Backtobanks

Both of them are non-contenders, broke, and expecting Hendry to give him away and pay his salary. Yep. And guess where Bradley will end up playing? Tampa, Texas or San Diego. Book it. Speaking of Texas, I would still love to see a deal where we get Millwood. I see he's owed $12 million next year and $15 million signing bonus spread over 2011-2015. How about a deal like: Texas gets Bradley + Marshall/Gorz + Atkins/Berg/Stevens Cubs get Millwood + $2 million (2010) + $1.5 million per year (2011-2015) - basically splitting the salary and signing bonus.

Yet two of those teams (Texas and San Diego) have expressed interest in having him back. Both of them are non-contenders, broke, and expecting Hendry to give him away and pay his salary.

You also traded away a guy in Fox who can be useful doing things this team actually need, scoring runs, as opposed to another mediocre arm doing things this team doesn't have that much trouble with. And Miles wasn't brought here to give 170 PAs, part of the problem of having him on the roster was the complete lack of replacement when Ramirez went down. There's an opportunity cost there that is more than just what Miles did. Gray is a 28 year old who wasn't a particularly good minor leaguer and hasn't been a particularly good major leaguer. He's the quintessential dime a dozen bullpen arm. To be honest, Fox was pretty much a dime a dozen slugger who can't hit a slider and can't play defense. When opposing pitchers figured out that Fox was waiting for fastballs, his production went way down.

It will take a miracle for Zambrano to earn his contract. He is at best break even production vs salary now and it is much more likely his value goes down before it goes up. More importantly giving a long contract like that to any pitcher is a bad idea. Fukudome it is still too early to tell but I think that one will work out ok. Everybody complains about long-term contracts, but sometimes you have to offer them or else you'll never sign a FA and you'll lose all of your players to FA. The best that you can hope for is that you catch someone young and productive enough to stay productive through the life of the contract.

But wait, hes a clubhouse cancer, and all his teammates hated him I thought?................. Maybe he got along with Fox. Then again it might not look good for a fringe player to badmouth a team mate the day after being traded.

AMEN!

I'm trying to sift through all of this Hendry-hate to find some logic in some of these posts. Hendry made a mistake in signing Miles, but now we want to criticize him for making a very good trade and dumping Miles because he sent $1 million to the A's? Is it really that complicated? Are you really that blind? I'm not criticizing him for the move. I'm also not applauding him for patching a mistake. Some people got all giddy because he improved the 2006 team, forgetting that the 2006 mess was all his doing in the first place. Some people say he had to go get Soriano because of the complete lack of outfield talent in the system, so they applaud him for that. But the lack of any talent in the outfield was his fault in the first place. Figuring out how to dump Marquis while only paying part of his salary was applauded by many who thought it would be impossible to move Marquis, but he was only in that position because he signed him in the first place. You don't get credit as a GM for putting band aids on your self inflicted wounds. So the only solution is for Hendry never to make a mistake? Hendry is working under a limited budget this year and so far he's cleared some dead weight (Miles, Heilman, Gregg) and saved money while getting some good prospects in return. You don't get credit for putting band aids on self inflicted wounds, but that's better than letting them fester forever.

I'm trying to sift through all of this Hendry-hate to find some logic in some of these posts. Hendry made a mistake in signing Miles, but now we want to criticize him for making a very good trade and dumping Miles because he sent $1 million to the A's? Last year most posters were willing to DFA Miles and eat his whole contract. Hendry got 3 young, cheap players for a player with no position in the NL and Miles and we don't want to give him an ounce of credit for not only correcting a mistake, but turning it into a positive.

I suggested DeJesus awhile ago as a possibility for CF. Not sure what the Royals would want, but Colvin/Fuld + Berg/Stevens + another prospect might pique their interest.

The reason is simple, Hendry didn't sign Polanco. As I've posted often, some posters criticize Hendry for every transaction he makes or doesn't make. Look at the criticism he's getting in the threads about Padilla and Ankiel, even though Bruce pointed out that the rumor about Padilla is false.

I don't place much credence in a press release from the player's agent to a Latin American newspaper which has to be translated into English. This agent must be the Spanish Scott Boras claiming 9 teams are interested.

1. So you wanted him to offer Gregg arbitration? 2. So you wanted to keep Miles? The real offseason hasn't really started yet, but dumping Heilman, Gregg, and Miles looks like addition by subtraction. As for Bradley, I'm sure it won't be pretty, but we'll have to wait and see.

I totally agree with you, but we have to be careful saying something good about Hendry around here.

Why not, he's a future DH in the AL.

That is one of the points some of us have made in the ongoing discussion about why Bradley has to be traded.

Harden made it known that he wanted to stay with the Cubs too.

I think that Hendry's fate will be decided by the 2010 results. If the Cubs win the NL Central, it could go either way. Anything less, he's gone. It might be hard for Ricketts to fire Hendry if the Cubs get into the playoffs and advance past the first round.

I don't think anything is being held up because of Bradley. Hendry will be paying for Bradley whether he is a Cub or a Devil Ray or a Ranger. I wouldn't expect either of those cash strapped teams to pay anymore than 1 or 2m of his 2010 contract, and probably not much more of his 2011 contract. And that's why I think the best scenario is to just keep him. I'm not happy Bradley was a butthead. And I also don't think that Hendry suspending him was the worst thing that could happen to him. Bradley made his wrong and Hendry tried to make it right. That punishment is over now. Cops don't go back to you 6 months later and say "rememeber that speeding ticket I gave you?, well you weren't wearing your seatbelt that day and you had a headlight out and I'm also citing you for a whole host of other reasons." By trading him, the Cubs are making the statement that they made a huge mistake in signing him. A better statement is for the two sides to sit down and work out their differences or at least apologize for allowing this to blow up much bigger than it should have. The punishment of suspending him for the rest of the season fits the crime. Punishing the rest of the team for the next two years by trading one of your more productive players for a lesser player is just stupid. We can agree that the player we get for Bradley won't be as good as Bradley, but I think the discussion about keeping Bradley is moot. Whether it improves the team or not, Hendry can't make an impression on Ricketts by bringing back the exact same team. Also, Hendry knows Bradley having another meltdown in Chicago is a definite possibility (more like a probability). Hendry needs to trade Bradley to see how much money will be left before making other deals. I'm not a Bradley fan, but if your gloom-and-doom prediction (Hendry paying all but $1-2 million for each year) is right, I'll be the first to say we need to keep him. I don't think Ricketts would allow Hendry to pay 90% of Bradley's contract.

The only problem with Bradley being plan B for some teams is that all other Cub moves are based on dumping Bradley first. Also, you know the Boras clients aren't going to get signed too early. While I want Hendry to get the best deal he can for Bradley, I'm not sure anybody wants this to drag out for 3 more months.

Well stated, and on point with what I'm trying to say. Bradley isn't innocent in this, but Hendry inevitably created the zero value market for him by basically saying he wants him gone. That's an open invitation for other teams to offer up their crap, or less than nothing while Jimbo picks up the entire tab. These teams are playing hardball with Jimbo because they can. While I disagree that Hendry created the zero market value for Bradley, he did contribute to it by saying he wants him gone, but don't you think if any team really wanted Bradley they would have made a move by now by offering a half-step above crap knowing Hendry would jump all over it. And who is the biggest loser at the end of the day if a deal doesn't happen? The guy who can't get rid of the guy he really wants gone. Hendry did the same thing with Sosa. He did the same thing with Marquis. He basically killed any potential returns of value by declaring to the world that he hates Milton Bradley and wants him gone by any means possible. As far as no one wanting him because of his attitude, it's pretty amazing that for a guy no one wants somehow keeps signing contracts year after year. Why do they keep doing this? For the same reason so many posters defend him. You look at the stats and ignore the attitude. It's like looking at a swimsuit model and ignoring that she's psycho. Maybe it's because the production Bradley can provide will hopefully outweigh the damage he can do with his mouth.The key word there is "MAYBE" and obviously it hasn't. When it's all said and done, Bradley will be somewhere else, will probably have a productive season and he'll probably do his best to stay out of the spotlightDo you really think he can? after all the crap he created this year and some team will be thrilled that the Cubs are picking up the whole tab to have him play for them. Meanwhile, the crap in a bag that Hendry got in return will be the next person Hendry is desperately trying to get rid of because he got taken to the cleaners on the deal and now some one else is clogging up a roster spot. Rather than continue to make more and more wrongs, just get rid of Hendry and find someone who can realize that trading Bradley is not the only option at this point. Hendry made this bed, so he needs to lie in it. He could have had Raul Ibanez. He could have had Abreu. He could have had a handful of other guys last year, and instead, he chose to go after a guy who had a trainwreck of a history of bad attitude in his portfolio, and yet he chose to give that guy a several year deal. Work it out and move on. You got what you paid for. Don't blow it for everyone else and make the team worse just to make your point. The point was made when he was suspended last year. That was then and this is now. Move on and let's play some frickin' ball. Everybody could have had Ibanez and Abreu, but most GMs passed on them too, so Hendry wasn't the only one. I do agree with your last sentence, move on (by trading Bradley) and let's play some frickin' ball.

That's a pretty huge leap to make. It's more like these other teams aren't run by idiots and realize that they have the Cubs over a barrel. If your conclusion was correct then why would any other team want to trade for him under any circumstance? It's not like a trade that screws over the Cubs magically gives Bradley an attitude adjustment. When talking about a guy like Adam Dunn, astute fans will point out that to gauge his true overall value, one would have to subtract his defensive liability from his offensive production. Some would say the defensive adjustment cancels almost all of the offensive value. Well here with Bradley we have a case where we have to make a sizable deduction for attitude and clubhouse impact, much like the defensive adjustment for Dunn. Right now the trade market is indicating that Bradley's (offense + defense - attitude) yields a value close to zero. And this talk of gamesmanship and teams holding back thinking they have the Cubs over a barrel is folly. If Hendry was asking 50 cents for an asset widely valued at a dollar, then he would have a buyer in a second, lest teams end up kicking themselves for losing out on the opportunity. The truth is, whatever Hendry's asking for Bradley (and by all indications it's very little) is still more than the other 29 teams think he's worth, despite his impressive hitting stats. Disagree. Several teams have expressed interest. Texas being one of those teams and Bradley just played for Texas a year ago. The hold up would appear to be that Hendry created a zero value market for Bradley, but he then wants much more than anyone is willing to give. Basically, he wants others to help pay for his mistake, and apparently not everyone is as dumb as he thinks they are. So who are those "several" teams that have expressed interest. As I've pointed out before, the very few teams that are interested only want him at a price that will justify dealing with his attitude. Those posters who believe that Bradley's attitude isn't the major factor in this trade situation are living in a dream world. Every thread about Bradley is littered with positive stats about his ability and yet nobody wants to trade for him unless we not only give him away, but pay most of his contract too. Just keep repeating "It's not his attitude". :pig:

3 way deal or not, it sure looks like Luis Castillo rears his head once again. So basically, we'll swap Bradley For Burrell, trade Burrell+prospects for Castillo and dish out a few more mil for Marlon Byrd. Or else, just swap Bradley for Burrell, send Burrell to an AL team for mid level prospects and then over pay for Castillo and sign Byrd. In either case, Bravo Hendry. Bravo. In this scenerio, Id be a lot happier just keeping Burrell and bringing in a defensive sub late in games as needed. It looks like getting Castillo is the best of the bad options. Burrell and Guillen are totally useless for the Cubs because they're DHs, so it's a matter of flipping them to the AL. I keep hoping for Hendry to pull a rabbit out of his hat, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. So much for "lots of teams interested in Bradley" discussion we had awhile ago. I think the fine print under the lots of teams interested in Bradley rumor was that they were interested if they could get him for next to nothing with the Cubs eating the majority of the contract. That's the point I kept making in that thread while posters kept insisting that Hendry could get all of these "interested" teams bidding against each other to drive the price up. It has become obvious that nobody wants Bradley unless they can give us a terrible contract or get him for next-to-nothing and have us pay most of his contract. All of the discussion about Bradley's attitude affecting a team seems to be answered by the fact nobody wants a good ML hitter being sold at bargain-basement prices.

3 way deal or not, it sure looks like Luis Castillo rears his head once again. So basically, we'll swap Bradley For Burrell, trade Burrell+prospects for Castillo and dish out a few more mil for Marlon Byrd. Or else, just swap Bradley for Burrell, send Burrell to an AL team for mid level prospects and then over pay for Castillo and sign Byrd. In either case, Bravo Hendry. Bravo. In this scenerio, Id be a lot happier just keeping Burrell and bringing in a defensive sub late in games as needed. It looks like getting Castillo is the best of the bad options. Burrell and Guillen are totally useless for the Cubs because they're DHs, so it's a matter of flipping them to the AL. I keep hoping for Hendry to pull a rabbit out of his hat, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. So much for "lots of teams interested in Bradley" discussion we had awhile ago.

Next week ought to be fun.

Soriano, ARam, and Zambrano have a history of injuries. So, saying the Cubs were over .500 with them being injured doesn't mean much, when it should have been reasonably expected that they would get injured anyway. They are a .500 team if they don't have contingency plans for when players get injured or underperform again. No team can have a contingency plan when they have the number of injuries the Cubs had. If you don't believe me ask the Mets. Last year ARam had 55% of the ABs that he averaged in the last 7 seasons, Soriano had 85% of the ABs that he averaged over the last 3 seasons when he has had "a history of injuries" (before that he played almost every game for quite a few years), and Zambrano pitched 80% of the innings he's averaged the 6 years before. Every team suffers injuries, but when they become excessive the Win-Loss stat is going to suffer. When your "regular" starting lineup is on the field 6-8 times out of 162 games, you aren't going to be a contender. In 2010, there's no reason to think ARam is going to miss half the season, Zambrano will miss 20% of his starts, Soriano will play most of the season on one leg, Dempster will break his toe hopping over the dugout railing, etc.