KingCubsFan

Why would you want to move our best player out of position? In our scheme, Briggs' OLB position is a much better spot to make plays at anyways.

Might as well kick the tires on Pujols or Hanley Ramirez while we're at it

Do people really believe the Tribune poured money into the Cubs from other businesses? This post makes no sense Edit: Unless you're worried about some sort of debt constraints from the deal

He was healthy enough to pitch nine times in 23 team games. He didn't pitch on a particularly consistent basis in the final month and he regularly got 5-7 days off in between outings. It was likely the injury that kept him from being reliable enough to close. Also, he'll be 32 midway through next season and each year he takes a one-year deal, he'll be far less likely to get any type of a multi-year deal. His overall numbers will be solid by the end of the year - especially if he pitches through September the way he has most of this year. He's more likely to get a multi-year deal after this season than after he's aged another year and that's likely to factor into his decision as well. You say he'll get signed because he's a "proven closer" and then say he should get a multiyear deal in part because his overall numbers will be solid. the numbers don't really matter at this point. His status has a "proven closer" has been forever tarnished. I don't care if he puts up an ERA of 0.00 for the rest of the season, he's now been removed as a closer twice. This year, he was removed as the Cubs went into a tailspin that most likely sunk their season. No GM dumb enough to sign Gregg to a multiyear deal in the first place will make him a closer after what he's done this year. They'll look at blown saves and his closer status and go in another direction.

Id defintiely offer Grabow and Harden arb. Gregg, not so much. Why not offer to Gregg? He's more likely to get a multi-year deal and, thus, is also less likely to accept arbitration. He's also better than Grabow, so if he accepts arbitration the money would be better spent on Gregg than Grabow. I would offer to all three of them, for what it's worth. I would prefer to bring back only Harden, however. And Harden only if he came on a 1-2 year, incentive laden deal. If Gregg accepts arbitration, he's set to make a lot more than Grabow. Paying Gregg anything more than half a million to be a middle reliever/mop-up guy would be a complete waste.

The only similarity between the two is that they both like numbers. Epstein showed from the beginning he was a good GM. Depodesta, not so much.

Would anyone care (assuming they had no trade value)? I'm confident a back end of Stevens, Gaub and Parker (most underrated player in the system IMO) would be better than anything our Major League team throws out there. Throw in Perkins, Berg, and some free agents.

The days of him winning a Cy Young gut Dustied a while back. At this point, I just hope he is capable of being a high 3's, 180-200 IP guy for the remainder of his contract.

If he's reaching his career high we should just shut him down in September. No sense risking injury for this bunch of failures.

BA seemed high on him as a second day guy during the draft. I'm curious to see if he has a future or is just roster filler. If you believe this poster at an Alabama message board, May got quite a bit of coin and will be converting to catcher: Do other organizations convert people to catcher as much as we do?

Logan White and Kim Ng say hello. Logan White is the best GM prospect and if they were to replace Hendry, he would be the only one on my list. Hendry was once a top notch farm director too. It's questionable how well the two skills translate.

Talk about a tale of two seasons for Guyer. It will be interesting to see how he does in AA the second time around. Was he injured earlier this year?

yeah he is hot for sure. i just wish he had more power to go with the singles. those walks are going to evaporate at higher levels if he doesn't develop some pop. hak ju lee finished the game 3-5, a home run short of the cycle. for a skinny guy who's only 18 he seems to have a little bit of extra base power (probably just slashing the ball down the line or in the gap and using his great speed. he's performing very well for a foreign teenager making his debut at advanced short season ball. It's nice to see someone with an approach like Watkins. When was the last time we had a legit hitting prospect walking more than he was striking out? Watkins is a superior athlete and was supposed to play football, so I have hope the power will come.

IL on July 28th and 29th. :banghead: Sadly, Bankruptcy law is not on the exam. I actually did pretty well in that class. I'm in the same boat

The Padres drafted him knowing he was very raw and drafte him pretty much solely on his power potential. So it's not really that much of a surprise it took him a while to figure it out, but most teams don't have patience even when they say they do. It's like when an NBA team drafts some raw, athletic player who will take time to develop. They promptly let him ride the bench for 2.5-3 years to ride the bench/struggle and then cut ties.

Under bankruptcy law, those contracts could technically be avoided and therefore those players could become free agents. However, avoiding the contract does not mean the contract is no longer in existence. The contract still exists. Avoiding it means you breach it. If the Cubs were to dump, say, Soriano, Soriano would have a breach of contract claim against the Cubs' bankruptcy estate, meaning he could get all of the money owed to him along with any other penalties that would come along with breaching his contract. The bankruptcy estate would have to pay that sucker off. Plus, as has already been mentioned, it would cause numerous headaches with the Players' Union, agents, etc. This post reeks of someone studying for the bar exam. You forgot that Soriano and Bradley must mitigate the damages as well. In reality, it seems like the Cubs could do this, but the Players Union would most likely go on strike against the Cubs, and every player would have to sit out. Selectively breaching some employment and not others seems like something a union wouldn't go for.

Stevens is already on the 40-man roster and has used an option for this year. Parker is not. That could be a factor in the decision.Makes sense. I didn't realize Stevens was on the 40 man already

2004 says "hi" So far this seems to be shaping up to be signifcantly worse than 2004. Did I miss where we traded for Latroy Hawkins?

If we're calling up a reliever it should be Blake Parker

Player A is one of your top prospects, expected to be a starter down the line and is pitching horribly out of the bullpen while having success as a starter. Player B is also a prospect, but has excelled both as a starter and reliever and most likely projects as a reliever long-term. Naturally, the Cubs go with Player B.

All those moves sound good to me. It would also be awesome if we could find away to sneak Aaron Miles into a deal for a bullpen arm. Maybe other teams don't realize he's Aaron Miles... Hendry has to man up and cut his losses with Miles. He shouldn't have been signed in the first place. He can barely play SS so what kind of bench option is he really? I'd rather have Blanco on the team. It's so frustrating seeing Miles have so many at bats this season. Cutting Miles at this point wouldn't give us any real benefit. Cutting him just to "admit a mistake" or to "man up" isn't a good way of doing things. The contract shouldn't have been handed out, but Miles provides depth and is as good or better than any backup infield option we have (save, maybe, for Jeff Baker). He's been incredibly unlucky this year and still is just slightly worse than Blanco offensively. If Miles can get any sort of luck he'll be better than Blanco on offense. If we can trade him, fine, but cutting him isn't going to recover the $4.9 million he's under contract for and will only give us less depth. I can't think of any option that is worse than Miles. He's not good offensively or defensively. At least the other options have at least one strength.

They were both highly regarded prospects. Even people like Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster were highly regarded. Very rarely does someone with Wells's pedigree actually turn out to be a long-term solution at any valuable position on a contending team. People on this board complain about Hendry selling low on players consistently, but then when it actually appears like he sells high (DeRosa and Wells), people flip out.

The funny part is that Hendry's best attribute is arguably his ability to draft/run a farm system. If he was removed as GM, I'd let him replace Tim Wilken in a heartbeat.

One of the reasons is that Bradley has been hurt, and Hendry needs to be held accountable for that due to Bradley's track record

i thought fontenot would be fine, and i still thought it was a stupid move. fontenot doesn't hit lefties, so even if you used a strict platoon, derosa would start about a quarter of the time. you're also going to a 2B who doesn't hit well again power RHP, so derosa could start again them. then you have an aging roster with a 3B, LF and RF who are good bets to miss at least some time due to injury. a proven bat who can fill in capably at all those positions becomes invaluable. and in case fontenot can't be an everyday player, derosa gives you insurance there. instead they trade him for three marginal prospects and sign aaron miles, saving the relatively small sum of $3M to bring in a guy who cannot hit. great move. And waste millions on Gregg and Heilman as well. Was this offseason worse than than 2005-2006? It's hard to be wrong on every move you make in an offseason, but Hendry managed to do it.