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To spell out the reward/risk for Harden, The benefits of offering Harden arbitration: 1. To get the pick (or picks if Harden is type A). Harden doesn't have a big chance of accepting IMO, so this is the most likely scenario of all of them. 2. If Harden accepts arbitration and then has a better year in terms of either innings or effectiveness to where he is worth the 10 or so million he will get. The problems with offering Harden arbitration: 1. If the budget set out does not even have 10 million available. So to re-sign Harden, the Cubs would have to cut money elsewhere, and they don't know where to do that so they don't take that risk. 2. Offseason flexibility. If the budget allows for 10-15 million but no more, then the Cubs can't add anybody until Harden makes his arbitration decision. They make the decision not to offer him now so that they can make moves before the middle of December and possibly not miss out on players that can improve the team. 3. If Harden accepts and then gets hurt like 06/07. 4. If Harden accepts and has effectiveness problems. This isn't completely far-fetched. He still doesn't have a long history of being a 2 pitch pitcher and being effective (he gave up on his other pitches due to the injuries). The increased HR rate (and not very many cheap HR's among them) is problematic. 5. Harden's money does not allow the Cubs to improve the offense, and the Cubs have more options for starting pitching then they do for offensive options. Harden may be just barely worth 10 million and yet a bad investment because be replaces the innings of a decent starting pitcher and leaves big holes on offense. 6. The Cubs know he is only effective with lots of extra rest, and they determine that it is just too hard with juggling their roster to try to force that rest over a whole season. 7. Harden's medical file is worse than we think. I think the number 1 of the benefits is the most likely option, and if he declines that will make most of the potential detriments inconsequential. Without knowing what the budget is though, it's hard to say that all the detriments are invalid, and there is still the potential that he would accept. I would offer him arbitration, but there are definitely valid reasons not to. It's a complicated decision that factors in the budget of the team, the market for Harden, his medical file, his potential pitching effectiveness, and how the rest of the roster shakes out.

There are absolutely reasons why they shouldn't offer him arbitration. I happen to think the reward is greater than the risk (because I think the risk is pretty low of him accepting), but there is definitely risk involved and potentially serious risk.

When you consider that Miles signed his 2-year, $4.9 million contract on December 31, 2008 and Orlando Hudson signed his 1-year $3.4 million contract with the Dodgers on February 20, 2009, one could argue that his awfulness hasn't been addressed anywhere near enough. Hudson was a Type A free agent which drove down his value considerably. And Hudson would have never signed with the Cubs without the team promising him the starting job. One of the reasons the Cubs traded away their starting 2B in the first place was because they felt Fontenot was ready for more at-bats. They weren't going to trade DeRosa just to sign another starting second baseman who also would have cost them their 1st round pick. The Miles contract is bad enough on its own. There's no reason to need to make a very flawed comparison with Hudson who had different costs associated with him and was signed for a very different purpose.

Their strikeout rates were the same. Lilly was much better at not walking people (although neither were bad) and Lilly allowed less hits so his WHIP was much better. His ERA reflected that (over half a point difference). Dempster did have the advantage in HR rate as is expected. The thing that really impressed me about Dempster this year is his walk rate. He had easily the lowest walk rate of his career in 2008 which helped his career year (along with his hit rate being one of the best of his career which was probably a little bit of luck). This year the hit rate regressed as expected but he actually got his BB rate under 3 which is impressive for a pitcher like him. If he keeps that walk rate there, the Cubs will definitely get more than 52 million of value from him over his 4 year deal (if he even stays 4 years as I believe he has a player option after 3).

I'd like to add that I find it almost impossible to believe that the Cubs will trade Bradley and not pay some portion of his salary (and a large portion of it). Think about it this way: If "There is literally no way Bradley is back next year" Other teams GMs must know this to be true if it is so self evident Then, why would GM take on Bradley and pay all his salary? I suppose the only way for this to happen is an exchange of bad contracts, but then that puts the Cubs in the same situation, or worse. If more than one GM feels that Bradley is worth his salary, than they aren't going to stubbornly stick to paying very little of his contract and risk losing him to another team. I think that most GM's believe that Bradley is not worth that type of contract, but I think the Cubs will only end up having to pay a decent part of the contract and not the overwhelming majority of it. Or if the Cubs do pay an overwhelming majority (say if it's the Padres with the best offer who can't take on contracts) it will mean they get pretty decent talent coming back.

I still can't believe that crap. I was getting ready to post on how dumb of a playcall that was for a 2 point conversion and for some reason, the refs don't blow the play dead when that play is ALWAYS blown dead. The refs have been letting them play for way too long today. Locker had about 10 full seconds on one of his QB sneaks to try to get into the end zone before they finally blew it dead.

Not nearly as important on a 2 point conversion.. And ND actually didn't do anything illegal there. They didn't push Hughes..they pushed the Washington tacklers who were behind Hughes and those tacklers ended up falling into Hughes and pushing him forward. That is a perfectly legal way to move the pile.

BTW, I don't agree with the overturning of the Washington TD that started that whole mess. I do agree that it was the right call in the first place (I'm pretty sure it was short) but I don't think there was enough evidence to overturn the call. However, it's impossible to know how the game would have gone after that point since Washington spent the next 4 minutes of the game clock on the goal line. So even if that overturning turned out to be wrong, it won't necessarily be the thing that springs ND to victory since they still had the time and the offense to make up that deficit.

That's the area of the field where ND really, really misses the TD machine of Floyd. His loss takes them from a good team that was going to win a lot of high scoring games to a mediocre team whose wins are going to be very ugly.

Hendry ended up trading both of them. I'm not sure that's the best comparison. I knew he had traded Neifi, but I thought we released Eyre? They DFA'd Eyre to get the roster spot for those few days, but they ended up trading him to the Phillies before they had to release him (they got Brian Schlitter in exchange). I don't think they ever planned on releasing him because they knew some team would take a chance on him.

Why is it reaching? Hendry is the paid professional. He's supposed to be able to see the upside these guys have. He's the one constantly looking for bullpen help. Why shouldn't he be criticized for letting quality arms go for crap when he's constantly bringing in others? Aardsma is a reach because the Cubs would have had to let him be terrible in the majors for at least 1 year and part of another in order to get his 1 quality season. That isn't good roster management. Two other organizations had also DFA'd him already after the Cubs. Should all 3 of those organizations be blamed for that decision? Wuertz was a really bad decision though by Hendry (although I don't think even the people who liked Wuertz best expected a year like this with such a better K/BB ratio than he ever has). The trading of Wuertz also becomes a worse decision because it was so unnecessary..he never would have been the worst arm in any bullpen that the Cubs would have built.

correct, Eyre sucked and Aardsma got let go by Kenny Williams and GMJesus before he found a home in Seattle. Maybe it has to do with the extremely flukey nature bullpens are. I wanted to keep Eyre and give Howry the boot. They released the wrong guy last year. I love that Jim could eat Eyre's contract, but wouldn't Neifi's. The guy that had some value to the team, no problem we'll send him packing. The troll that saved us, no way, not going anywhere. Hendry ended up trading both of them. I'm not sure that's the best comparison.

I don't see that devaluing Bradley any further. Hendry bluffing that he wasn't ready to deal Bradley during the offseason wasn't very likely to work anyway. The leverage the Cubs are going to have is pitting teams against each other for Bradley's services. That's where they are going to get a little more value out for him..not from the threat that they might keep him. The fact that the Cubs are 100% going to trade him rather than 80% of a couple weeks ago is going to be less significant than the fact that 5 other teams are making offers for him. None of those offers will be great (because Bradley's remaining contract was about the limit of what other teams were willing to go after his great season last year and his value has gone down since then), but the competition will drive his trade value up near what other teams perceive to be his value to their ballclub and not the value that they think they can force on a desperate team. So essentially, the fact that the Cubs have to trade Bradley hurts because they can't keep him and use his value to the ballclub. It likely won't hurt his trade value though because enough other clubs still want to take a risk on him.

his pass protection is unreal I pray to the Football Gods almost every week that I will ever root for a team with a line as good as the Colts' has been for about the last decade straight and especially the last 6 years. The Colts have not had a stellar offensive line for the last 2+ years. It's turned into an above average pass blocking line and a pretty bad run blocking line. They're bad at left tackle, decent with both guards and right tackle, and very good at center (except for last year when they were simply bad everywhere but right tackle). Now the Colts have always had RB's that are excellent at blitz pickup and that has helped the pass blocking quite a bit. Manning typically also makes up for it because he gets the ball out quicker from his hand than the average QB. It also helps that he reads blitzes so well and calls quick passes that doesn't allow the rush to get to him. At times, the line does block excellently. But I am confused at all the how unbelievable is the Colts line comments. The offensive line has been a major concern for Colts fans for a couple years now.

Yeah, can't have offsetting penalties when they are different possessions. The Seahwaks declined the Bears penalty which is their right as the only pre-kick penalty was against the Bears. So then the Bears of course are going to accept the penalty against the Seahawks because it pushes them 10 yards back. No chance of a re-kick there.

If you have a 4 oclock game this week on Fox, Fox isn't allowed to show anything in the 1 slot. I'm sure they would love to show football if they possibly could because it would get much better ratings, but there is no choice on their part.

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/chicago-cubs_112114177768677294.html that's not what this site says. Now, this site could be wrong, I grant you, but unless there is another site that is better I'm going by what this site says. Actually, that's exactly what that site says. It says it is only a club option if one of those two things happened. Since neither of those two happened, it's guaranteed. That other incentive part was only a way for Bradley to guarantee it again if it became a club option in the first place. Since it didn't become a club option, that part is irrelevant.

That was mentioned somewhere. Doesn't make any sense to me. I think it was Bruce Miles who said that they wouldnt want to risk offering arb. God forbid. What would the Cubs be on the hook for, minimum, if arb was offered? This isn't one of those cases where a true minimum can be established. The Cubs can offer as low as 5.6 million. But if they offer that low, they'll most certainly lose the arbitration case pretty much no matter what Harden's offer is. Depending on who you ask, the Cubs are risking somewhere between 8-12 million if they offer arbitration.

Well that makes no damn sense. There are thousands of outstanding baseball players, football players, and basketball players who are playing pickup games because they couldn't accept the discipline necessary to fit into a team situation and follow some simple rules like play hard, shut up, show up, show up on time, and show respect your team mates and coach. True, but you when you have the talent of Bradley other teams will typically want you. Somebody was willing to trade for him after he got into an altercation with his own manager as a member of the Indians even after they demoted him for it. He was supposedly about to be suspended in LA in 2005 for the rest of the season when he hurt his knee. The other players in the clubhouse told Colletti that Bradley had to go. Still another team wanted him. He fought with the manager and GM in Oakland over playing time and it was bad enough for them to start the process of cutting him. And yet they were able to find a willing taker for him. And some team will probably be willing to take a chance on Bradley now (albeit not for very much money). If you have the skills, teams always think they can be the team where the behavior will suddenly get better. GM's have been doing this sort of thing to Bradley for a large part of his career but he is still a ML ballplayer because of his talent level.

I loved Marvin, but he was not a leader whatsoever. Even people who had been with him for 10 years had no idea who he was. He did his job and went home and didn't really ever talk to anybody. The only benefit young receivers might have gotten from him is being able to watch him on the practice field, but Harrison was certainly not taking anybody under his wing. They went back to the tape last year and it just isn't true. Harrison was mostly getting single covered last year and Wayne was getting the doubleteams. That must be quite a small sample size for the Colts supposed red zone problems because they've had an issue in exactly 1 possession so far . The first game they had 2 possessions in the red zone. One resulted in an INT (Peyton made a bad decision when he had Clark wide open) and the other one was a rushing TD. Last game the Colts had 1 red zone opportunity and had a 15 yard rushing TD. And btw, the passing game is doing just fine. Peyton is averaging over 300 yards a game and has 3 TD passes of 35 yards or more. He also has completed 68.9% of his passes which is the highest number of his career. His yards/attempt is the highest of his career, and his INT percentage is down. His QB rating is the 2nd highest of his career so far. There's speculation that the Colts passing game will suffer in the future. But so far, that hasn't been the case whatsoever. And this isn't the first time that something has been said will derail the Colts passing game and it just doesn't happen. I have no idea where you are getting that the passing game has actually been any worse so far this year though.

Giordano was a confusing type of player. From my observations, he was unbelievably fast but not necessarily as quick. He was a big hitter but I don't remember him being a good safety against either the pass or the run (although not absolutely awful at either). He was a good special teams player. He's the type of safety who will really impress on certain plays but doesn't really hold up to scrutiny over a full game. Some people really liked him as a Colt though and couldn't understand why he kept falling further down the depth chart each year so there are definitely differing opinions about him out there.

They went 10-6 last year and if Brett Favre can pass against a good defense like the 49ers it means they are quite a bit better than last year's team because the offense isn't one dimensional. Considering the team with the best record from last year is 0-2, the Superbowl champ is 1-1, the Colts don't look as good as last yearand have lost some key players and the Patriots are 1-1 they might be the top team. It would be between Minnesota, Giants, Atlanta, Jets and Baltimore. This week the Giants are on the road, Jets play Tennessee and Atlanta is at New England. The only one who has a true easy win is Baltimore but even they play a rival in Cleveland. Why are you ignoring the Broncos? They beat two teams of the same quality (or better) than the Vikings did. More seriously, why are you ignoring New Orleans? They've been the most impressive NFC team so far if you ask me. I'd also like to add to this vis-a-vis the Colts. Last year at this time, the Colts were 1-1 with a home loss to the Bears and a road win over the Vikings in which they rallied from a 15-0 third quarter deficit. So far, the Colts look better than last year (and I think that will continue, though who knows what that means record-wise). Second, the "key players" they've lost are: Marvin Harrison, end of list. Now, Harrison is one of the greatest receivers of all time, and one of my favorite players of all time. However, he's unfortunately been a cipher since 2006. The past two seasons he combined for 80 catches and six touchdowns while playing only 20 games due to injury (for comparison's sake, that's worse than every season of his since Manning's rookie year). Love him, but he was no longer a key player -- see his current unsigned status. Anthony Gonzalez is currently hurt, and if he can't come back to near full strength, that would likely be a devastating injury to a key player. And, obviously, I'm not exactly ready to dismiss teams like the Steelers, Patriots, Titans, etc. For what it's worth, Baltimore has probably been the most impressive team so far to me. The Colts were a better team last year. The Colts struggled to start last year but that was mainly because Peyton was getting his timing down. Right now they have no Marvin and Gonzalez is hurt with no guarantee of being what some think he could be. They have Wayne and Clark, which is much better than most teams but not as good as what it has been. The defense is the same crap defense, plus Sanders is hurt, and the offense isn't as good. The Colts offense is better because the offensive line is playing so much better than last season so far. Receivers can be replaced in the offense (especially when they are paired with other great receivers already on the field) but the line giving Peyton time to throw is essential and that was way too much of a problem last year (and the line has shown signs of being better in the running game this year as well). The defense is still unknown (played well in week 1, played very badly in week 2). The special teams is around the same (punting is better than last year, not sure about coverage yet). The offense looks to be better so far though and that should definitely help. 6 of the 9 games in the Colts winning streak last year were by 7 points or less (and 2 of the 3 others were against the Titans 2nd team and only beating the 0-16 Lions by 10). They were extremely flawed last year and only beating teams because Peyton wouldn't let them lose most weeks. This year they appear to be slightly less flawed and do seem to be better.

1. When did Bradley do this? 2. Who [expletive] cares? Your skin seems to be as thin as Bradley's. He said the fans were involved in creating a completely negative environment and that he doesn't like playing in Chicago. He's also brought up racism, which rightly or wrongly people tend to take as directed towards a large part of the fanbase. As the head of an organization who survives based on how many people come to a game to see your product, you don't want one of your supposed main attractions saying those types of things to the fans you're trying to get to spend money, especially during times like this. He never, not once, said that he doesn't like playing in Chicago. I swear, some people just try to twist his words into believing what they want to believe. how else do you interpret "i pray the game is only 9 innings so i can be out there the least amount of time possible"? and i like bradley, but it's pretty plain the guy didn't enjoy being a cub. Also the quote when asked if he enjoyed playing in Chicago, his first words out of his mouth were "Not really" before expanding on why he didn't (the negative environment). There are reasons to question if people are taking Bradley's words too far, but wondering if he likes playing in Chicago is not one of them. He pretty clearly has indicated that he hasn't been a fan of the overall experience.

He has no business starting a MLB game right now. I wish the FO would stop being jackasses and just let him sit in the minors for a full season and work on stuff. Instead of jacking him around from the minors and majors 20 times a season. While having him up in the pen throughout the season at this point is stupid, I don't see the harm in letting him get an actual start right now with the Cubs all but out of it and the minor league season done. And I don't see the point of wishing bad on Samardzija at this point, considering he's already approaching his 25th birthday, has burned 3* option years, has ammassed over 400 professional innings on top of the 200 college innings and pretty much needs to start performing in the majors next year or be considered a lost cause. *I believe it's 3 since he signed his major league deal in January 2007, and has at one point been optioned back to the minors in all 3 subsequent seasons. You are correct. Samardzija has used 3 of his option years. He does get a 4th option year because of his circumstances so he has 1 more year to potentially work it out in the minors before needing to stick.

GameCast says 14:53. And they didn't have any short field scoring drives or defense/special team scores either (their best field position on a scoring drive was their own 27 yard line). Their 27 points came on drives of 80, 48, 44, 79, and 80 yards. I think that game was a microcosm of the differences between those two teams. Colts fans are screaming about how badly the team got outplayed tonight. But they really didn't...Miami will dominate many teams physically (and a team like the Colts most of all) but their lack of big plays hurts them badly. It feels terrible when the other team is running down your throat, but Miami also had to settle for 4 long field goal attempts tonight, and then when they needed to come back in the last few minutes their strategy that they are built around worked against them.