Cubswin11

which is why St. Louis was smart to lock him up when they did It also appears to be the trend now with teams and their young budding superstar players. Longoria, Price, Hanley, Braun, Sizemore, etc. Lock them up early and buy out their arby years while they're still developing and reap their peak performance for super cheap. Of course it can always backfire and a player can turn out to be a dud, but it's not like the players mentioned came out of nowhere. I really hope we do something similar with Geo sometime either in the middle or at the end of next season. Lock him up for the long term and for cheap. And I think if Pujols hit the open market right now he'd make A-Rod's contract look like a bargain Pujols is only signed through 2011(option on 2011 but I would think that will be exercised or else it will be 2010). He is only going to be 31/32 when his current deal is up and with the economy likely to be much better/stable by then it's not out of the question he gets a 8+ years for $280+ million. A-Rod was around the same age when he signed his new deal so Pujols has a table setter to base his next deal off of and some team will likely sign him to a A-Rod type deal+ some.

Lee is a FA after 2010, Dunn has told teams though that he isn't willing to sign to play 1B for them and that is a reason he is drawing little interest, maybe things will change in a year or two but I would assume even at 1B he would be well below average and would likely cost us just as many, if not more, runs playing 1B than RF/LF.

abreu is a downright bad option IMO. his power and speed have been disappearing and he's a bad fielder at this point in his career. i don't even know that you'd get better than average production out of him, overall, and you'd have to give him a decent sized contract. if bradley can stay healthy, even 3/4 of the time, i'd definitely go with him. i think he'll be cheaper than dunn and be more productive (because he can be an average defender, whereas dunn is terrible in the field). i think the biggest positive for dunn is that he has always raked in wrigley. That's pretty much my feeling, Abreu outside of Yankee stadium has been mediocre at best and he is only getting older, the days of 100 BB and .850+ OPS' seem to be gone. If I knew Bradley could play 120-135 games I would be all for him, but obviously that is unlikely and knowing that he should get 8-10 mil. a year compared to Dunn at 11-14 I think I may lean towards Dunn if both are looking for the same amount of years, 3-5. There really isn't a perfect guy for the Cubs to have in RF this offseason when you take in all the factors. Abreu is old and declining in most areas of the game and is going to cost $14-16 mil. a year, Bradley is a solid bat when healthy but he doesn't stay healthy and then he has the attitude issues (which may or may not have gotten better in some people's opinions), and then you have Dunn who can murder a ball and would likely hit 50 HR's annually playing half his games in Wrigley he is one of the most patient hitters in baseball and will draw over 100 BB's but he K's a lot (some people don't like it some people don't mind it) and he hits for a low average .230-.250 and he is probably the worst defender of the three.

I think we are close to reaching the point where a lot of the FA/Teams are at a stand still. Guys might not sign until January/February and a lot of players will have to sign for a lot less than what they could have gotten the last few years. Obviously the big name guys will get their money but once we start getting to the second tier guys they might have to settle for less years/money.

Obviously the reports could be wrong, but isn't the only team offering over 195 the Nats at 200? I don't know why he would want to play in Washington, that team is going nowhere fast. It's not like the offers from Bos/LA are that much lower, 175-185 range, and those teams should compete for most of the duration of his contract while the Nationals might only compete for a 2-3 years at best. The Orioles have a better chance of being a competing team in the AL East over the next 8-10 years than the Nats do in the NL East. I guess at the end of the day it all comes down to the $$$

The more I think about it the more I am liking Dunn over Bradley/Abreu, I think we have enough versatility that he could be pulled for defensive replacements late in games when we have a lead. Plus he is the youngest and the most likely to stay healthy and to have continued production over the course of a contract when compared to Bradley/Abreu. My opinion will likely change the first time he doesn't get to a flyball that a 80 year old woman with glaucoma, a hunchback, and a prosthetic leg could get to.

So far nothing groundbreaking - Looking for a Left-handed or Switch-hitting OF - Said they signed Gathright to get more lefthanded/speedy - Hendry likes Dunn wouldn't rule him out with his HR/OBP potential, trying to find the right fit for the OF but realizes he may need to give up defense, but thinks defense was a key to winning last year - Said they are trying to get more lefthanded than righthanded a few times but didn't mention anyone specific -IMO it sounds like there could be more than one Lefthanded bat brought in. Hendry said he hopes that Lou, if he wants to, could have a lineup with 4 or more Lefties in it on a given night

Jimbo is on right now, I'll post if he says anything significant

Would Soriano be able to make the transition to RF or we be better off with Dunn out there? We did nearly go to the WS in 03 with Alou/Sosa in LF/RF, so I don't think Soriano/Dunn manning the corner OF sports would be any worse defensively than those two. I would think we would probably just put Dunn in RF and then in the late innings when we have a lead put Johnson/Pie/Gathright in CF and Fukudome in RF.

Interesting, Dunn is 3rd on my list of FA behind Bradley and Abreu but if he is willing to take less than Bradley/Abreu I wouldn't mind it. IF we would sign Dunn wouldn't it be smart to move Soriano to RF and put Dunn in LF, the defense wouldn't be great either way, but Soriano in RF/Dunn in LF > than Dunn in RF/Soriano in LF.

I wouldn't trade Marquis unless we were getting good value back like a mid/high level prospect or a meaningful/significant piece to the MLB team, or his contract is in the way of signing Bradley/Abreu/Dunn, or to make a trade for Peavy (likely no happening anymore). I would just rather keep Marquis unless 1 of those are the situations. Marquis really isn't that bad and I think we are a better team with Marquis in the rotation and Marshall/Guzman/Samardzija/Gaudin in the bullpen instead of one of those guys starting. Plus Marquis will at least be a type B FA next year and with a good/decent season he could maybe be a type A, Bob Freakin Howry was a Type A this offseason. Unless we could get Hawpe or Street for Marquis+ a player or two, there really isn't anyone on the Rockies that we could realistically get/I am interested in.

If Bradley signs elsewhere I would rather we spend the money on sheets instead of guys like Abreu/Dunn (I know different positions but Sheets improves our team more than those two would IMO). We would have an awesome rotation, we wouldn't have to score that much with Z/Sheets/Lilly/Demp/Harden, and we still have enough prospects/players from not trading for Peavy we could make a trade mid-season for a bat, someone always becomes available.

If we can't sign Bradley, that would mean we would have to spend more for Abreu or bring on Dunn and have to deal with him in the OF all season. Not liking those options.

Apparently they are going to move Kelly Johnson to LF and Furcal is going to play 2B. If Chipper stays healthy and Francouer returns to form and they get some production from a young player or two they could have a real good offense. Their starting rotation is pretty bad though and I don't see how they finish above 3rd if this is the last move they make.

Sounds like we could get him cheaper than what some other teams might be looking at if that were the case. :( The only way I would even consider Dunn is if he came considerably cheaper than has been reported. If Bradley is demanding $10+ mil. a season and 3-4 years, I don't think he will/can but lets say he does, if we could get Dunn for less or around the same price as Bradley I think we would have to consider it as Dunn is younger and more likely to stay healthy, and if it would involve considerable years 4+ he could be moved to 1B after Lee is gone in 2010, I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing however. With all that said I still think Bradley goes for 2@19-22 or 3@24-28 and Dunn will probably go 3@33-36 or 4@44-48.

You guys know that Saito nearly had TJ surgery right? He didn't want to have to rehab almost a year though because of his age, I think 38-39. So he had some experimental procedure done where they injected marrow into his elbow, it had never been done on a pitcher before and even the doctor said he had no idea if it would work/help him out. Just saying that with the perception we don't have too much payroll flexibility, outside of an OF and possibly a SP if Marquis is traded, it probably wouldn't be wise to throw 3+ mil. at a 38-39 year old pitcher on the verge of TJ surgery. Now if he would be willing to sign a minor league deal/be a ST invitee I would be all for it, but I don't know if he ever would agree to do that.

He is coming off his second TJ surgery I don't know if I would want to get involved with that.

Ideally we want the Angels to get Tex right? I thought I remembered reading that if the Angels got Tex they had no interest in Peavy. Yeah that's what they said

The Angels have now offered a 8 year deal to Tex probably for somewhere around 160-180. I know Tex is good and all but committing 8 years and nearly $200 mil. is a lot for one player. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081213&content_id=3716284&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp&partnerId=rss_mlb

Marlins just non-tendered Joe Nelson, he put up pretty good numbers last year and wouldn't be a bad addition to the pen for the right price. http://www.baseball-reference.com/n/nelsojo01.shtml Splits: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=nelsojo01&year=2008

The Mets just traded Schoenweis to the Dbacks for a minor league pitcher, he was rumored to potentially be involved in a Marquis deal. This could either mean that a deal with the Mets might not happen or maybe the Mets could be looking to drop some payroll to make room for Marquis as Schoenweis was due to make $3.6 mil. this year. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20081212&content_id=3715788&vkey=pr_ari&fext=.jsp&c_id=ari&partnerId=rss_mlb

For $1.1 Million http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports_hardball/2008/12/cubs-sign-gaudi.html

The Yankees still really haven't done much so far this offseason that will improve on their record from last year IMO. They lost Mussina and Pettitte and they won 34 games combined, CC/Burnett will likely combine for close to that amount. They lost Abreu/Giambi on offense and have only added Swisher, so they have taken a step down there. It's still the Sox/Rays division to lose.

$2 million is a lot of money, if Gaudin goes out to celebrate tonight hopefully he doesn't slip on any curbs and ah fall onto any dumpsters...

I think both Towers and Hendry came into these negotiations with much different expectations and both thinking they had more leverage: Hendry thinking he could get Peavy for less than he assumed if he took on the remaining contract and Towers expecting to get 6-7 players for Peavy. Now both GM's need to go home, maybe take care of a few in-house things, and come back and re-start the negotiations in a week or so and both sides likely need to come down from their expectations/demands and a deal can still possibly get done.