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That seems unlikely since the Cubs have control of him through next year. Unless he is done for 2+ years or Kaplan thought he was going to be traded, there's no reason to say he has thrown his last pitch as a Cub. There is a small possibility that the Cubs won't want to keep him next year. Prior will be 3 million against the cap, and if the Cubs don't like how his progress is going during the winter they can decide that they'd rather spend the 3 million somewhere else. I'd be a little surprised if they did that, but it is reasonable.

i don't see how marquis would make it disastrous, since after this year he'll only have two years left on his contract, and the cubs may not even be able to spend much toward next year due to ownership issues. Plus if there's a guy they really want to get in the 2008-09 offseason, they can probably defer some of Marquis' money or backload a contract offer to a free agent. Soriano's contract could certainly become an albatross down the road, however. Plus it will be hard to classify Marquis as a disastrous move when he still has a chance to be one of the better values of the offseason: San Francisco-Zito L.A. Dodgers-Schmidt Seattle-Batista, Weaver Phillies-Eaton Yankees-Igawa Cardinals-Mulder Rangers-Padilla Astros-Woody Williams Even if Marquis regresses over the next 2 1/2 years (not to 2006 levels but to bad levels) he probably still will have been better value than all those pitchers signed to similar or bigger contracts than Marquis in 2006. It could certainly turn out to be a bad move, but probably not awful or disastrous when you compare it to moves that other clubs made.

thanks for putting in cubspeak but, at the same time, all that other stuff is rather flukish. if derosa continues to outperform durham for the entire season, then i think you have to give some credit to hendry for preferring derosa to durham. i dont think so. because if durham plays like he normally does the rest of the year and derosa plays like his career avg the rest of the year, derosa will barely outperform him. Durham is having the worst year of his career and has the lowest obp since his rookie season. We can all agree that DeRosa has exceeded expectations this year. DeRosa's numbers are the expected numbers for Durham. If Durham crashes and burns next year again, then Ill say good job hendry. This really isnt that big of a difference. DeRosa wasnt too expensive like Soriano. It just probably wasnt the best move. If DeRosa even matches Durham offensively, he'll be way more valuable than him for 2 big reasons. 1) DeRosa is making a couple million less than him 2) DeRosa's ability to play 3B and RF has allowed the Cubs now to get better lineups in every day by getting both DeRosa and Fontenot in the lineup when either Ramirez or Floyd gets a day off. Durham would have to be significantly better offensively in order to offset those advantages, and considering his age/DeRosa starting to prove last year wasn't a career year, that becomes less and less likely. again, that's dealing with now, not when Derosa was signed. Of course the Derosa signing looks good now that we know he can play several positions well defensively and has proven that last year was probably not a fluke. Everybody already knew he could play several positions well defensively. That was no secret. As far as last year being a fluke, it's Hendry's job (and his assistants and scouts) to go over the tape and determine if DeRosa's performance was a fluke or a legitimate change at the plate that helped him improve his numbers. They determined it was legitimate, and it looks like they were right.

thanks for putting in cubspeak but, at the same time, all that other stuff is rather flukish. if derosa continues to outperform durham for the entire season, then i think you have to give some credit to hendry for preferring derosa to durham. i dont think so. because if durham plays like he normally does the rest of the year and derosa plays like his career avg the rest of the year, derosa will barely outperform him. Durham is having the worst year of his career and has the lowest obp since his rookie season. We can all agree that DeRosa has exceeded expectations this year. DeRosa's numbers are the expected numbers for Durham. If Durham crashes and burns next year again, then Ill say good job hendry. This really isnt that big of a difference. DeRosa wasnt too expensive like Soriano. It just probably wasnt the best move. If DeRosa even matches Durham offensively, he'll be way more valuable than him for 2 big reasons. 1) DeRosa is making a couple million less than him 2) DeRosa's ability to play 3B and RF has allowed the Cubs now to get better lineups in every day by getting both DeRosa and Fontenot in the lineup when either Ramirez or Floyd gets a day off. Durham would have to be significantly better offensively in order to offset those advantages, and considering his age/DeRosa starting to prove last year wasn't a career year, that becomes less and less likely.

so you ignore last year, his first year as a full time starter, because it was a "career year", but when he duplicates those numbers, it doesnt mean anything because hendry bought high? derosa was signed to a 3/13, compare that to the 2/14.5 deal of durham, and the 1/3.25, and I really don't think he overpaid. hendry cant see the future. there was little reason to think that DeRosa would continue his hitting. Durham would have been expected to add more bang for your buck. Isn't that what a GM's job is supposed to be? To project what a player is going to be like over the term of the contract? Apparently Hendry thought that the swing adjustments that DeRosa made in Texas were the reason for his success, and so far that has proven to be correct. He had reason to believe that DeRosa could repeat his numbers though with that major swing change.

The question is, how are you defining overpaid? Yes, most to all of those players were overpaid-to get a single free agent in last years market, you had to overpay. Lilly has a good shot to be the best value free agent pitcher of the offseason. DeRosa will certainly be the best value second baseman. Ward was easily the best bench player available. The only alternative to not overpaying guys though was to simply not sign anybody in free agency. Considering the Cubs made the decision to enter free agency, Hendry signed most of the best contracts to come out of the 2006 offseason. At least for one offseason, he was better than pretty much all of his peers. But again, it had nothing to do with Hendry being especially clever. It had everything to do with him offering above market value for everyone except Lilly, who was paid pretty fairly, and Aramis, whom he nearly, stupidly lost. He didn't just go out and sign all the best players though. He avoided Zito and Schmidt. He also avoided Durham, Lugo, and Craig Wilson. He was clever because as you said he targeted all the right players and got the best value for his money, rather than signing people like Schmidt and Lugo to ridiculous contracts. As far as market value, the only contract that I can see that nobody else would have signed the player to is Marquis, and even that's debatable (considering the contracts to Eaton and Meche). DeRosa was going to be signed as the starting 3B for the Phillies if the Cubs hadn't gotten him for about the same amount of money. Lilly was getting similar offers from 2 other clubs. Ward would have easily gotten 1 million from somebody else. Floyd had interest from 5 other clubs, but held out for the Cubs. Soriano's offers were at 120 million and climbing when he signed.

The question is, how are you defining overpaid? Yes, most to all of those players were overpaid-to get a single free agent in last years market, you had to overpay. Lilly has a good shot to be the best value free agent pitcher of the offseason. DeRosa will certainly be the best value second baseman. Ward was easily the best bench player available. The only alternative to not overpaying guys though was to simply not sign anybody in free agency. Considering the Cubs made the decision to enter free agency, Hendry signed most of the best contracts to come out of the 2006 offseason. At least for one offseason, he was better than pretty much all of his peers.

I don't really believe this. Yeah, maybe he could've gotten slightly more elsewhere, but how is $15M per year a huge discount. That price would put him 10th this year in salary, and while he's certainly a very good player, he's not at the elite level of guys like A-Rod, Bonds, Miggy Cabrera or Pujols. There have been reports that Ramirez would get anywhere from 100 million to one report that said the Angels were ready to offer Ramirez 130 million dollars. He's a big discount on last year's market where players like Soriano and Carlos Lee (both probably worse players and both older) got bigger deals.

He is probably declining, but mostly this has just been an off year. Watch out for him though-Jones is heating up in a hurry. He has 5 home runs already in July (including the one tonight) and is 8 for his last 14. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he has a big second half.

Ward would be a terrible option in RF tomorrow. He cannot hit left-handers, and of course his defense is terrible. I wouldn't mind if Ward got a few starts against RHP in RF, but not against a left-hander.

How could we possibly be winning with Jones, Bowen, and Izturis in the lineup? We're playing the Astros? At bottom, the drama queen act when the lineup came out looks a silly now. having a good game does not replace the fact that we're in dire need of an upgrade at SS, C, and CF. Take that to Hendry, not Lou. Freaking out on a manager every game when he's clearly doing well at the moment is, indeed, uncalled for. touche. However, it doesn't make people comfortable with our chances of winning when the lesser options are all playing on the same day. That's all Well, why? We play in the NL central. Look at the lineup Houston is running out there and how they play. The Reds have been equally horrible. We have all these games left against bad, bad competition, the easiest schedule in the NL the rest of the way. That said, yeah, we do need upgrades if we have real hope of contending for a pennant, not the NL central crown. Playing in a weak division doesn't mean we should be comfortable with significant holes in our lineup. But it is more on JH than Lou. I just wish we would stagger those spot starts. Didn't we? The only two bench players to play today were Izturis and Bowen. The C position doesn't even really have a clear starter right now either, so it's basically just Izturis that is in the lineup today. It's not like the game last week where Lou gave (or tried in the case of Soriano) several of his starters a day off.

I wasn't aware that anything had happened to them. They're working the Cardinals' series in Philadelphia this weekend. What are you getting at ? Because I remember them being in the crew that did the 4 game series in Atlanta 6/7 - 6/10 I think you might have gotten a little confused with all the random umpire bashing that went on at the the time. That series in Atlanta was umpired by the same 4 men (Charlie Reliford, Larry Vanover, Greg Gibson, &Tony Randazzo) that are here for this series. Tschida has his own crew consisting of himself, Tim Tschida, Jeff Nelson, Jim Joyce, Jim Wolf. The CUBS have not seen Tschida's crew yet this year. There were 2 different umpiring crews that did the Atlanta series. The Reliford crew had done the series before the Cubs one in Atlanta, and for some reason stayed around to do the Thursday Cubs-Braves game. The umpiring crew then became the Tschida crew starting with the Friday game. Jim Joyce was behind the plate on Friday, Tschida was on Saturday, and Jim Wolf was the guy who threw out Lilly on Sunday.

I wasn't aware that anything had happened to them. They're working the Cardinals' series in Philadelphia this weekend. What are you getting at ? Because I remember them being in the crew that did the 4 game series in Atlanta 6/7 - 6/10 Yup. Tschida was the home plate umpire on the day that Soriano got beaned, and Wolf was the home plate umpire the next game that Lilly got thrown out.

From my vantage point at the game, I was surprised that Floyd went 1st to 3rd the first time-that was pretty good hustle. The second time, anybody on the Cubs roster could have made it first to third.

Just got back from the game-it was an awesome game to attend! A few points: 1) Z looked absolutely great today. We were on the third base line, and the right handers were just flailing wildly at his pitches. 2) As far as the fly ball thing, we could see the swing and the sound, and then we couldn't really see the ball again from where we were sitting. The only real way to tell is to watch the OF and see their body language. A couple balls sounded good and we stood up, but could quickly tell that they would be caught. 3) It was a nice team effort game. Just about everybody contributed something. Jones's hit to first in the 5th or 6th and Soto's hit in the 8th were probably the two hardest hit balls that were turned into outs. Lee also was definitely safe in both live action and on the replay.

I considered contract and still chose Lugo. It's not particularly close either. So you'd trade Izturis for Lugo right now? I certainly wouldn't. Izturis is horrible yes-but the Cubs can get rid of him in 3 months! Lugo on the other hand has put this up on the last 2 teams he has been on: LAD: 146 AB's, .219/.278/.267 Boston: 299 AB's, .197/.270/.298 While he likely will bounce back somewhat eventually, those are awful numbers over almost a full year's time now. Add to that he'll be 32 in November, and Lugo's best days are almost certainly behind him. Plus, he'll be making 9 million dollars for the next 3 years-so he could easily be a 34 year old making 9 million with a .600 to .650 OPS. His defense and stolen bases help the equation, but it still boils down to this: Do you want to hand the starting SS position for the next 3 seasons to a player who has been below a .600 OPS for the last full calendar year, is almost 32, and will be making 9 million every single year. That's a waste of resources, and would be a much bigger problem than giving a backup infield position to Izturis for the rest of 2007.

Yeah, on CSN, Hendry said that Lou may decide to flip flop Lilly and Z. Zambrano's plane was late from South FL... We'll see how this goes. No! I like Lilly, but I really want to see Z tomorrow. It's the first time I will have been able to see him live. I'd like to see DeRosa at SS as much as the next guy, but it certainly doesn't look like it's happening. I think the lineup for tomorrow is: Soriano-LF Theriot-SS Lee-1B Ramirez-3B Floyd-RF DeRosa-2B Jones-CF Soto-C Pitcher

His overall numbers haven't been very good this year. The only reason I brought up the idea is because he's been very good against lefties. I doubt the Yanks would sign him to be their first base answer. The big problem is who you would drop to get there. One of the catchers will go down when Dempster comes back (probably Hill). Out of the Cubs bench right now-Bowen is the backup catcher, Izturis is the only backup SS, Pagan is the only backup CF, Fontenot is hitting too well to be dropped, and Ward has been too good and cannot be dropped either. There simply isn't space for Franco or practically anybody unless they can play catcher, SS, or CF.

If Soto is what he's supposed to be (pretty good offense and good defense) Lou won't keep him on the bench for long, even if he starts as the backup.

Are people taking contract completely out of play here? The original list did consider contract, and I'm shocked that so many people would rather take Lugo at his contract than Izturis at his.

Izturis. He is putting up better numbers this year, and he is only signed for the rest of the year-while Lugo is making 9 million this year and for the next 3 years after this one. Lugo's contract alone makes this an easy choice.

Hmm, Jennings. This is my first and possibly only game I will be at this year, so let's please win one Cubs! This might be a day to start Izturis-he is 10/29 with 2 2B and 2 BB's against Jennings.

You don't think Jones's ability to play center changes things significantly? If Murton could play center, he would be on the MLB roster and at least platooning with Jones and possibly starting. If Jones can only play right, there is no way that he's getting back off the bench. Jones is only getting another chance because the Cubs are not happy with their production in center, while they are at least decently happy with a Floyd/DeRosa platoon in right. Second is MLB economics as Craig stated. If the Cubs could have gotten Jones off the major league roster easily like they did with Murton, they would have done so a long time ago.

Murton has always been a much better second half guy than first half. I hope that happens again this year. If Floyd goes on the DL later this week, Murton might get his chance again to show the team why they can't send him down.

I don't think people will be too upset if Hendry makes a deal because I think a deal he makes at the deadline will be a pretty good one. My best guess is that the Cubs will make no more than minor moves, which will probably disappoint many fans.