cubsfan26

I don't think you realize that Hendry is cutting back in the bullpen and trying to be creative so he can upgrade the line-up and possibly the rotation. For years people bashed Hendry for investing too much money in the pen. Now some want him fired because he wouldn't spend 3-5m more on the pen with having Wood over Gregg. This is a bad move, because I don't think Wood would have accepted arbitration, but there was no way I wanted Wood back with Gregg already on the roster. There's only so much money to around, and no more needs to be spent on the bullpen. If Wood accepted, you could either non-tender Gregg on the 12th to ditch his salary or trade him to another team. That's a really easy problem to solve. There's no way we would nontender Gregg after just trading Ceda to get him. We could trade Gregg, and keep Wood, but that will also cost potentially 3-5m more. The way I look at it is the combo of dumping a chunk of Marquis salary and that 3-5m could fit Peavy or a good hitting RF in our budget for 09. I think the impact of Peavy over Marquis or Bradley/Abreu/Ibanez over Hoffpauir/Fontenot in RF is greater. Then having an inning of Wood for 60-70 games instead of Kevin Gregg.

I don't think you realize that Hendry is cutting back in the bullpen and trying to be creative so he can upgrade the line-up and possibly the rotation. For years people bashed Hendry for investing too much money in the pen. Now some want him fired because he wouldn't spend 3-5m more on the pen with having Wood over Gregg. This is a bad move, because I don't think Wood would have accepted arbitration, but there was no way I wanted Wood back with Gregg already on the roster. There's only so much money to around, and no more needs to be spent on the bullpen.

This is a poor move, but people are really overreacting. This move alone shouldn't take their opinion of Hendry from doing a good/decent job to being fired. We all know the move was made to save money, so we can improve other parts of the team. So if Hendry goes out and adds say Peavy and Milton Bradley, then everybody will love Hendry again. But if course if Hendry for some reason decides to his this money on a crap middle infielder or another reliever, then I can understand people jumping on the fire Hendry bandwagon. But this move alone shouldn't make people jump ship.

I haven't heard anything about the Cubs being interested in a crap middle infielder. From everything I heard the rest of our payroll is going towards RF or Jack Peavy. That 3m plus saved on Wood mixed with dumping a chunk of Marquis contract could fit Peavy in our budget. It's a bad move letting Wood go for nothing, but lets not go overboard and overreact. Because I don't see Hendry wasting that 3m on say Mark Loretta or anything like that. The fact that were doing this, and trying to cut back on the bench with letting Blanco go. Shows me that we're cutting back in the pen and bench, so we can improve the line-up or rotation.

It sucks but its defensible. We really just don't have the unlimited budget we had in previous offseasons, or at least until we get an owner. Hopefully this owner crap will be resolved sooner rather than later. But at least we have Soriano! It's not defensible when it's a ~3M difference between Wood and the mediocre closer you acquired for no damn reason. Well if we didn't have Gregg already on the roster, I would agree. But I still believe that Wood wasn't willing to agree to a one year deal when the Cubs made the trade. It's still a crappy move though, because you could have always traded Gregg again, and there's probably a pretty good chance that Wood still signs elsewhere.

Crappy move by Hendry, I guess thats what I get for defending him earlier today. I guess either we will have less money then we thought we would have, and there wasn't much of a market for Wood.

If Gregg was deemed the replacement for Wood upon his trade to the Cubs, couldn't they just non-tender him if Wood accepts arbitration, freeing up a chunk of the money that it would require to sign Wood? We lose Ceda for nothing, but we would be left with a much, much better option (Wood) than the one we have now (Gregg). Unfortunately, I can't see this actually happening, but how close does the amount that Gregg would make in arbitration come to what Wood would make? $4 million? Is that enough to scare the Cubs away from offering Wood arbitration? They wouldn't nontender Gregg because he has too much value to just dump him. They can trade him and get something good in return. If Wood did accept arb. I think the Cubs could hold on to Gregg and trade him before opening day and probably get more then Ceda.

There's no way Abreu or Ibanez get anything close to 20m annually. The Cubs will probably try to offer them both somewere between 9-11m per season at 2 or 3 years tops. How about 3 games against the D-backs in 2007, plus 3 games against the Dodgers in 2008. Watching the Cubs AB's in 2008 was looking watching a reply of 2007. There's a problem here, and it won't just go away. In 5 playoff games in the last two years against RH pitching the Cubs haven't scored more then 2 runs in a game. History tells us that it's very hard to win a World Series without productive LH or switch hitter in your line-up. Having a balanced RH/LH line-up makes it tougher for a pitcher to excute his pitches and makes him less likely to get in a groove. The Cubs offense was one of the best in baseball last year number wise, but that doesn't mean it didn't have flaws. Yes we pounded the Pirates and other bad pitching, but how did we hit against the Dodgers or even Phililes starters in the regular season? In 2007 we pounded the bad pitchers less, but still had the same issues against the D-backs pitching in the regular season as we did in the postseason. Adding a productive LH bat, won't solve all our problems, but it could help.

Gregg Sucks even compared to Howry. And Hendry is not a good GM. http://www.fangraphs.com/comparison.aspx?playerid=1793&playerid2=237&playerid3=&position=P&page=3&type=full so K/BB is the best way to judge pitchers now? I missed the memo You miss a lot of things. It's one of the more important stats when judging a relief pitchers. However, Howry's been better than Gregg in almost every category save for last year. I don't like Howry, but Gregg is terrible. Howry was a good pitcher before last season, but he no longer can throw 95 plus. I don't think you realize how much GM's value ERA and saves. I'm not saying I agree with it, but thats now things work in baseball. The Hendry is a bad GM stuff is just stupid, name me the last GM who's won 3 division titles in his first 6 years? Or worse signings are guys like Glendon Rusch and Neifi Perez. We could do alot worse then Hendry, and he's far from a terrible GM or even one of the worse in the league. Anybody who thinks Hendry is terrible wouldn't be happy with any GM.

No the Cubs couldn't. Gregg sucks ass. Nobody is going to give a quality prospect to get him except Hendry. I bet we would both be amazed at the number of GM's that consider Gregg to be a valuable commodity simply based upon the fact that he had 29(or so) saves last year. I have no doubt Hendry could get value for Gregg, the question would be, why would he want to? He just traded value for the guy, and 2008 Gregg is definitely an upgrade from 2008 Howry, at approximately the same price. It was mentioned in the Peavy trade thread that Hendry believes the Cubs have a two year window to win. I have no issues with him going all out in attempt to win everything now. Kevin Gregg sucks. He's not an upgrade. When he starts walking people Lou won't use him and the Cubs will have another 7 man relief staff, of which 3 or 4 will be used regularly. All Gregg does is move Marmol from a high % of important innings to "closer", b/c Gregg won't be closing games for the Cubs. Haha, If you don't think guys who will only make 4-5m(will most likely be a Type A free agent), who's saved 61 of 74 games with a 3.48 era over the last two years have good value around the league. Then I don't think you really know what you're talking about. Gregg could also have more value later in the offseason(when the free agent closers are off the market) for a team desperate for a closer, or during the season. If you think Gregg sucks ass, thats fine, but that doesn't mean a GM wouldn't give up a prospect just as good as Ceda or better for him. I think you're really overlooking how most GM's value saves and ERA.

Yeah when Towers pretty much said the Cubs are still in on Peavy, I didn't believe Lou comments. Who knows maybe Hendry is keeping Lou out of the loop more this offseason, compared to other years. Lou keeps talking about adding LH hitting, but there hasn't really been any serious rumors about the Cubs targetting one guy. Yet the Cubs are pretty much the only team in the Peavy talks right now. If the Dodgers get in on the Peavy talks we could have a problem though, since Peavy did say that the Dodgers were his first choice. But I doubt Towers would wanna trade him within the division, and if he did the asking price would be much higher.

I hope he DOES offer. Regardless, he is a poor MLB GM. We all know your opinion, you mention it every chance you get. But many no longer agree with you, and have reasons not to. Obviously you have it set in your mind that Hendry sucks, and even if he traded Koyle Hill for Pujols tomorrow he still would be a poor MLB GM in you're eyes.

I find it really funny, that your hoping Hendry doesn't offer him arb. so you can have a reason to bash him. It's not healthy when your hoping that the GM makes a poor move, just so you can go on a rant about how much he sucks. Personally I'm pretty confident that we will offer Wood arbiration. Just because I feel Hendry/Wood are so close, that Wood wouldn't accept it if he knew Hendry didn't want him to. Plus it's not like Wood won't be able to get a 1y 9-10 or a 2y 18m deal from some team this offseason. Even if Wood did for some reason accept it, we could always trade Kevin Gregg for another quality prospect later in the offseason.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/11/30/sportsextra/doc493340a8b95b4081405268.txt - Dave Van Dyck of the Chicago Tribune I don't believe this is true, but it's interesting. I imagine Marshall is a main part of any package for Peavy. I'm sure the Cubs aren't looking to trade either guy, and probably aren't offering them in many deals. But I doubt the Cubs would not being willing to trade either, if they can get a quality players in return.

The Cubs aren't looking just to dump Lee salary. If their going to trade him, they probably are getting a pretty decent package in return. So if they get a strong offer that allows them to get good talent in return, and save money they would listen. I still would be shocked if Lee is traded though, the combo of his no-trade clause with getting something of good value in return is hard to pull off. Lee will probably only accept a deal to a team that has a chance to win and plays on the west coast.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Royals want Marquis, adding a proven big league starter to the bottom of their rotation could help them. Remember the Royals gave Brett Tomko a 1y-3m deal a year ago, for a simliar reason. So taking Marquis at 1y,6m(after the Cubs eat some salary), doesn't seem that unrealistic. But I don't see the Cubs getting much in return, let alone DeJesus.

http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showthread.php?t=297233&page=38 That deal sounds too good to be true, if the Padres were getting Vitters instead of Cedeno or Akins/Marshall I might believe this rumor. I don't see the Padres giving up 3 potential mid to bottom of the rotation starters and a guy who so far looks like a back up shortstop for Peavy.

Dude, don't even try to compare Scott to Griffey and Garrett Anderson. He is significantly better than them and much more than just a "minor" upgrade, even if those guys don't decline more. Ok well maybe I can agree with Anderson. But by looking at Griffey numbers, their not really that far off from Scott over the last two years. Griffey 07-277/372/868 08-249/353/778 Scott 07-255/351/855(only 369 AB's) 08-257/336/808 I don't think Scott is that much better were I would give up good talent for him. Scott is ideally a platoon player, and I think Griffey can still hit RH pitching. Griffey hit 272/379/841 against RH pitching last year and 300/402/942 aganst RH pitching in 07. His overall numbers weren't as good because he hit 236/317/736 in 191 AB's in 07 and 202/299/649 in 169 AB's against LH pitching. If you give Scott 169 and 191 AB's against LH pitching his numbers probably wouldn't be as good as Griffey. But like I said before my fear is Griffey would drop off even more next year.

I'm not a big fan of Scott, I think he might only be a minor upgrade over older guys like Edmonds, Griffey or Garrett Anderson. But thats basically because I have concern that those guys could decline even more. If you play Scott in 150 games I think he's more of a 780-800 OPS. Since he doesn't hit LH pitching all that well, and if you give him a 100 plus AB's against LH pitching his numbers will drop off some. But if you platoon him(simliar to Edmonds) in RF he wouldn't be a bad option at all. I just think there are better options, or you can find the same type of player at a cheaper cost. Because with the way MacPhail is I'm sure he wants something of pretty good value in return for Scott.

From looking up information on Olson, it doesn't seem like this guy was a highly thought of prospect. The last two years he was ranked in the middle of the pack of Orioles prospects and was said to be a good to average prospect. Then last year he went 9-10, with a 6.65 era in 26 starts. Even if this guy figures it out, it sounds like he's going to be more of a middle rotation guy, and doesn't have the 1-2 starter potential Towers is probably looking for. So I can understand the Orioles interested in swapping Olson to take a chance on Pie. But I don't understand why Towers would be so high on Olson. Maybe he see something that others around the league don't see.(since he tried to trade for him last week)

I wouldn't mind adding Shouse, but I rather not give him a two year deal. Plus I wouldn't wanna spend more then 2m on Shouse, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's asking for 3-3.5m.

Not to mention Towers pretty much came out and said the Cubs don't have the prospects to get a deal done right now and will have to add a third team. So it's not really up to the Cubs, to add these live bodies to get a deal done. The Cubs need to find a team that has prospects the Padres like, and are willing to trade them to us for some of our prospects that the Padres don't like that much. Which I feel is gonna be pretty hard to pull off, because who's gonna wanna give up good prospects for our average ones? So IMO if were gonna get a deal done, were gonna have to trade DeRosa or Theriot, and get a good pitching prospect in return to send with Vitters, Pie, and Marshall.

He should be fired for being cautious with a firm budget? Among other reasons, he should be fired for painting himself into a corner by spending like Mack the Knife. You're hate for Jim Hendry is just unhealthy. How about we wait and see what happens, before people start freaking out about what might or might not happen. Bruce Miles just said last week that the Cubs will probably offer Wood arb. So now there's a rumor saying their unsure? Fans really need to stop bashing the GM(whoever he is) on rumors, if he makes good or bad move feel free to give your opinion. But it's pointless to start bashing the GM, over potential rumors.

I think that's referring more to how they handle RF than anything else. If they don't get an upgrade, DeRosa stands to play there quite a bit, freeing up more time for Fontenot at 2B. If they land someone like Hermida or Bradley, then Fontenot would need to take some reps at SS in order to get similar or increased playing time. Yeah it makes sense, if the Cubs get a good RF who plays alot. That means DeRosa is going to get alot less starts in RF, and he will end up at 2b alot. So if we wanna get Fontenot AB's he's probably gonna have to do it between 2b and SS. I'm sure DeRosa and Theriot will still end up with around 500 AB's, but a guy like Cedeno could get even less AB's. Which could be a sign that Cedeno will be traded, and we could add veteran shortstop for defense.

I wouldn't be concerned over this rumor, and can't believe some are actually bashing Hendry like the deal is done. As for Teahan from everything I heard the guy is way down the Cubs list of potential options for RF. We will probably go after free agents in Bradley, Ibanez and maybe Abreu first. Or try to trade for Hermida, Ryan Church, Luke Scott and maybe even Randy Winn. If we fail to get all of those guys, then Mark Teahan probably comes on our radar. But even if we do trade for Teahan it's alot more likely to be for Fontenot or Cedeno with a guy like Kevin Hart or Randy Wells. I'd be shocked to see Marshall traded in any deal for Teahan.