craig

Probably Sweeney and Mabry are for the same role. The two would be mutually exclusive. Miles phrasing yesterday notwithstanding, I assume that Furcal and Abreu (or Giles) are probably mutually exclusive as well. One big contract, not two.... Brown was healthy enough to pitch 73 innings with an ERA of 6.50 last season. I wouldn't count on him being better than williams or Rusch. If really healthy he might be. But lots of veterans pitch without being fully healthy. The situation where a guy doesn't admit enough bad health to be disabled, but at the same time is too messed up to actually pitch well, happens all the time. And certainly with all his grizzle, Dusty couldn't ever consider replacing Brown with Hill or Guzman or Nolasco unless his arm was almost falling off.

Heh. -Mark Sweeney is 36, and never hit more than 3 HR's in any season before 2004. Sweeney and Mabry aren't exactly what I'd refer to as "big bats". But interesting if that is the class of reserve outfielder that Hendry is looking at, and that Murton will need to beat out for playing time. -Furcal numbers are always how you look at them. I'd think the area of 4/38 is not that unrealistic. From the club side, guaranteed. I'd think the $50/5 that agent talks could be also accurate... if the guy hits incentives and a 5th year option kicks in. -Bradley, interesting. As noted, probably at best a backup contingency plan in case Pierre doesn't happen. As noted, probably a reminder that even as unlikely as Milton might be, that Corey or Hairston starting in Center is even less in Hendry's plan. The prospect of adding both Pierre and Bradley, with Bradley playing right, would fit the emphasis on defense and catching the ball (Bradley is a good outfielder). But that seems too unlikely to merit real consideration. Bradley for RF would certainly fit the budget and not cost too much in talent, though. -Kevin Brown, that's an instinctive "gimme a break" suggestion. And like Bradley, he'd be another name that seems radically contrary to Hendry's group of "quality, quality guy"s. That said, Brown might actually be kind of interesting. He's a groundball guy,which Hendry always likes. He's been on champions, so it's not like pressure crumbles him. He had a lousy 2005, but was above average in each of the previous two years. Even last year he remains strongly anti-HR and anti-walk. Saber guys might like him: To have given up 102 hits on balls-in-play last year in only 73 innings with 50 K's, that's pretty hard to do. I don't know where you get the exact numbers, but that looks to me like he allowed a BABIP of over .370 last season! While Howry's is impossible-to-sustain good, Brown's is impossible-to-sustain bad. If he came backk with the same K/BB/HR rate, but got the BABIP back to normal, you might possibly be right back to having a servicable pitcher. Not that I want him, by any means. I'd forget about getting rotation pitchers, unless they are obviously good or else are non-roster non-guaranteed guys.

I think he may be gone. But I think it's also entirely possible that Macias will be back. Mabry and Macias have limited relevance. Mabry is primarily a corner guy, OF/1B with a little 3B (but not much and not very good there). Macias is primarily an infielder. More than twice as many games in infield last year as outfield, despite all the OF problems the Cubs had. Macias has been most extensviely used at 3B, with Cubs and in career; and unless Mabry was viewed as a 3B first (which I doubt), it Macias could fill a role. As a reserve infielder who can play some outfield, he'd also have some depth value. As you know, the Cubs don't have much stock in OF. Most likely they'll open with 5 outfielders, with Felix Pie being the only other outfielder on the 40-man roster. What happens if one of the 5 outfielders gets disabled? (And how likely is it that you go a year with none of your main five outfielders having a DL stint?) Having an infielder like Macias who can play outfield, any of the spots, could make it a lot easier. Especially when an outfielder is hurt a little, but not enough to cost him full 15-day DL. So during the five days he needs to sit and otherwise you're outfield short, well you've got Macias! So to some degree I think Macias and Mabry are unrelated. You can get Mabry as your corner OF guy, but that doesn't mean Macias can't stay as your 2nd infield sub. As interesting as Macias is the question of Hairston. Like Macias, he's an IF/OF guy. I like him better; but his salary will be >$2, whereas Macias will be $1 or so (if that). I like Hairston better as a player, both as an outfielder and as a 2B. Unfortunately he can't play 3B the way Macias can. Plus Hairston might have some trade value. Some team like Minnesota might be able to take him seriously as a 2B contender. So I'm totally befuddled about what Hendry might do. Neifi is one infield reserve, well capable of handling both 2B and SS. There will certainly be a second infield reserve. Walker? Not likely, and he can't play 3rd. Hairston? Perhaps, but salary issue, and he can't play 3rd. Walker start with Cedeno on bench? He could play 3rd, probably, but hasn't hardly ever. So unless they want to commit to Neifi as the replacement for the oft-injured Aramis, I think Macias perhaps has the inside track, even if they did sign Mabry or some other LF/RF/1B type. Then there is the question of the 2nd OF reserve. (Assuming they end up getting Pierre, for example...) Hairston stay as the CF utility guy? Maybe. Corey? Somebody from outside? (Joey Gathright or somebody...?) Who knows. Hendry might not know either, unless he's done a lot of scouting around and is confident that he can productively trade each of Corey and Hairston and Walker.

It's November, and Hendry still has $20 or more to spend. He's not done with the offense, so I don't see that the fuss about working on the bullpen is ignoring the offense. Last year Corey, Dubois, Hollandsworth, Lawton, Macias, and Nomar combined for 1576 AB, and walked (23+7+18+4+6+12=) 70 times. I may be wrong, but I don't expect any of those six guys to be back. Seems to me that you get on base by hitting very well, and by walking. You thought that the Cubs hit very well. Seems to me that if they can hit as well, it's inevitable that they will walk more too, just by replacing those 6 guys. Reducing Neifi from a 572AB/18walk guy to a utility player will also help. Obviously replacing Walker with hacker Cedeno will not help the walk output. And ousting Burnitz, who walked quite a bit, could also be a wash or could result in a decline. But it looks to me as if the offense will almost certainly walk more next year than this past, possibly by quite a substantial degree depending on who ends up in right and whether or not Walker gets traded and replaced by cedeno/Neifi. If they can do the changes without hurting the actual hitting, the OBP will rise. If they can both hit better while at the same time walking more, all the better. And that too seems possible. Dubois/Lawton/Hollandsworth were pretty sad. Murton and Mabry (or whomever) may not be Manny Ramirez or Brian Giles, but they could be a big upgrade. Juan Pierre may not be Jim Edmonds, but he'll hit for much higher average than Corey/Hairston did, plus have the better OBP and add some value with the stolen bases. We may not end up with the Giles-type upgrade we want in right, but it won't be that hard to at least equal the .258 BA/.755 OPS that Burnitz produced. And even within the Mench/Kearns/Wilkerson/Huff type of younger guys who may be essentially younger versions of Burnitz, they aren't likely to produce much worse and each has a chance to produce quite a bit more than Burnitz did. Even Jacque Jones is likely to at worst hold even and perhaps add some relative to Burnitz. Furcal at SS should produce considerably more than Neifi. So it seems to me that Hendry doesn't need to be Houdini or pull a bunch of blockbuster Giles-esque signings in order to upgrade the offense, including the walks and also the average, both of which should result in improved OBP. Seems the only spot where there should be an offensive talent downgrade should be 2B, assuming Cedeno replaces Walker. I think it's pretty reasonable to expect that the offense will be much improved even in the absence of adding Giles.

Keeper, what have the studies shown about OPSBIP versus BABIP? We know that BABIP is tightly bunched given a decent sample size. But do groundball pitchers tend to allow more singles and fewer doubles than flyball pitchers? Just wondering. K's are important, but as you noted they don't come in a vacuum. HR's-allowed and BB's are also key variables, as you noted. Howry has been great for his walks the last two years, and this past his HR's-allowed were excellent. I don't think those three variables are independent. A nibbling approach, trying to make unhittable pitch is good for raising K's (good), but also correlates an increased number of walks allowed (bad). Keeping the ball down may be good for limiting HR's and walks, but throwing high 4-seamers may be good for K'ing people... but also may raise the HR-allowed. Throwing a lot of curveballs is good for K's... but may raise the walks (hard to control all the curves) and may also raise the HR's (some curveballs willl be hangers). A heavy diet of sinking fastballs and sliders (that aren't necessarily sharp untouchable sliders) may be poor for K's, but may be excellent for limiting walks and HR's allowed. I'm not suggesting this is true for you, Keeper. But I think sometimes saber fans realize how important K's are, and get too preoccupied with the K's. If the K's are compromised by too many HR's (Dotel and Prior, for example), the guy may not be as good as you'd expect. If the K's are compromised by too many walks (classic Wood?), the guy may not be quite as great as you'd expect. Howry's walks have been so low that is he can sustain that, he doesn't need high K's to remain effective. His BABIP last year was flukishly low, but even with normal rate he'd still be pretty good... as long as his walks stayed so low. I'm actually more concerned that his HR-allowed were so uncharacteristically low. (Same goes for Eyre and Dempster. All three of those cats have histories as HR-pitchers, but all three last year were strongly anti-HR. Will that repeat? Maybe yes, but maybe no...) If his BABIP and HR-allowed return to normal, Howry should still be a solid guy. But he may not be a sub-3 ERA guy.

I'm pretty confident that Hendry will spend $20+ on position players. I don't expect him to sign Giles, and I expect that he will prioritize speed/defense more than some posters would like. So there may well be fault-finding with the scouting valuations of different players. But I don't think you'll end up being disgusted that he didn't spend even $20 of his $30+ millions on position players.

The Cubs didn't hit very well last year, or pitch very well last year. I agree with goony that offense has been a more persistent problem than overall pitching. But I think that relief *has* been a persistent problem. I don't know how much cash Hendry has to work with, $30 or $35 or whatever. I don't have a problem that Hendry isn't going to spend it all on players. I would have a problem if he spent it all on pitchers, but that's far from the case. It may well be that the $10.5 toward Howry/Eyre/Rusch (if Howry proves more than rumor) may perhaps be all the cash expended on pitching. If the $7.5-8 spent on Eyre/Howry does largely solve the persistent bullpen problem, I think it's money well spent. (Obviously the bigger question is whether they'll actually be good or not. But if you believe that they will be, it's not faulty strategy to spend for that area.) If $21+ now gets spend on Furcal, Pierre, whoever gets acquired for RF, and for some other outfield depth, I don't see why it should be said that offense is being ignored! Seems like spending $2 on players for $1 spent on pitching this winter is a reasonable distribution. Whether the guys acquired for the dollars spent will be the right ones, that's a scouting opinion and time will tell.

Reyes is a good fielder. The Cubs like good-defense catchers. Surprising, given how offense-less he is. But not that astonishing that a big-league defensive catcher who could hit even .257 at age 21 in AA might be viewed as a future major leaguer. Sing has already been exposed. Nobody will draft him Rule 5 when they could have signed him as a FA, for the 40-man, without the 25-man obligation. He's safe. Ditto for Fontenot and Rohlicek. having already cleared waviers for 40-man, nobody will consider them for 25-man and Rule 5. Analogy applies to Greenberg. On waivers somebody can claim him for 40-man. If nobody claims him for 40-man now, certainly nobody will draft him for 25-man in Rule 5. So if he clears, don't worry about Rule 5. We'll see if he clears. What's interesting to me is that the 40-man is already stuffed now. Usually they keep some free spaces for signing free agents. The decision to stuff the roster means they figure to be losing guys as soon as they gain guys. That spells trades to me. Obviously there is still Aardsma to deroster. But it looks to me that for every free agent that they sign, they figure to be involved in at that many trades in which they give up more quantity of 40-man guys than they receive. If you deal Mitre and Nolasco for Pierre, that clears an extra spot for FA Furcal. Etc..

As CP20 said, I was referring to his fielding-independent ERA, not traditional ERA. (Which is a somewhat more palatable 4.45.) Eyre has put up some respectable (though never stellar) ERA totals in recent years, but his K/BB ratio and HR allowed rate have never been better than average. (And were usually pretty bad.) These numbers are better predictors of future performance than traditional ERA for the reasons CPatt mentioned, leading to my wariness in Eyre. Good points. Over last three years (the best of his career), Eyre's WHIP is 1.29 and 15HR/175 innings. Entirely mediocre. The ERA's look deceptively good because of coming in with one or two outs in many occassions, I presume. Sounds like a mediocre, slightly below-average pitcher during his zenith years. With money, pressure, and age, likely be less than average over next three years. I would guess less than likely to be as good as Ohman.

Keeper's complaint is that Eyre has a career 5 ERA, so Banana you want to get Affeld instead, who's been 5's last two seasons? If you can trade Pigs or Aardsma or Coats or vasquez for Aafeldt, by all means I'd like that. But I don't think you can get a decent young lefty arm for these guys that aren't good enough to crack our 40-man. Guys who aren't 40-man worthy aren't too hot, IMO. I don't think it's that easy. On Eyre, Keeper suggested he's had one effective year, and that it was probably fluke lucky. Perhaps so. However, if you look in Baseball Reference, his *ERA+'s for the past 5 seasons have been 157, 108, 129, 98, and 138. May not be that much of a reach to think he might be above average again?

With New York having signed Matsui, I think it remains questionable how committed they will actually be to signing Giles and using Giles or Matsui in center. Perhaps that is what they'll want to do, I'm not saying it isn't. But the Yankees naturally get rumored with every big ticket player in baseball. It may well be that when it comes to cases, the Yankees will *not* prioritize Giles. And he's not the kind of familiar, high-profile AL star that gets Steinbrenner all jazzed, either. I think it's entirely possible that the Yankees will *not* drive Giles price through the roof. That SanD will *not* be able to make a competitive offer. If both of those hypotheticals proved true, and SanD and Yankees were out of the game, I don't see that the competition would look nearly so scary. That said, I don't think Hendry is likely to be serious about Giles. Giles is an aging skills player who walks. Hendry likes young aggressive dancers. I don't see Hendry being as interested in giles as will be most GM's, so if he doesn't like the guy as much it seems unlikely that he'll outbid GM's who like Giles better than he does.

I understand and sympathize with your point. But just to play devil's advocate, I've seen enough Cub teams with lousy relief to appreciate what it would mean to get consistently quality relief. There is good reason to feel Eyre would be an unsafe sign. There's a chance he'll be solid, and a chance he'll go remlinger/Hawkins. But that's also true with other candidates. Would you prefer to give Andy Pratt a whirl? Or perhaps Cliff Bartosh? Mark Guthrie? The pool of sure-success LH relievers that are available is zero in size. Every lefty reliever that could be had will have some risk. Eyre's risk may be pretty high. Bug given the pool, it may be that the alternatives have even higher risk. Hendry may be justified in taking a gamble on the least-risky bet out there. Doesn't make it safe by any means. But there are even riskier ways to go than Eyre. We all know that wanting to help the pen and throwing money at it is no guarantee that the resulting pen will actually work out. And Hendry has done enough Alf/Hawkins/Remlingers so that doubts about his relief pickups are well justified. But I'm not sure that means you should give up trying, and just settle for Bartosh cheapos. I'm pretty interested in trying to have a solid, deep bullpen. Haven't seen that since 2001. When the pen is short on quality guys, Dusty will keep going back to the hot hands. Sometimes in the process the guys who were competent get fried and then you don't have any competent guys left after a while. Having a depth of competence in the pen could help a ton, and could also do a lot to keep the competent guys from getting burned out. Will Eyre be competent? I'm not sure about that. But if he is, it could be money well spent.

On injuries: Hendry is clearly attempting to improve the club. His strategy may be moronic or whatever, or not, time will tell. But he's obviously attempting in his own way to improve the team. Whether his strategy is stupid or smart is another question, as is whether he'll have the player assessment smarts to get good value players in the guys he does pick up. But while it's true that all teams have injuries, I think it's also only being honest to recognize that the Cubs have been hit very hard, harder than most, by injuries in the last two seasons. The number of teams who win the World Series despite that level of injury is limited, I think. Also, I think some of the injury risks are unchangeable. Can you say, "Well, Prior and Wood are risky, lets just replace them with comparable guys who are risk-free"? The only big-time pitcher I see is Burnitz, and he's as injury-risky as Prior and Wood. To the degree that the would-be stars in the rotation are injury-risky, I don't see Hendry having any power to change that. If Z-Wood-Prior all have surgery in April, I don't think there's much of anything Hendry can do within his $100 budget to built a WS winner anyway. The success of the rotation is pivotal to the outcome of the upcoming season. The big-three are injury risky. That's just reality. I don't think Hendry or Beane or any genius in baseball history would be able to change that reality.

And he's spent it like a freaking moron. When guys like Tejada and Vladdy are out there, he's giving raises to Alfonseca, Macias and Neifi. Before he even gets a chance to spend on the impact players, he spends significant chunks on replacables like Rusch. He cuts corners repeatedly. I'm not saying he doesn't eventually spend the money. I'm saying he spends it on mediocrity, and that is exactly why this team has been barely above average under his control. "He cuts corners repeatedly", you say, and to me that implies not spending enough. That complaint lacks merit. The argument that "he's spent it like a freaking moron" and "I'm saying he spends it on mediocrity, and that is exactly why this team has been barely above average under his control", that's a different argument.

At least it shows Neifi starting is not plan 'B'. How about a lineup with AGony II starting at SS and Neifi at 2B? With Cedeno on reserve? They could catch the ball, that's for sure. That would get the board jazzed I'm sure!

I don't see Hendry "cutting corners". He's had a growing budget, and he's spent the money he's received. The issue isn't "cutting corners". He's going to spend the $30 million, if indeed he has that much (or more) available. The question is whether he's spending the money he has available rightly. MacPhail, Lynch, and Hendry have always taken a spread-it-around philosophy. I'd have liked to see $30+ focused on Giles, Furcal, and Burnett. And improvise beyond that. Hendry is more likely to spread it around: $3 Rusch + $2.5 Neifi + $9.5 Furcal + $6 Pierre + $3 Howry (or MacDougal or Heilman or whomever they can get in trade for Walker plus a prospect), + $3 Eyre + $3-6 on some mid-priced RF (Wilkerson or Jacque Jones or Mench or Kearns or maybe even Nomar or Burnitz or some other RF to be determined later...) + $2-8 on some mid-priced rotation pitcher (Aaron heilman or Vasquez or Adam Eaton or Kip Wells or Washburn or Doug Byrd or Esteban Loiza or Jason Jennings or Derek Lowe or Kyle Lohse or some rotation pitcher to be discovered later...) With those numbers, if both the RF and the rotation pitcher are each $5 guys ($5 is below the average salary for a starter on a $100+ payroll team...), those numbers would sum up to $37 million! Perhaps some of those pickups would involve some odds-and-ends salary going away; maybe Walker's $2.5 is going out in exchange for riske or MacDougal or Heilman or whichever pitcher they deal him for. Maybe Jerome Williams at $1.5 or whatever will be involved in a package for the RF or Pierre. Maybe Corey's $2.5 is outgoing in one of the deals. Seems to me that if you subtract Corey and Walker's salaries, and add that spread-it-around list (beyond Neifi and Rusch add one rotation starter, one RF, one CF, one Furcal, one LH reliever, one RH reliever), you end up right in the salary ballpark that Hendry's budget calls for. Is spreading it around like that idiotic? That's a matter of opinion. But I think there is considerable reason to think that can be an effective, valid, justifiable approach to going after the next season. In Lee, Aram, Barrett, you have three players capable of being well above league average offensively. Well above. In Z, Prior, and Wood, you have three pitchers who still have a chance to be well above average in terms of pitching. You may not have all six of those guys healthy and producing at an exceptional level. But if you can get things such that you are getting average or better production throughout the rest of the roster, I think being a Lee, Aram, healthy Prior, healthy Wood, and healthy Z above average could make you a WS winner. In past, we've often been above average at some spots (Lee and Aram this year, in past Sandberg and Dawson and sometimes Grace, for example...), but so far below average at other spots that the below-average spots offset the gain of the above average spots. (Last year closer was killer bad early; LF most of year; CF most of year; Koronka-era rotation for a while...) I don't think it's an idiotic notion to try to spread it around and improve all the liability spots into average-or-above-average situations. I don't think I'd have gone that way myself, I'd key in on the fewer impact players. But I'm not sure Hendry is a dope to be choosing this path. Given the potentially inflated prices that Burnett and giles may get (and the depretiation potential both have, Burnett with his injuries and Giles with his age...), Hendry's course may be the right one. Of course, that will require that the guys he's getting really do prove to be at least average and in some cases above average. If Furcal and Pierre and Murton hit .265, if you go for Kearns and he hits .228, if Rusch goes 4.9 and Cedeno .243 and you spend $6 on Eyre/Howry and they both go 4.6, it's going to be failure city.

Even though he pretty much has failed every year, every winter Hendry says he's going to address the bullpen, and spends some money on it. I expect this winter will be the same thing. Hopefully the outcome will be better, and the money he throws will be useful, unlike Hawkins and Remlinger. It's true that Howry would be no sure thing, and that relievers tend to be somewhat unpredictable. That said, the likelihood of hitting on a reliever who's been good recently is probably better than gambling on an unpredictable relieveer who's been lousy lately! In Howry's case, he's actually been fairly solid for most of his career, albeit too few K's to be great. His lesser years all revolved around the arm problem, which eventually led to surgery. He's 32 now, and seems to be healthy. I'm interested.

I predict two out of the pool of Mitre, Wellemeyer, Nolasco, Pinto, Marshall, Ryu, and Marmol, if the rumor proves true. I wouldn't assume that Pie and Pierre are one or the other, or that having Pierre would block Pie. As was mentioned, if Pierre were to perform very well for the Cubs, Hendry might be intereted in resigning him and bringing Pie in as a corner outfielder, to give the outfield incredible speed/defense. (If the infield had Furcal, Cedeno, and Lee, the infield could have incredible defense too...). I know we all want a big producer in RF, but it doesn't appear that Hendry is on the same page with that. The notion of getting Pierre, than letting him go and replacing him with Pie is quite possible. Especially if Pierre doesn't play very well! But given Pie's low walk/high K rate, I'm not sure he really profiles well at leadoff, especially as a rookie. If Hendry were to acquire both Pierre and Furcal, then even if Pie replaced Pierre in 07 he wouldn't have to bat leadoff, and might be quite nice hitting 2nd or 7th. (By 07, perhaps either Cedeno or Murton or even Barrett could be well qualified to hit 2nd.) I get the impression that Hendry is way to infatuated with Pierre to necessarily envision him only as a roster-fill rental till Pie. I also really believe he's not committed to pie in center. There was considerable talk this summer about going after Mark Kotsay for CF. Given the expected cost, that would not likely have been for a short rental. So I think Hendry thinks Pie has enough pop to profile as a corner. Whether that happens, or whether that's a waste, I don't know.

Also, if you decide to carry Corey at $2.5 as a backup CF, that kind of follows the same them as paying Neifi $2.5 as a backup middle infielder and paying Rusch $3 as a #7 starter. There may be some merit in building a roster with backup options like that. But it isn't going to construction plan that leaves room to sign guys like Giles. You can't have a roster crawling with $1.5-3.0 million dollar backups like Blanco, Hairston, Walker, Neifi, Corey and Rusch, plus sign guys like Giles besides.

I just think that if Hendry still thinks he can offer Patterson and get genuinely valuable players with good value-per-salary in return, that's silly. As silly as going into last winter thinking he could move Sammy and all of his contract and get a valuable player in return. You can wish for that kind of thing all you like. But it isn't going to happen. Sooner or later you need to get more realistic. Or else you're going to have to face the nontender date and decide whether you want to count on Corey at $2.5 as a serious candidate to be your center fielder; or nontender Corey rather than pay him $2.5 to be a backup; or take whatever you can get, if anything, for him. Which is going to be a lot less than values like Wilkerson, Mench, or even Pierre. Trying to dream up deals for useful value-per-contract targets in which Corey is the principle bait just isn't going to work.

Offering Patterson for Wilkerson, that's like a big-time duh so-what offer. He can offer Patterson or Mitre for Dontrelle or Mensch or Wilkerson or Pierre. He can offer, but that doesn't mean the other teams won't say "No" so fast your head would spin, and walk away shaking their heads laughing at the outrageousness of an offer like that. That's as silly as Marlins asking for Pie for Pierre, or Dodgers thinking they can get Pie for Bradley. Or as silly as thinking you could trade Sammy and all his money for Wilkerson last winter. Some rumors are too silly to take seriously. Wilkerson for Patterson is one of them. Cubs will need to offer a whole lot more than Corey if they want to get guys like Wilkerson or Mensch in return.

That would be good I haven't been a big Pierre fan. I've been pretty interested in picking him up as a salary dump, while paying little. If Cubs also acquire Furcal, and trade for Pierre and he bats second, he might lose all his SB value; how often will he try to steal in front of Lee and Aram? When there was talk of Pierre for Corey, I was enthused about that, because Corey at $2.5 is way expensive for a guy who isn't going to start. He's an expendable guy, so if Corey is a central piece, add in a Mitre and you've maybe got a deal, awesome. But with "young arms" plural, it depends on the arms. Now we aren't just talking about unloading Corey's lousy contract. Thinking it's going to be Wellemeyer/Novoa types, guys we don't want anyway, is wishful thinking. Nolasco and Marshall, that's a different equation. Nolasco and Hill, that's a different equation. I see Corey, Mitre, Wellemeyer, and Novoa as guys who are expendable. Corey's salary is too high and he's pretty worthless if you've acquired an every-day CF. Mitre and Wellemeyer are out of options, and don't seem qualified to make the team, so they'll need to be exposed to waivers come March. Even if they do make the team, they seem unlikely to be productive players. So giving up guys like that, great; that's sacrificing nothing, really. But if it's two out of the Hill, Nolasco, Marshall, Guzman, Mateo pool, that's a different and much more serious cost.

1. I don't either expect or want Rusch to be intended in the rotation. If one or two of the front five get hurt for a while, he's OK as a backup. I think you want to pick up another guy, specifically so that Rusch can be used as a swing/backup, but not an intended even-if-everybody-else-is-healthy starter. 2. If the need arose, no I would *not* want to be using Pinto or Nolasco or Ryu in the Cub rotation. They have yet to show they can handle AAA; it's premature to assume they're ready to start for a big-league playoff team. Their opportunity will come in time, but planning on them as your pitcher-insurance right now isn't right. That's what Hendry signed Rusch for, to be the insurance reserve. If not traded Williams could serve that same role. With their $100+ payroll Hendry has enough dough to pay some key insurance guys $2.5-3. That's why he signed Neifi, that's why he signed Rusch. But neither of those guys are intended to start. They need a starting pitcher in front of Rusch, just like they need a starting middle infielder in front of Neifi.

kessinger, the notion that a pinch hitter is more important that solidifying the rotation seems kind of silly to me. Let's see, which would I rather compromise on? For example, I have the choice on either tolerating Jose Macias as a primary pinch hitter, or John Koronka getting 15 starts. Which is more important, replacing Koronka or Macias? Seems a no-brainer to me. I don't strongly disagree with the emphasis of your post. However, I just don't think Hendry is that interested in Giles, and after Giles it's going to be hard to find a worthwhile LH middle-of-the-order RFer. Assuming you're not going to have great success in your priority #2, that will leave more monetary resources left for rotation. Second, assuming you don't sign Giles, it almost follows that Hendry will likely trade for RF. Seems to me that to whatever degree Hendry trades to strengthen the team, that will probably weaken the pool of available young pitchers and thin out the pitching depth in the system. Which could *increase* the priority on acquiring another starting pitcher. If you don't add any starters, can you afford to trade Hill and Mitre and Nolasco? But if you do pick up another starting pitcher, perhaps that enable you do deal Mitre in a PIerre pickup, or include Hill in a trade for Dunn or somebody for RF. In other words, acquiring a promising but somewhat established youngish starter might not only benefit the rotation imediately, but it also might facilitate the acquisition of an outfielder who can hit.

I think the Cubs will add another starting pitcher. The question is whether he'll be excellent, another average guy, or a liability. Who, how, how good, and for how much? The only guys I'm keen on as "excellent" are Burnett and Milwood, and they'll cost. Unlikely Hendry will offer the years it will take to get Burnett. So, outside of Burnett, he'll likely get a guy who either is kinda average or who maybe projects to perhaps be better but no safe bet. If you get Jennings from Rockies, or Kip Wells from Pirates, or somebody like that, they mght turn out to be pretty solid. But they might also turn out to me no better, if as good, as williams or Guzman or Rusch. But if you've just traded for them, and they have a substantial contract, they'll start whether they excel or not. Is relying on Z/Prior/Wood risky? Absolutely. Unfortunately short of obtaining Burnett, the cubs are basically going to have to play that risk and just hope for the best. Not like there are a couple of Zambrano's available at prices Cubs can afford. But I see Hendry acquiring one rotation pitcher. Whether that be a FA veteran in the Washburn/Byrd type class, or a somewhat younger guy he acquires in trade, in the Wells/Jennings sort of class or somebody something like Matt Clement was when we got him. Somebody without a consistent record of excellence, but somebody with enough talent so that if he did improve some, he could pitch at <4 ERA. I think that could work out well. That could put Williams and Rusch as 6th/7th starter types, available for injury replacement. I see Williams perhaps being a pretty effective reliever if he's not needed for rotation. I see Mitre going in the eventual Pierre trade. I'd shop Hill if I need to, for the outfield help or in the trade for the solid youngish pitcher who'd be given the rotation spot. I'd prefer to keep Hill. I'd like to see Hill and Guzman spending the year proving and refining themselves, such that whichever looks better will be a convincing successor for Maddux in 2007. Hopefully the guy who doesn't succeed Maddux would still provide good depth insurance for 2007, along with Rusch and Williams (if not traded first) and Nolasco etc..