Cubswin11

It seems so easy. There has to be more to it, because I can't see why this hasn't been done yet. It could be the two teams weren't exactly close to completing the trade. It just seems too simple to be this hard. Then again, this is the Cubs. And about Cain, what would it take to get him? Obviously less than Peavy but if we still have to give up a lot I'd prefer Peavy. Why would it take less to acquire dirt cheap Matt Cain than to acquire ultra expensive Jake Peavy? Seeing as how the Giants want a middle of the order bat and have a opening at 1B probably Lee+ a prospect or two for Cain. The only problem with that trade is that who plays 1B for us? Hoffpauir probably shouldn't be getting 500+ ab's and the rest of the FA aren't great options Nomar/Millar/Mientkiewicz/Aurillia/Sweeney/Sexson. I suppose we could then sign Dunn to play 1B, but he might not want to play there, has been reported that he wants to stay in the OF, and then there is that whole defense thing...

when kevin hart reaches his 10th start, we're all going to wish he had randy If Kevin Hart even starts more than 10 games in his whole Cubs career I will strongly consider never watching/attending a Cubs game for the rest of my life.

Some guys who are FA after the season that might be available through trade are: Erik Bedard (probably has to start the year with the M's to prove health) Jarrod Washburn (not better than Marsahall really, especially when you consider the $$$) Kevin Millwood Vicente Padillia John Lackey (Highly unlikely, seeing as the Angels will be competing) The only FA I would like us to sign would be Sheets and that would only be if it's a 1 year deal for less than $10 mil. and heavy incentives. Grienke would be great, but they will probably ask a ton. I have to think Hendry has an idea of 2-3 guys who he is considering, it's not that Marshall isn't a capable #5, but you know that Harden/Z are going to miss time. It weakens our team when you can't use Marshall to replace them (as he is in the rotation already) and we would have to use Gaudin/Shark/Guzman (weakening our questionable bullpen) and if Harden or Z are out for an extended period of time we could have a pretty ugly rotation. Especially when you consider Dempster will regress some and Lilly has his moments.

I never really understand why/how this can ever happen. If a player truly is taking something that he doesn't know contains an illegal/banned substance, why wouldn't that player take it to a trainer/doctor/MLBPA and ask them if it was ok to take, before even starting to take it? These suspensions are worth millions to players over misunderstandings so why not take the extra time to make sure what you are taking isn't something illegal? Also why doesn't the MLBPA/MLB figure out a way to put some sort of logo/symbol on supplements/pills/drinks that are legal to use for players? That would seem like the easiest thing to do and then you don't have a language barrier or misunderstanding if MLBPA/MLB has stamped its approval of the supplement. Or tell players if they want to go take some sort supplement/pill or whatever they have to order through the team and then the team checks it out through MLB/MLBPA to make sure it's not banned and then they can proceed to give it to the player.

I wouldn't mind signing him he is easily a top 10 pitcher when healthy, and it seems as though there is zero interest in him right now and he would maybe sign for cheap, 1 year deal, to rebuild value (Kyle Lohse type deal). The only problem I have with sheets is that the last two years down the stretch he has been "hurt" when his team needed him most. Still if we could get him for say $8-$11 mil. for a season it wouldn't be a bad deal.

I think Levine said the other day it will be announced/known no later than early February but possibly the end of January.

Thats very good news, and very smart move by Hendry. Hendry isn't stupid, he is going to just guarantee $30 mil. to a guy with the Injury/Personal/Temper issues Bradley has had in the past. I fully expected a deal to be very incentive laden and have clauses that allowed the Cubs to pay less/get out if he didn't play/reach required innings/games/AB's etc.

Deal could be done tomorrow http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090105&content_id=3733274&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp&partnerId=rss_mlb

I fully expect a trade of some sort within the next few days, we have too many spare parts/guys out of options in Pie, Cedeno, Wuertz, R.Hill, Hart, Gaudin, Vizcaino (assuming Marquis is gone), and Ascanio. Not that we could get much for any of those guys but most of them can be on a 25 man somewhere in the league. Also I know you have to have filler guys but why the **** are Sam Fuld, Justin Berg, and Marcus Mateo on the 40 man? They all scuk. I would also expect Rich Hill to be let go in ST if he can't turn things around there, so that could free up space. I wouldn't. Isn't he out of options? I doubt they put him on the 25 man just to hold onto him if he is still sucking through ST. I didn't think he was, but that would change things. He is and so are Pie, Cedeno and Guzman. Here are some articles that mention it a recent mailbag that talks about it, there was also a mention on MLBTR but the article linked in the story no longer works, and if you go to Hill's player page on Foxsports it says he's out of options. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20081221&content_id=3724917&c_id=chc&affiliateId=comments_pagelink http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/player?statsId=7578 http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/11/cubs-rumors-pea.html

I fully expect a trade of some sort within the next few days, we have too many spare parts/guys out of options in Pie, Cedeno, Wuertz, R.Hill, Hart, Gaudin, Vizcaino (assuming Marquis is gone), and Ascanio. Not that we could get much for any of those guys but most of them can be on a 25 man somewhere in the league. Also I know you have to have filler guys but why the **** are Sam Fuld, Justin Berg, and Marcus Mateo on the 40 man? They all scuk. I would also expect Rich Hill to be let go in ST if he can't turn things around there, so that could free up space. I wouldn't. Isn't he out of options? I doubt they put him on the 25 man just to hold onto him if he is still sucking through ST.

I fully expect a trade of some sort within the next few days, we have too many spare parts/guys out of options in Pie, Cedeno, Wuertz, R.Hill, Hart, Gaudin, Vizcaino (assuming Marquis is gone), and Ascanio. Not that we could get much for any of those guys but most of them can be on a 25 man somewhere in the league. Also I know you have to have filler guys but why the [expletive] are Sam Fuld, Justin Berg, and Marcus Mateo on the 40 man? They all scuk. I would also expect Rich Hill to be let go in ST if he can't turn things around there, so that could free up space.

Bradley has put up his best numbers batting 4th, I would think Lou will put him somewhere 3-5 so here are his numbers in those respective spots 3rd: 281G 1059 AB's .266/.358/.433/.792 51 2B/40 HR 4th: 180G 613 AB's .331/.443/.566/1.009 52 2B/30 HR 5th: 108G 388 AB's .268/.352/.433/.785 18 2B/14 HR I would like to see 3-5 of: Ramirez Bradley Lee

Good signing along the lines of what I was expecting I was hoping it would be more in the 24-27 range but we didn't overpay. I just pray that he can play 110-125 games a season, is that too much to ask for? I would think the Marquis trade will be official tomorrow/Wednesday, and then maybe 1 or 2 more moves (how big I have no idea, but I think we will add some sort of SP and a bench bat).

Burrell for $8 mil. and Ibanez for roughly $10 mil. You have to think Bradley will fall somewhere between $7-9 mil. a year. I will be disappointed in Hendry if he has to go much more than $10-11 per year for him when comparable (more durable) players are going for cheaper. Should be interesting to see what we end up signing Bradley for.

especially no. 2. by the way, if we had drafted wieters, wouldn't peavy be wearing a cub uniform right now? wouldn't wieters for peavy straight up be a pretty fair trade? Probably Weiters+ 2 prospects. Or Weiters could be moving to 1B for us and we could be looking to trade Lee.

http://www.thecubreporter.com/2009/01/03/fleita-afoot I don't think this was posted yet, but Oneri Fleita said it over the weekend and it kind of lends some credence to the Aurilia rumor since he can play 1B, 2B, and 3B (and since we could use another RH bat on the bench). I personally would rather not see Aurilia signed, but his PH splits last year were solid (1023 OPS). http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=aurilri01&year=2008 We won 97 [expletive] games last year. I know we fell on our faces in the playoffs and of course you want to make yourself better everyone offseason, but the moves so far are puzzling. You're going to have to go a long way to convince me that Fontenot/Miles/Aurillia at 2B is going to be more productive (and cost effective) than DeRosa. If we sign Aurillia, him along with already signing Miles, the combined salary will likely be close to if not more than DeRosa's add in the fact Dero likely will be a type A FA and Brian Roberts is a FA after this year the signing of Miles for 2 years( for $2+ mil) is not smart IMO. I don't mind acquiring Gregg to replace Wood, I think they virtually cancel eachother out, but the other stuff so far it seems as though Hendry is making moves just to make Moves Gathright is no better than Pie and we got scraps for Dero (in regards what likely will help us this year, in a win now mode). It would be great to add lefthanded/switchitters to the lineup, but when you downgrade at certain positions just to get more "handiness" in your lineup, you likely won't be a better team than you were in the previous season in the long run. Now I am still not giving up on this offseason as Hendry still might make a trade/signing but as it stands now we aren't as good of a team right now as we were last year.

But he's Gritty? He might be grittier than Theriot. Especially since he's not as good as Theriot. We easily have the grittiest team in the majors this year, our grit factor at SS/2B with Theriot/Fontenot/Miles is unprecedented. So we got that going for us...

But he's Gritty?

Hendry was upset with all of the "leaks" about the Peavy trade speculation, so he probably told Towers to keep any discussions private. I remember an article maybe 2 weeks ago where Towers said that if Peavy was traded nobody would hear about it and it wouldn't be as public as it got at the winter meetings, It's probably somewhere in this thread but I didn't feel like going through 30+ pages trying to find it, I think it was from Yahoo. I find it hard to believe that we had to trade DeRosa and Marquis to get just Bradley and we either needed to find pitchers to replace what we would trade for Peavy or find other pitchers to throw into the deal.

Anybody know anything about Stevens? Wow! almost 2 months goes by without a significant move and now it seems as though Hendry has awoken from his slumber and is on the verge of making multiple moves.

I would be interested in Swisher if the price was right. I have no interest in Matsui he's old, expensive, and breaking down. I would rather have Bradley than Swisher but if we could get Swisher for a Marquis+ deal I would consider it. I wonder if the Yanks would consider a Derosa/Marquis/+ for Cano/Swisher/+ deal? We get a RF and Lefthanded bat, both had down years last year but Swisher/Cano could be solid additions to the lineup.

He can't be any worse than Glenallen Hill. I can guarantee that Dunn won't hit any homers that land on the rooftops across the street. If we sign Dunn for 3+ years I would almost guarantee that over the course of his time with the Cubs he puts one on a rooftop bleacher on Sheffield, or atleast off of one of the buildings across the street on the fly.

I heard that there was a Reds fan who stared directly at Adam Dunn playing first base and he went blind. True Story.

Looking at potential FA after next season, the list is not even as good as this offseason. Carl Crawford could be a FA, but he has an option. Other than him the only good/decent lefthanded bats are Ankiel, Huff, Blalock, Winn, the oft-injured Nick Johnson, and Chad Tracy. Not much there that I would even want Hendry to consider. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/12/2010-mlb-free-a.html

If that was true then they won't be after Bradley and others. They can add salary, just not long term salaries. In other words, they are going to be giving out contracts of 5 or more years There is a difference between bringing on a Peavy sized contract and signing Dunn/Bradley, Peavy would have forced whatever team traded for him to guarantee his option year making his contract 5@78 Dunn or Bradley aren't going to touch that they will be getting 3-4 year deals for $30-48 mil. at the max. One of them, if not both, might even sign for 2@25ish. That way in 2 years when the economy/market is better they can get bigger deals.