Backtobanks

From MLBTR: Padres Agree To Deal With Jon Garland By Mike Axisa [January 26 at 4:19pm CST] The Padres have agreed to a deal with free agent righty Jon Garland, reports MLB.com's Corey Brock. Financial terms are still unknown, though it's a one-year deal and is still pending a physical. The 30-year-old Garland earned $7.25MM with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers last year, when he made 33 starts with a 4.01 ERA. Moving to Petco Park will certainly help boost his overall numbers. We heard that San Diego had about $5MM left to spend last week, and they wanted someone durable that would contribute sure innings. Garland definitely fits that criteria, having made at least 32 starts and thrown at least 191.2 innings every year since 2002. The Mets and Dodgers were two other teams connected to Garland recently

From MLBTR: Twins Agree To Terms With Jim Thome By Mark Polishuk [January 26 at 5:05pm CST] Charley Walters and Kelsie Smith of the St. Paul Pioneer Press are reporting that the Twins and Jim Thome have agreed to a one-year contract. LaVelle Neal of the Star Tribune (via Twitter) says the deal is worth $1.5MM, with an additional $700K available to be earned in incentives. Hope it leads the twins to the AL Central title over the WS.

I love posters who overreact to some rumor. We should have fired Hendry when he signed Ankiel, Posednick, Contreras, etc. As I 've posted before, Hendry gets bashed whether he makes a move or not. It's not a matter of whether he gets the deal done. The idea that these are the players he deems worthy of pursuing is very troubling. Though even that would be too presumptive, perhaps. First of all, the rumor may be somewhat (if not entirely) fabricated by some writer assumes the Cubs could be interested. Secondly, it's like reading too much into the waiver wire in August -- "Who was put on waivers!?!" -- many players are, and little is actually intended by the GM's action. Likewise, Hendry probably "shows interest" in a great number of free agents he has very little interest in actually signing. You need to feel out the market and inquire on demands. Plus the rumor was from just one guy . . . on Twitter . . . maybe I should have started and stopped with that one. I was just ready to post basically the same thing you posted. Hendry contacts dozens of agents to get a feel as to whether their client can help the team and fit into the budget. As for these sports writers, most of them just make up everything based on who's available and what a team needs. Go back and look at the predictions as to where FAs would sign and check their accuracy (or lack thereof). Most of the speculation on NSBB is just as accurate as the "experts".

So what makes you think Ernie is senile? The fact that he's happy, positive, and optimistic? I became a Cub fan in 1954 and Ernie was my favorite player throughout the years. His attitude and outlook hasn't changed in those 56 years, so I don't know what you're basing your comment about senility on. He certainly is an improvement over the sullen, greedy, media-hungry, steroid crazed players of today. The fact that he's always walking around somewhere in his own damn world. Sure, he's a happy, positive guy. But he's also pretty far out in left field most of the time. Edit: Also, "Drug crazed players of today?" Really? I should have used steroid-crazed instead of drug crazed. As for being "pretty far out in left field most of the time", I think most people today would think a person who is happy, positive, and optimistic all of the time is "pretty far out in left field".

I love posters who overreact to some rumor. We should have fired Hendry when he signed Ankiel, Posednick, Contreras, etc. As I 've posted before, Hendry gets bashed whether he makes a move or not.

So what makes you think Ernie is senile? The fact that he's happy, positive, and optimistic? I became a Cub fan in 1954 and Ernie was my favorite player throughout the years. His attitude and outlook hasn't changed in those 56 years, so I don't know what you're basing your comment about senility on. He certainly is an improvement over the sullen, greedy, media-hungry, drug crazed players of today.

Unless the O's want Fuld in exchange for Pie, I can't see it happening.

maybe, but that division sucks so they could still win it. oakland is the only team that looks crappy They can't be crappy because Beane is a genius and has worked miracles with his small budget. :mrgreen:

From MLBTR: ESPN's Buster Olney spoke to several people in the game about the Mets picking up Gary Matthews Jr., and the general thought is that he "can't hit for average, can't hit for power, his defense ranks statistically among the worst outfielders in the majors, and, to top it off, rival scouts have been reporting that in recent years he has been a clubhouse negative." No wonder why they had to pickup $21 million to get rid of him. Great pickup by Minaya. :-))

I'm waiting for someone to post all of the #4 and #5 starters on the other teams we play in April that should cause us to automatically assume we don't have a chance of winning any of those games.

The fact is they are starting the season without Lilly and he's coming off surgery. You prepare for the season that way and go from there. I don't give a crap about going into the season thinking, "hey if all these things workout we'll be alright". Of course if everything works out this team will be fine. But that's not how reality works. They are going into the season in a position of weakness, only 2 dependable starting pitchers, and that is before accounting for the inevitable speed bump. As of now they are last year's team, minus Harden and Bradley, plus Byrd and Silva. I don't see how that is even remotely an improvement. And last year's team was not an improvement from the 2008 team. (minus Wood, DeRosa and Edmonds, plus Gregg, Bradley and Miles). They need to replace Harden just to stay even with last year's rotation. I don't see why a $140m payroll team has to go into a season hoping a bunch of stuff will work out so they can have a chance. This team should be in a position where a bunch of things would have to go wrong to think they don't have a chance, and that's not the case. The only way a team goes into a season "where a bunch of things would have to go wrong to think they don't have a chance" is when the team is the Yankees or Red Sox with their luxury-tax budgets. Most teams don't have All Stars at every position.

Nady is coming off a pretty serious injury and Baldelli has a significant injury history as well. Why not take the healthy player? And although I'd definitely take Nady over Gomes if Nady was healthy, I'm not sure I'd take Baldelli over Gomes even if Baldelli was completely healthy. These guys provide more power off the bench, but Reed Johnson is looking better to me everyday. All these other candidates seem to have a lot of baggage (injury history, can't play defense, etc.).

No team is set with a guy coming off surgery who is going to miss at least the first month of the season. And it remains to be seen if they are set with Randy Wells. He also lists 2 terrible pitchers and an inconsistent one battling for the 5th spot. A quality starter would not be an extravagance. This team wasn't good enough to win last year with Rich Harden on the team, now they have lost him, and added Carlos Freaking Silva, which means they are that much worse. I agree with Crasnick that Sheets is more of an extravagance than a necessity for the Cubs especially with his asking price. Posters who complain about the rotation forget that most teams have question marks after their top 3 starters. Wells got in enough starts to give us faith that he ought to be a decent #3 or #4 starter. Assuming Lilly comes back on time and healthy, the only question mark will be the #5 starter and the Cubs have a lot of candidates for that spot.

From Jerry Crasnick @ ESPN: Conversely, the Cubs' interest in Sheets is overblown. GM Jim Hendry's biggest objectives are finding a late-inning reliever and a bat for the bench. The Cubs are set with Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Randy Wells in the first four spots, with Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija set to compete for the fifth spot. Sheets would look great in Cubbie blue, but he's more of an extravagance than a necessity.

For all of the Theriot bashing here, I agree that we ought to wait to see if and when Castro (or Lee) is ready before we talk about dumping Theriot. These two look good, but they're still only prospects with no ML track record.

Well, that settles it. Mulder is awful. not really. his son is joe mauer. I wish. =D>

I think all of those soft-tossing crafty lefties own us.

Depending on which young reliever (not Gray or Caridad), I would be all for the deal. I really don't think Colvin is going to end up as a regular with the Cubs.

Ha good luck with that Ben. $6-$7 million with another 3-4 in incentives and a mutual option on a second year sounds about right to me.

From MLBTR: Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times singles out the Cubs and Yankees as "among those interested" in Rocco Baldelli

My son got a hit off of Mulder in HS, which doesn't say much about his pitching ability. I suppose it's a better option than inviting Chad Fox again.

i think the cubs could afford sheets, but his asking price is way too high, especially after coming off of a surgery to the body part where he makes his money and being away from the game for a year. i'd be willing to listen to a 1/6-7 heavy on incentives but 2/14-15 is too risky. but then again if he wants that money we have the gm foolish enough to give him more than he asked for, along with a ntc. I guarantee that if you think he's worth 1/6-7 heavy on incentives, somebody will give him 2/14-15.

I don't think the Cubs can afford Sheets, no matter what happens today. If he's willing to sign a reasonable base/high incentive contract, a dozen teams would jump on that. There are too many teams more desperate than the Cubs for starters so some GM will pay more than he should for Sheets. Unless there's some other reason (he wants to play for the Cubs, he wants to stay in the NL Central, etc.), I can't see him coming here.

Hairston would have been a decent pickup as a 4th OF/platoon.

You want Z to turn into a white guy? :-k