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But if there's a pattern of Hendry always following those requests then getting a new manager could impact personnel decisions as well. Hendry cannot pawn blame off on the manager because ultimately it's his decision. But if Fredi comes in and requests more valuable things, would Hendry probably not honor those requests as well?

When there's a good chance that pop up is going to fall in for a hit? It's not like this was a pop up to the second baseman that he lost in the sun and Soriano wasn't running full speed around the bases. That was always going to be a ball that could easily cause problems. And it's also different from a guy who is protecting himself and is cautious all the way around the bases but Soriano is aggressive after he gets on base so why is it different for him coming out of the box? I certainly don't want any changes to the team over it, but I don't think there's any reason to try to cover up lapses in hustle either. Even though it doesn't actually affect the season, it still affects the enjoyment level of most fans greatly.

Manning acts like that all the time. He expects perfection both for himself and for everyone else. And when either one of those is off, everyone knows about it. It gets to the point that I'm not a fan of his behavior at times. But unless I missed something last night, there was nothing out of character for Manning. He gets upset at other players, coaches, the refs, and himself all the time on the field. He got caught by the mics screaming at another player in the middle of a play last year. I was very surprised by what Caldwell said last night but certainly not Manning. I think it was partly the rule but partly the application of the rule by the game refs that the Colts were upset about. The refs were not running back to their positions on every play and that was really slowing the Colts up. Plus other refs are supposed to be able to spot the ball sometimes in order to speed up the game on any long completion and that didn't happen to the Colts liking last night. As for the announcers, it didn't surprise me. Jaws is a former QB and most QB's are not going to like this rule one bit. Gruden had been quoted as complaining about the rule change several days before this game. I disagree that if Grossman had done that it would have changed their opinions but it was also clear that they decided to make it a focus of last night's broadcast because the Colts run no huddle so much. So other games it wouldn't have been nearly as big of a deal.

Yes, I did. I suggest they quit whining and play the damn game. I understand why they're upset but I don't completely agree with them. The NFL intentionally hurt the play on the field in order to keep the umpires safe. Even though now more penalties will be missed (except for offensive holding which will now be called a lot more) and the no huddle offense won't work nearly as well, I can respect that decision. I do wish the NFL had tried putting equipment on these umpires first though. There's no reason to hurt the game until you have tried another easy option first. And it's hard not to notice that the NFL isn't completely caring about their safety because they're in their old spot during the last two minutes of the half.

Perfect spot for the guy with the .913 OPS imo Catchers bat 8th, dude. *sticks a toothpick in mouth* And god forbid Colvin would start 2 nights in a row. Colvin started both of the first two games of the series. This is Fukudome's first start in 4 days. And Byrd had an off day last night and Soriano had one on Saturday.

Thank you. I knew there was a fundamental error somewhere but couldn't figure out where it was. It looks like they'll have room for one major move and some minor moves unless they free up some of the money on the roster (of which they are almost certain to do this offseason by dumping Fukudome and possibly Z)

What's my assumption? The logic in passing on Dunn is that I'm hesitant to give a four year, big money contract to a guy who will be 32 before we likely will be competitive again. I was a huge Dunn supporter 2 years ago when we signed Milton Bradley, but I don't know that potentially overpaying for Dunn now would make a lot of sense when there very possibly could be better options available a year later, when we'll actually (from my point of view) be competitive again. Replacing Theriot with DeWitt and Lee with Dunn would go a long way to making us more competitive next year. If we add Dunn ($12 mil per), and the Cubs payroll stays where it is ($144 mil), that still gives us $27 mil to make improvement to the team. They will have room to make improvements. Those #s can't be right. Are you figuring in raises due to existing contracts/arbitration? It's somewhat close. The Cubs are at 103.525 million next year according to Cots. That number is actually a little high because Cots automatically prorates all signing bonuses and when you look at how the Cubs stagger the contract it's pretty clear that they intend for that money to count for year 1. That would knock 5.25 more million off (1 million for Soriano, Zambrano, Fukudome and Dempster, and 1.25 million for Silva). So that brings the Cubs down to 98.275. Marmol, Baker, Marshall, Guzman, Gorzelanny, Hill, and Soto are in arbitration next year. I have no idea what to project here... maybe 10 to 13 million in raises for this group? I'm estimating that Marmol, Gorzelanny, and Soto get raises between 2.5 and 4 million extra from what they made this year. Marshall goes up about a million, and the others might get cut for cheaper players but won't have significant raises otherwise. These estimations are rather uniformed though. So that puts the Cubs at somewhere between 108 and change and 111 and change. Opening Day payroll this year was 144 and change so they have somewhere between 33 and 36 million to work with. So Dunn signing for 12 would leave 21 to 24 million left with those arbitration assumptions.

I don't think that would ever happen. I think Sandberg will leave the Cubs if he doesn't get the job, especially if the new manager is young. Sandberg sounds like he will take any path to a major league managerial position he can. If no one offers one this offseason and he feels that being a bench coach will get him faster to that goal, then he would take the job.

Dunn turns 31 three months from now in November 2010.

Holy Crap!!!!! Really? It's true. He's only had 21 1/3 innings on the year though because of the elbow surgery and the injury has probably helped cause some of those horrific numbers.

Sounds like something that mostly went out the window when Quade took over. They said that Colvin would continue to take grounders but that he would be played only sparingly at first for the rest of the year.

If you are that player, why not make sure that you work on other parts of your game though. That's what Pujols, Sandberg and Dawson all did. Instead, these other guys, while valuable in some ways, don't improve themselves in the other parts of baseball. A player like Dunn has been working on his defense for years. He wants to play the field (as evidenced by the fact that he's said he'd rather not be a DH). His lack of defense cost him a lot of money in free agency a couple of years ago. So he's definitely trying but some players don't just have the talent level to play average defense on a major league playing field. As for at the plate, players like Howard and Dunn might not have the ability to cut down on their strikeouts without severely hurting the skills they have. It doesn't help to become a somewhat better hitter for average with less strikeouts if you lose a lot of power and walks in the process. Obviously if they could cut down on their strikeouts and keep everything else they could become elite level players but it's probably not feasible for them. They've reached their ceilings with their skillsets. Now it's just a question of if you let them do what they do and be very good to great players or try to completely overhaul them which might ruin the good things they give you in the process.

For the season now the bullpen has had a much bigger impact on run differential. The Cubs offense is 12 runs worse than average for the NL (18 runs worse than median). The Cubs starting pitching has been 5 runs worse than average (4 runs worse than median). The Cubs bullpen has been 41 runs worse than average (49.5 worse than median). Even though the bullpen is much less important than the offense or the starting pitching, the Cubs bullpen has been so much worse relative to the league in that area than the other two that it has overcomed that relative unimportance to still be worse. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Cubs should focus on the bullpen in the offseason since there has so much variability there and almost everything has been absolutely awful there this year. But the bullpen has definitely been the biggest cause for the Cubs having such a bad run differential. To examine how run differential translates to wins/losses this season would require a much more detailed analysis.

Completely agreed. Even if the Cubs wanted to go with a Soto/Soriano/Dewitt/Castro/Ramirez/Fukudome/Byrd/Colvin lineup to save money, of those 8 players Soriano would only be 3rd to 5th on that list to play 1st. The Cubs could create many better defensive lineups by shifting other players around than Soriano. And that doesn't even address all the free agents, and the Cubs wouldn't have to find a very good one at all to be better than moving Soriano to 1st. Someone said that players with defensive deficiencies move to 1st all the time. Most players deficiencies are not like Soriano though. Players who move to 1st tend to either be too slow to play anywhere else or have a bad shoulder and cannot throw as much anymore. I can't think of an example of a player who moved to 1st only because he had poor hands at another position (one might be out there, but they probably are few). You would not be hiding Soriano at 1st at all. And while a lot of people can play acceptable first base defense which makes it less important as a whole, at the margins first base defense can be very important. And while Lee probably qualified as one guy who could actually help his team defensively at 1B, Soriano would almost certainly hurt the team badly there. While I recognize there are some advantages to moving him, moving an average defender at LF to become a terrible defender at 1B which also happens to require slightly more offense over the last 5-6 years is almost certainly a very bad move.

He's not horrible in the OF. I've seen him play horribly many many times and make very few catches that were not routine. On a scale from 1-10(10 being the best) he would come in around a 4 IMO and he is only that high b/c he has a great arm. He is better than Dunn out there but is well below average. Soriano's speed also makes some plays look routine that drop well in front of other LF's. He isn't the bumbling LF that you see on a lot of teams. For example: Manny, Ibanez, Burrell, Gomes, Carlos Lee, etc. Then there are the LF's who have similar range to Soriano at this point but no arm: Podsednik, Pierre, etc. Soriano's defense is sort of like a .750 OPS shortstop is on offense. He's still probably the worst defender on the field for the Cubs. But the bar for LF's in MLB is so low (just like the bar for SS's for offense is so low) that he's probably a little above average out there. There are very few LF's that posess his combination of speed and arm out there and while he definitely makes more bad plays out there than most, that still doesn't drag him down below the guys who can't get to balls unless it's hit right at them.

I don't think you're crazy on that one. Hendry likes him. There's a major hole at 1st base. The offense is considered the major reason why this season went down. Hendry will want to make a splash. Dunn is the best free agent at 1st base and is left-handed. And Dunn might still want to come to Chicago. I wouldn't call getting Dunn likely. But if I had to bet on who will be the Cubs first baseman next season, Dunn would easily be my first choice over the myriad of other options they have for the position. Dunn seems to fit what the Cubs are looking for and they have the money to go get him if they decide to go that way.

Let's see what they end up doing with him next year first. Breaking SPs into MLB as relievers has been done effectively many times before. If they make him a starter after this year, but have to limit his innings in 2011 because they got him some MLB experience in 2010 rather than keeping him starting in AAA, that won't be terrible. Right now though they have to severely limit his innings in 2011 and then limit his innings again in 2012. He'll be close to arbitration by the time the Cubs can use him for a full year. I have no problems breaking a guy in as a reliever, but they should have at least one 140-150 inning season under their belt first. It's a long way to progress in the majors as a starter if they've never made it to 120 before.

the cubs have had only 1 1-0 loss this season, and 4 2-1 losses Last night was the only 1-0 loss? Wow, good to know. Felt like it had happened before. crazy as it is to believe, i saw on some cubs twitter feed that yesterday was the 1st cubs 1-0 loss in 3 years. Len also said that last night. The last one was also against the Padres. It was the game where Derrek Lee fought Chris Young.

I guess I don't understand the Soriano to 1st idea. He has had trouble on defense ever since he started in the majors because he has terrible hands. He can't consistently pick up a ball bouncing towards him and has minor troubles catching the ball at times as well. But he does have some huge positives to his game as well with good speed and a strong, accurate throwing arm. I'm not sure why you would want to move him to a position that forces him to use his weakness constantly and gives him no chance to show off his range or arm. It's an awful fit. If he were to be moved to the infield, back to 2nd would be a much better fit even though we know he would be terrible defensively there.

He probably won't actually reach last year's total with last year's AFL included (I believe he had 119 innings and change total last year). This year he's only on pace for about 110. If the Cubs could push that number to about 140-145, then they could get a nice solid season of 160-180 innings next year from him. Right now he probably would be limited to 150 next year at most.

Wouldn't that be true regardless of this possible trade? Or would Lee have returned on a short-term (cheap) deal? I think there's a chance Lee could have come back on a shorter and/or cheaper deal, but you're right that the basic point holds true regardless of whether or not he's dealt. If he is traded though, he's probably not coming back, and that's one less option and leaves them completely barren at the position heading into the offseason. Why would he not come back (assuming we want him back)? I thought he said he didn't want to uproot his family. Well he can go play for the Braves for a few months and have a shot at another ring and then come back to the Cubs next year. That way his family doesn't have to go anywhere. Well, there's a very real chance that the Cubs don't want him back. Trading a guy away for a 6 weeks just to bring him back isn't really Hendry's MO. Considering how much of a "player's GM" he is, coming back to Lee for a waiver deal after he's already rejected one sends the message that he's not part of the team's plans going forward. Bruce said a few days ago that he would be very surprised if Lee came back. He said that some Cubs officials apparently prefer a left-handed hitter at first base.

You're not recalling correctly. It was really close. I believe the negotiations went on past midnight (which meant the deadline did pass) but the contract was signed either late that night or that next morning. But there was a report that the Angels were going to give Aramis a 100 million dollar offer as soon as the deadline passed. Hendry also was quoted that Aramis turned down 20 to 30 million dollars extra by signing his deal. Edit: Looks like I was a bit off on the time as well. It was reported that he signed at about 3:15 in the afternoon on that first day after the Cubs lost exclusive rights. It's uncertain when the contract was actually worked out but there certainly would have been some time for others to make offers.

His club option does for after 2011, but that's only if he exercises his player option after this year. He could still opt out if he wants to.

http://www.bryantdaily.com/post/Bryants-Wells-signs-contract-with-Cubs.aspx Would be ridiculous to give a 3rd round value an MLB deal. You'd think 100,000 extra would have been a wiser investment than a big league deal for a HS kid. Wouldn't a big league deal put him on the 40 man roster right now? It just says that he would get put on the 40 man 2 years from now. I'm not sure how you guarantee that in a minor league contract but from my limited understanding that would point away from it being a big league deal.

I only show Nady starting 5 of the last 10. Did I miss one ?? Sorry for the late response Fred. Baseball Reference has Nady starting at RF on Sunday 8/8. He played LF on 8/15. And he's played 1B on 8/9, 8/11, 8/12, and tonight. That's actually 6 out of the last 9.