davell

Good lord, if we've got an OF of Crisp/Byrd/DeJesus, we will have no power whatsoever, since Barney is probably at 2B.

I'm happy the Clippers appear to be headed for the playoffs. That's a solid team right now and it's certainly possible they can trade Mo or Bledsoe for an upgrade somewhere.

We can take a flyer on one in rounds 4 thru 7, I guess. But I want Desean Jackson, Dwayne Bowe, or Vincent Jackson. And while we're at it, Fred Davis at TE as well. Sign a solid Offensive Lineman, draft DE, CB, S, and OL with your 4 picks inside the 1st 3 rounds.

Is that from a Tweet or from you?

I've always thought it'd be easy to turn the Golden Arches into the Golden Arcs. And regular buns just make sense.

Funniest Tweet I've seen said Tebow came out of nowhere and won Darvish in OT.

?? link or anything? He was kidding around, poking fun at small market teams.

Goldstein or someone from BP said they hoped Tampa wins and admits they saw this on the horison for a decade and had saved all their money for it.

Olney drops the ultimate bombshell that the Yankees DID put in a bid.

I want nothing to do with drafting a WR. Especially anything outside the 1st round. We've neglected this for way too long and having a franchise QB like Cutler, it's doing him a disservice by not giving him true weapons to work with. I think adding a veteran starter who's very solid on the Offensive Line is a must as well. If this team gave Cutler something to work with, we could have a top 10ish offense. And the D is good enough to where that would make for an excellent squad. And we could draft defensively, to get some youth ready to go when it's apparent Tillman, Urlacher and maybe even Peppers or Briggs start to show their age more than just a little.

Nothing from him.

This just means Theo put in a posting bid to the Red Sox for Wakefield and Varitek, obviously.

My guess is Toronto with a 68.4 mill bid.

I think it's an either/or situation with Prince or Darvish. That said, I've got us at 111.6 right now. That includes Wood returning at 2.5, arb guesses for everyone, and what we pay the rest of the 40 man roster as well. It also includes Pena and Silva. But, I think our major league payroll will wind up much closer to 145 than 135, since the new CBA was announced. So, by my count, we've got 35ish mill to spend, not counting any potential trades taking money off the books.

Isn't it 5 PM EST when teams have to have their bids in by? Dierkes does think we'll find out today, for what it's worth.

Bears free agents after next year? Urlacher is signed through 2012. Garza also signed an extension through 2013. Cool. Other than Forte, I think Okoye is the only guy I really have any interest in keeping then.

Which will still come back to bite us, since Prince hits a ton of home runs in BP.

When I looked up Bears free agents for nest year, here's what I got: McCown, Forte restricted, Garza, Idonije, Okoye, Urlacher, Graham, and Meriweather. We went into the year 19.4 mill under the cap too. Is Urlacher a FA? If so, I definitely think he'd be showing on the top 50 FA list I looked at to get that group of WR anyway. Even if he is though and figuring we franchise Forte, we,ve got plenty of cash available to get a top flight WR, a really solid OL and spend whatever Urlacher needs to hang around. Then draft a DE, another OL. Maybe a TE. Or sign Fred Davis, and maybe a DB.

Theo's contract had a year left on it with Boston. He would have gotten about the same money most likely that we gave him from them. Plus, it's where he's from. And it's a place that even with what happened last year, he was looked at as the second coming. I just don't see him packing up and leaving that without some assurances we would do whatever it takes to give him the same opportunity to be successful. For him to say he's been blown away by Ricketts makes me think, if anything, payroll can go UP. Not down. And that even the whole " baseball budget stays the same" quote could be a smokescreen, if just in case, Theo thinks spending more this year is necessary.

Same baseball budget as last year, plus the draft and IFA budget will basically be cut in half.

I think having a CC type opt out is going to be instrumental in getting Fielder personally. Hell, give him an opt out after year 3 and repeatedly afterwards, if need be.

I haven't seen anybody suggesting that we can't or even shouldn't spend significantly in free agency right now (though I wont presume to speak for davearm). The vocal "anti-Fielder" crowd is mostly just saying "I don't want to overpay by more than x" I wouldn't be happy with 6/150, but I think our front office is good enough to overcome the 30 mil or so they'd be overpaying by. The problem occurs when we hear people suggesting 7 or 8 years isn't likely to be a problem when -- quite frankly -- Fielder has no real chance of ever even approaching the value he'd need to. Let me pose two scenarios. Scenario 1: We sign Darvish + Fielder. Fielder get a 7 year contract. Scenario 2: We sign Darvish + Edwin Jackson. We work a trade revolving around Z + Cashner to the Marlins for Logan Morrison. We use the extra money left in the budget to sign Jorge Soler. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much difference in value between those scenarios for 2012... but scenario 2 looks so much better for us in the mid to long terms. I don't disagree with that at all. I'd certainly prefer scenario 2. That said, I don't think either is likely at all to happen. The posting fee of Darvish has to count towards payroll in some way, shape, or form. I can't see us getting him AND Prince. Nor do I think Morrison can be had from the Fish. Soler is probably the single player I want signed this offseason the most. I understand your point here, but if you're even asking who I'd prefer between Fielder or Darvish, assuming overpaying is going to happen with both, I'm still taking Prince. Supply and demand being the reason. No impact bats coming up soon within the system and none on the horizon from FA even next season. Pitching has lots of options for next year thru FA and more that are rumored to be on the market thru trade right now.

Tom Ricketts has moved up higher in my mind, than I ever thought was possible, over the last 6 months or so.

Because the Cubs can't contend for another 4 years so there's no point. See, what we'll do is not sign anybody good just to prove they can't contend. Yeah, I totally see why we would wait until Castro, Cashner, Brett, and whoever else we may get cheap, excellent production out of, to get expensive before we spend any money.

Wakefield as a 6/7/8th type of starter wouldn't bother me at all. Neither would adding Varitek, but only if we move one of Soto or Castillo before the season.