davearm2

This is an interesting discussion, but at the end of the day none of us (I assume) are privy to the most critical piece of information: exactly how Bradley and his attitude/approach impacted the Cubs' clubhouse dynamic. If most of his teammates liked him or at least could tolerate him, then that would steer the decision in one direction. But if all 24 other guys can't stand him and want nothing more than to see him gone, well then all of this talk of mending fences and making things work etc. is just a lot of wasted bandwidth, because in that event it's completely out of the question.

I can't imagine a torn hamstring suffered in September 09 could keep a guy out for all of 2010. That seems like some pretty wild (and unfounded) speculation.

As I posted earlier, I'm not sure how many teams are going to be involved if they have to give up something of value and pay most of Bradley's contract. I think the "interest" in Bradley comes from the fact that the other GMs know they have all the leverage. The other GMs have seen the stories about Bradley and have read the quotes from Lou and Hendry basically stating that Bradley will be traded because nobody wants him back. When you see the low-payroll Padres are interested, you know teams are looking for a something-for-nothing deal. Actually with all the negative publicity and the national media claiming Hendry will have to eat 80% - 85% of his contract, I'm surprised there aren't 20 teams interested at this point. Right on. If interest in Bradley is high, it's primarily because the (perceived) price is low. And that interest will quickly fizzle to nothing if the price rises much at all. The notion of a bidding war erupting here strikes me as quite a stretch. I expect a handful of teams will make lowball offers, won't budge off of them, and Hendry will have to pick the least awful of them.

I'm aware of the numbers. Like I said, and you just illustrated, there are several better hitting, worse defending options out there. The point remains that the Cubs are not constrained to finding a CF, since Fukudome can do it.

I think the expiration date has passed on Hermida's potential/upside. At this point what you see is what you get: a below avg corner OF, both offensively and defensively. Uggla, I think they'd want a fortune for.

Yep and so is Adam Dunn. It's obvious the defense is going to take a hit compared to Cameron CF - Fukudome RF. That's a given.

Amen to this. The only thing that's certain IMO is that paying Bradley to play elsewhere will ultimately make the Cubs a worse team, no matter which alternative is chosen.

Missed this at first. The reason I'd be ok with Cameron is because I think he'd be a short-term deal, and cheap compared to his skill. Even if Kosuke's defense is marginalized by being in RF, it's still valuable. You're improving your defense in 2 positions by making this move. The alternative(as far as guys that are better hitters than Cameron) has you spending huge money on Bay or Holliday, and I just don't think we'll be able to afford it. It's hard to forecast anything considering ownership, but I'm not comfortable banking on a 30M payroll increase. I guess in the end the good-defense-in-two-spots rationale is the best argument in favor of Cameron. I can think of better hitting, worse defense RFs that would cost something similar to Cameron. Bobby Abreu and Jermaine Dye come to mind in about 30 seconds of thinking. Or Jake Fox of course, for much less $$$.

It's being generous to assume either guy will OPS 800 next year... Fuku because he's been close but never all the way to .800, and Cameron because he'll be 37 years old. It's a wash.

Kosuke doesn't play awesome defense in CF, and costs roughly twice as much as what Cameron will cost. It's not an either or. They're paying Fukudome regardless. Kosuke is capable of playing RF. Obviously. The point is, Cameron's value as a CF is diminished, since they can put Fukudome there. If Bradley's gone, then the Cubs need a new OF. They don't need a new CF specifically.

I assume you guys are looking at UZR scores on fangraphs. They show Fukudome with terrific range as a RF, but terrible range as a CF. That doesn't really pass the smell test for me, especially when the other metrics line up fairly consistently from RF to CF. His speed's the same. His read on balls is probably very nearly the same. The numbers just don't make any logical sense, even considering that CF is a larger area to cover. I'm highly suspicious of the conclusion that Fukudome is average or worse in CF.

Kosuke doesn't play awesome defense in CF, and costs roughly twice as much as what Cameron will cost. It's not an either or. They're paying Fukudome regardless.

Kosuke Fukudome is an .800 OPS center fielder with awesome defense. And he's already under contract.

Not only that, but Valverde may be the biggest ass in the league. Rooting for him would be painful. Seriously. Seeing that lunatic doing his freakshow act in a Cubs uni would be embarrasing.

Actually, no they can't. Since he'd be a free agent the Cubs would not own his rights to be able to trade him. They could re-sign him and trade him after May 1, but they could not trade him in the off-season.If the Cubs offered arbitration and Harden accepted, then the Cubs could trade him during the offseason.

If Rosenthal is right, that tells me two things: a) Harden definitely should be traded today, and b) Hendry's bar is not set at the two draft picks Harden could net, since he's not willing to offer him arb in the first place (a la Kerry Wood).

sigworthy

The reason why more teams don't do what NCCubsFan is suggesting is simple. Because it's not allowed by the CBA. A team can't just walk out on an arbitration commitment for pennies on the dollar because they feel like it, or because they were hoping the player would decline the arb offer. There is a clause in there that allows a team an out in the case where the player demonstrates a significant decline in ability during spring training (or somesuch language). But you've got to have a pretty good argument there, otherwise the Union would grieve the case and the team would lose. The Padres got away with it on an over-the-hill, 35-ish Todd Walker, but even then there was talk that the Union would file a grievance. Good luck trying it with a healthy, late-20s guy who shows up at camp pitching the same as he always has.

He'd make about 3M in arbitration, that seems like a pretty big risk, especially when he'd be more likely to accept on the heels of last offseason with guys like Cruz going unsigned. Agreed. I gotta imagine other teams would avoid Gregg like the plague if he was Type A and had turned down arb. His agent has got to realize this too, one would think. Gregg probably had his heart set on a big multi-year deal, but hey, so did a lot of us. ;)

Any contending team that'd be interested would presumably be thinking, "we'll have him for September and October, then get two picks for him (or keep him)." So right there they ought to be willing to offer more than the value of the two picks. Knowing the Cubs though, they probably want to keep him themselves -- obviously they'll be planning to contend next year and Harden could be a big part of the plan.

Might be because these guys need to pass physicals and the like? Well Okay then, how about two days after the deadline. The case remains that everyone who's paying any sort of attention to this stuff knows which guys you drafted, yet it remains shrouded in mystery which ones actually signed. Not sure why the team wouldn't want to publicize the signings, much the same way college football and basketball programs do on signing day for HS kids. But they don't.

One would think it'd be a simple thing for the Cubs to issue a press release the day after the signing deadline, providing a full listing of their signees (including guys like Jackson that signed weeks ago). In fact I wonder why all teams don't do this as standard operating procedure.

So you're back to, "every game burns the bullpen". Got it. Or wait, was it "every game taxes the bullpen?" I'm sure there's an enormous difference in your head, so I want to be sure to get it straight.

BUT THERE WEREN'T EXTRA INNINGS PUT ON THE BULLPEN. Marshall 2 Grabow 1 Heilman 1 Guzman 0 Marmol 0 Gregg 0 Stevens 0 6 of 7 arms available the following day. That's much closer to a fresh bullpen than a "burned" bullpen. This whole "every inning pitched by any reliever this late in the season is relevant" nonsense has been smacked straight back in your face already, so no need for me to pile on there. And once again you ignore the point An inning that wouldn't have been pitched if the start had avtually gone 6-7 innings= AN EXTRA INNING PITCHED I really don't understand why it's so hard for you to explain. You keep bringing up the "they still could have pitched the next day" stuff over and over again, when that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I don't even care though. My point wasn't to argue this, it was just to point out that you conveniently left out Marshall, because you constantly pick and choose with parts of an argument you want to mention, and then ignore the parts that hurt your argument. Oh well, back to OH to talk up Jim Hendry and act like the Cubs authority Huh? I missed the point? You said, "it's foolish to say that extra innings on relievers arms this late in the season don't matter." I bolded it for you just so you're sure to see it. In response to that mischaracterization, I once again corrected you by pointing out that no extra innings were put on relievers arms in the game we're discussing here. In fact three of the Cubs' best relievers didn't even appear in the game, while two other regulars pitched only one inning each. So where's this crippling overuse you keep harping on?

BUT THERE WEREN'T EXTRA INNINGS PUT ON THE BULLPEN. Marshall 2 Grabow 1 Heilman 1 Guzman 0 Marmol 0 Gregg 0 Stevens 0 6 of 7 arms available the following day. That's much closer to a fresh bullpen than a "burned" bullpen. This whole "every inning pitched by any reliever this late in the season is relevant" nonsense has been smacked straight back in your face already, so no need for me to pile on there.