is a nice concept if you are a team that has starters consistently going deep into games. In that scenario you can afford to hold one guy back to just face tough lefties in key spots. Unfortunately the Cubs starters are not consistently going deep in games which forces the manager to use pitchers outside the preferred roles in order to eat up innings. I think this is a big part of the reason that Ohman, Novoa, Wuertz, and Aardsma have worse numbers than they probably should. They have all had to go in for extended outings when they are ideally just one inning guys. In a perfect world you would only need a mop up reliever no more than once per week and Rusch could fill that role. However, when it seems like every other game the starter can barely get through 5 innings you need to use pitchers for multiple innings to keep from having to burn through the whole bullpen.

The answer is yes. Major League teams value 26 year old shortstops who have won 2 gold gloves, had 193 hits in a season and an All-Star appearance. At $4.5M there are multiple teams who would have picked him up. The Dodgers never would have DFA'd him. I will miss Maddux. It was an honor to watch him pitch. I would rather that he stayed but realistically he was gone in the offseason anyway so I hope he can have some good luck in cavernous Dodger stadium. Izturis doesn't thrill me, but his cost next year should not keep the Cubs from making any other moves they might want to make. The option buy out for '08 is so low that basically he is on a one year contract. I think this is a bit of a vote of no confidence in Cedeno. Hendry did not want to risk going to 2006 with him as the only option at SS again. It seems very unlikely that the "really good" prospects that Hendry referred to were any of the ones that the people here are looking for. Neifi backing up Cedeno is basically the same thing as Izturis at half the cost. Well, 1/3 the cost with both of them on the roster. Worst case that is probably true. However, IMO I don't think Cedeno has an upside as high as Izturis's best year and Cedeno's downside is .240 with no OBP and no power.

I think Cedeno gets the rest of the year to prove he can handle 2B defensively and start making the adjustments to be a productive major league hitter. If not, I think Hendry either uses him as a trading chip or he gets more of a utility role next season.