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A lot of Texas fans consider OU to be their biggest rival now. And as someone knowing people from both the USMA and USNA, I can assure you that the Army-Navy game is the most important game of the year for both teams. The Notre Dame game will probably be much tougher for Navy to win than the Army game will be, but I would guess that if you'd asked everyone on Navy's football team who they'd rather beat this year, at least 90% would've said Army. I've heard different on the Army-Navy thing. I've heard the last 7-9 years, Navy has been going into the first day of practice saying that "This is the year we are going to beat Notre Dame". As far as Texas, I agree with you that it is a growing number of Texas fans which almost made me disqualify the rivalry, but still from hearing from Texas fans (and I have family in that area) many would say that their biggest game is Oklahoma, but the game they would hate to lose is A&M. If A&M doesn't get their act together soon though that rivalry will be just about gone in about 5 years.

When I first looked over the list, I saw 3 rivalries that really jumped out at me: Alabama-Auburn Michigan-Ohio State Texas-Texas A&M There are several reasons I threw out other rivalries. 1) One team really considers it their biggest game of the year while the other team doesn't (Army-Navy even got thrown out using this criteria, although Army will probably return to being Navy's top priority once again next year). 2) To get in the elite rivalries, fans almost have to care more about winning that game than winning overall. That throws out all the Florida games, the Notre Dame-USC game, Oklahoma-Texas, Cal-Stanford, etc. 3) Alums of the school and fans of the school have to be passionate about football. Some of the small school rivalries are really nice, but simply don't compare to millions of people and whole states who hate each other. So that got me down to 3. I then eliminated Texas-Texas A&M because in the last few years the importance of the game has really dwindled for Texas. A&M would still rather beat Texas than win anything else, but the scope of the rivalry has really dwindled over the last 10 years. Finally with the last 2, from being around fans of all 4 teams for quite a while, Ohio State-Michigan is just on a different level. They really hope that the other team goes 0-12 ever year. In Alabama, the Iron Bowl is huge for bragging rights, but it really doesn't extend through the whole season like the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry does. I've heard numerous people who don't even like to travel in the other state just because of that game. So the Iron Bowl is awesome, but my vote has to go to the OSU-Michigan game.

Here is our winner. Jenkins is seen as an absolute last resort and as a platoon player. The Cubs' No. 1 target is Fukudome. He has yet to say he's coming to North America. That's a huge, huge decision in Japan. On Crawford, the (Devil) Rays don't need to trade him. He has a favorable contract, and they, like all teams, could use a left-handed hitter. They'd have to be blown away by an offer, and the Cubs aren't going to blow them away. This stuff about Hill and Marmol and another guy for Crawford is nonsense. My guess is that once Fukudome says he wants to come over here, the Cubs will go hard after him. That doesn't mean they'll get him, but they're prepared to make a good offer. I look for the payroll to be about $115 million, by the way. Thanks for the update Bruce. What kind of offer would you see the Cubs making to Fukudome, and who do you see as the most likely fall back option? Well, it won't be Soriano money, but it'll be a good offer. I'm not sure of numbers. On the fallback, let's not discount a trade, whether it's the unlikely Crawford scenario or another avenue. (The Rays also are a difficult team with which to deal. They have a hard time pulling the trigger.) It's not a great or attractive free agent market, so the Cubs are very active in pursuing trades. I'm told some big-name players will be on the trading block all around baseball. But again, it takes two teams to make a deal. Bruce, if you're still here, do you see the middle infield as being set now, or are the Cubs still possibly looking for an upgrade there? Is Theriot the confirmed starter? Are they going to make it an open competition between Theriot, Cedeno, and Infante? What are they trying to do with DeRosa with the Matsui talk?

Rosenthal reported that the Cubs were likely to pick up Trachsel's option. Obviously, a few days later that turned out not to be true when the Cubs declined it, but there was a lot of hand wringing here during that time. :D

If I was confident that Hendry had the ability to land a decent RF, I might not be making nearly as much noise. I'm glad Jones is gone, but at the same time I wouldn't have minded him as a 4th outfielder if Murton could have been packaged in a deal to improve elsewhere, and as protection for Pie if Pie poops the bed. If I'm the GM, Jones is my insurance policy if I can't get Crawford or Fukudome. Once I have an upgrade in RF locked up, THEN I consider trading him, and only when I feel like I'm getting value in return. Only a day after Jones was traded, Minnesota traded us a PTBNL for Craig Monroe, the right handed version of Jacque Jones. Monroe is set to make nearly as much as Jones in 2008, and the Cubs aren't giving Minnesota any salary relief. Granted, Jones came from Minnesota, and they may not want him back. But, if you are a major league team in need of a cheap outfielder, you really aren't throwing yourself under the bus to trade for Jacque Jones. There will be many teams this offseason trying to position themselves for cheap outfield help like Corey Patterson, Geoff Jenkins, Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez. Those teams that aren't willing to pay the price or the years to grab what's left of the lousy free agent class towards the end of this offseason might have been willing to cough up a half way decent prospect for Jones. To trade him for the likes of Omar Infante is assinine. With the addition of Infante, the Cubs have now had every crappy utility middle infielder in baseball in the last 10 years. The list is actually quite scary. If that's the best he could get for Jones, then he was better off just keeping him. I'm certainly not convinced that the 2.5-3m savings of not having Jones will be spent wisely. If Prior and Wood are both back and Fukudome is in RF, I'll give Hendry a flyer. But, it will never change the fact Hendry gave Jones away for next to nothing. First, the Twins only traded for Monroe because they plan to release him and re-sign him to a much lower salary. In fact, that's what the whole deal is contingent upon. They would never have wanted to take on Jones's money unless the Cubs paid half of it or more because of it being guaranteed. Second, Hendry tried to wait until after the big names in free agency to trade Jones last year with little success. That had to be in his mind when he was working moves this year. I do agree with you that the moves that are remaining will dictate what happens with Jones. If that extra 3 million is spent on a useful player (and I would lower that definition all the way down to Geoff Jenkins, who would simply be Jones again) then it's a good move. Infante may have value still (due to his age and his home/away splits), but you're right in that he's not a very valuable chip at this time. One thing that Infante does do for the ballclub is fill some specialty roles. Now they don't have to keep Angel Pagan on the roster to platoon with Pie, nor do they necessarily need a backup SS on the roster all the time. That allows the bench to hopefully be filled with more good hitters. At the same time, that's only worth so much, and so the 3 mil will still be the key to the trade unless Infante shows that he can keep up his away numbers all the time when he's taken out of Comerica.

The Cubs should be interested in Jenkins. They should have him on the priority list behind Fukudome and Crawford, but if neither of those pan out Jenkins is a decent backup plan.

Anybody think he's putting a little too emphasis on career numbers? That would explain the projections for Soriano and DeRosa. Also it explains why Murton and Theriot are a little high because of Murton's 2005 and Theriot's 2006 partial seasons respectively. Ramirez hasn't dropped below 900 in 4 years, and now he's going to drop 30 points from last year even while hitting 9 more home runs? That doesn't make that much sense. Pie understandably goes down from his crazy projection from last year, but I'm not sure it was enough. Crawford's projection also seems low considering his last couple years and his age.

Yeah. We're getting somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 million savings from the Jones trade at this point. oh okay, the tigers are paying the third portion ($1.33M) of the bonus payment too? I forgot about that when factoring in the savings; I just thought of the $5M salary next year. Yeah. I don't know who is handling what of the bonus or salary, but the 2 million is coming out of the 6.33 number instead of just the 5 million salary.

The Yankees still have to be furious with this. 21 million from Texas down the drain because of Boras. Then the PR problems of saying over and over again that they wouldn't go after A-Rod if he opted out (they aren't going to make everybody understand it was because they refused to negotiate with Boras in free agency). It's still the best move for the Yankees to make at this point, but it's a lot bigger mess for them.

Yeah. We're getting somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 million savings from the Jones trade at this point.

Yeah, 2003 was one of the only good years for the Cubs in CF. Patterson had an 831 OPS in CF in 325 AB's, and Lofton had an 858 in 203 AB's. Even with bench guys composing another 125 AB's or so, they still finished with a .302/.344/.466 line overall in CF, which is probably one of the only times they have broken .800 in CF in a long, long time.

Agreed with that, but that isn't the latest rumored trade. That one seems to have been debunked. Now the trade is supposedly Hill, Patterson, and a prospect, which is a much better deal.

I would argue that Crawford's contract, his age, his extra stolen bases at a high percentage, and his defense combined at least make up for Dunn's offensive advantage right now if not make Crawford more attractive.

And the injuries just keep getting worse for the Colts. Now Freeney is supposedly going to miss the rest of the season: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071114/SPORTS03/311140009/1247/SPORTS Hopefully Simeon Rice can do something, but considering 2 teams have released him already this year, I'm not that optimistic.

Fair enough...sometimes the analysis on him gets way overblown though. Count me in CCP's court as well...except I'd play him in CF. If the Cubs trade Pie, I'd play Crawford in CF as well. He certainly has the speed to play the position at Wrigley.

He is an 820 OPS player who does provide a decent amount of value with his steals because of his 85 percent success rate. He also is just entering his prime and there are indications in his numbers that Tropicana is hurting his production. Overrated? Maybe a little. Everything about him suggests though that he should have a very good prime of his career at a team friendly contract, and moving him out of Tampa Bay should only help that production. BTW, I don't ever think he'll be a superstar, but he's a valuable guy to have around. He should be able to be in right field as well which would make his value higher.

I'm not aware of very many NTC's... though I know ARam has one. The money would be pretty high, but we'd be exchanging ARam, DLee, and Soriano's contracts for ARod and Hunter, with extensions due for Crawford and Santana. In 2008, we might go backwards financially, though in the next 4-5 years, the payroll would absolutely skyrocket. Probably in 2009 the payroll would skyrocket. 20 million for Santana (and that's being stingy) 18 for Z, 12 for Lilly, 8-9 for Marquis. That's a 59 million dollar starting staff even with a mininum guy with the other spot. Then you add 30 for A-Rod, 15 for Hunter, 8.25 for Crawford, and Cano being arbitration eligible. That's probably around 55 million for the expensive starting players. So you have 112-115 million right there, and don't even have a bullpen or bench yet. Then in 2010 when the others become arbitration eligible it turns into the Yankees. That sure would be fun though while it lasted :D

What gives you the impression that all eggs are in the Fukudome basket? How did one report that the Cubs have interest in him turn into now he's the one and only target for the offseason? A) there have been quite a few reports. Cubs have been mentioned more than anyone else B) theres very little mention of other big name FAs True, but there have been mentions of other options for that position. Crawford has also been mentioned repeatedly to fill the same spot, and Jose Guillen has been mentioned once or twice. It hasn't been completely Fukudome or bust, in fact it's questionable on if he's the Cubs top target or Crawford is from the reports.

None of those are exactly new though. Jones has had 1 foot out the door for a whole year now. Veal possibly going to the bullpen has been around for several months, and Cedeno was practicing in the OF during spring training. It's not like these are huge surprises. All of them have been hinted at or publicly stated for a long time now. The plan is almost certainly flawed, but there has been a consistent plan with each of those moves.

More like that Murton in RF is not currently a possibility so people are discussing which of the more realistic possibilities are the best options.

Clay Rapada

It's a player option, and he didn't file for free agency by yesterday so he's coming back next year.

Not sure what career numbers you're using for Kosuke. I'm going with the numbers from this site: http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064 .305/.397/.543 Multiplying that out by those factors gives: .292/.369/.462/.831 Pretty much a Carl Crawford equivalent, but older and without the steals. Straight up, I'd rather have Carl. Given the cost of acquisition and contracts, I'm not sure. Depends on the package required to bring Crawford to the Cubs and what Kosuke would sign for. You are concluding that Fukudome's CAREER number projections are comparable to what Crawford would put up right now (last year his OPS was .821, 10 points less than Fukudome's career projected career numbers in the US) If you compare Crawford's last 3 years with Fukudome's (when reduced to US ball), there is no comparison. Plus, everyone is making it seem like Fukudome is so old at 30. Lee is 31, ARod is 32, Ramirez will be 30 this season. Again, not that Fukudome is in the level of those players, but 30 is right in their peak years. We are taking about giving a 4 year contract to a 30 year old. How much regression do you think you'll see at 34? Not much We're just saying that if you want to use Fukudome's last 3 years compared to Crawford's, that's fine. You have to use a different reduction system though then the one you linked, because that one uses career numbers. You can't say that all these Japanese players hit 93% of their career numbers so Fukudome is going to hit 93% of his numbers in his prime. That's comparing apples and oranges. You either have to use career numbers, or translate everybody's numbers again that came over from Japan using their last 3 year data.

Well no, I don't expect him to say that either. That would be a little extreme. I didn't think lowering fan expectations is a good thing. Are you saying it's good for Hendry to head off the booing because we're sure to suck? Why are we apparently not considering real improvements at the position? Maybe Jim should just come clean and tell us he can't get any money for improvements right now, so he'll do the best he can but don't expect too much in '08. That's the underlying message I'm getting, wouldn't you agree that's the way it's shaping up? Why are they not considering real improvements for the position? Because they seem to be actually willing to stick with a prospect for once even knowing he's going to struggle for a while. I think that's a good thing. Pie's going to stick in CF next year, and Hendry is telling us that he doesn't have to produce offensively for a while in order to keep his job. That allows Pie to relax and to develop into the type of prospect he can be without worrying about his job security;

We could probably get away with both upgrading SS and signing Fukudome. I was on the Murton bandwagon for years, and I could probably live with having Murton in RF instead of Fukudome, but at the same time you have to wonder how many chances he is going to have. Every year we expect him to breakout, but every year he ends up on the bench. I'd like to think its just the Cubs org not giving him the opportunity, but he has been our opening day starter the last 2 years and has managed to end up on the bench or demoted to the minors both years. He is basically our Austin Kearns. Good OBP, moderate potential for power, a butcher in the field, cannot stick in a starting lineup. If we can solve our major glaring problem (OBP) by getting one of the top 3-4 OBP guys on the market (behind players like Bonds and ARod) we'd be stupid not to. Fukudome isn't going to OBP 400 in the states. He'll be a 360-370 guy. A smidge better than Murton. Based on what? The last 3 years in Japan, his OBP is .430, .438, .443. Even with his sure drop in HR numbers, how can you expect less then 90% of those numbers in the states? His OBP the last 3 years has been .401, .368, and .438. http://thebaseballcube.com/players/F/Kosuke-Fukudome.shtml ??? 2003, 2004, 2006? What happened to 2005 and 2007? http://japanesebaseball.com/players/player.jsp?PlayerID=1064 Lol..I actually looked at 2 different links and still got those same years. Thanks for the correction. BTW, that would make Fukudome's career translation as this: Fukudome: .293/.369/.462 A little better than in my last post. If that author in that link is correct in his assumption, that means Fukudome will probably be somewhere in between an 800 and a 850 OPS player in the U.S.