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Yeah, but not by a ton. Marmol and Marshall both have an xFIP of 2.60 and 2.57, respectively. Ohman's xFIP is 4.37 and then Russell's is 4.64 and Cashner's is 4.97.

Don't they have Kyle Blanks who can play first base? If so, getting a first baseman back wouldn't be a prerequisite for them.

If we could get Gonzalez for Vitters, Wells, J Jackson and a low minors live arm, I'd do it. And I think that could be realistic. Yeah, Zs struggles have been blown way out of proportion this year. He hasn't been good, but he's not bad Carlos Silva or anything.

Gonzalez is younger and better. If I'm going to make a trade for one of the two, I'd rather give more for the franchise player than less for the very good, but old player.

Broncos sign LenDale.

Bears sign Maurice Evans.

If we're going to trade for one of the two, I'd much rather trade for Gonzalez, especially if the Nats' demands are as high as they sound.

I'm not advocating bringing Dunn in at this point. I'm just responding to whether it'd be better to pay more in money or trade the system's equivalent to Gordon Beckham (if that's still their demand). My response is that it's without question to spend more money or not sign him at all. Dunn has said, however, that he doesn't have an interest in DHing long term. He'd be willing to do it if he's traded to an AL contender this year, but doesn't want to do it beyond the year.

If we could just claim him and get him, I have no problem with that, but that's not happening. We'll have to make a trade with them and if their demands don't drop significantly, I'm not considering giving up any of our top young players for Dunn. I'd rather pay more money than save a few bucks and lose Cashner or Castro or Brett Jackson or Vitters.

Interesting column. The NFPs Matt Bowen watched a Bears training camp practice and gives some evaluations of players. Included are Cutler, Hester, Olsen and others.

Would Lee make it that far through waivers? I don't know who needs a first baseman, but I'd think somebody would put a claim in on Lee even if they only needed a bench bat.

As CCP said, our 1st round pick is protected so we'd only lose a second rounder for signing Dunn. Also, the Nats reportedly wanted Gordon Beckham for Dunn, I don't think they're going to take a lesser deal from the Cubs. We'd be looking, probably, at one of Vitters/Castro/B Jackson/Cashner being the key in a trade, I'd think. I'd rather give the second round pick. If the Nats wanted a 2B, it's a shame we got rid of Theriot. =D> =D> =D> Hey, we've still got Fontenot and Baker to give them. Barney too. :D

As CCP said, our 1st round pick is protected so we'd only lose a second rounder for signing Dunn. Also, the Nats reportedly wanted Gordon Beckham for Dunn, I don't think they're going to take a lesser deal from the Cubs. We'd be looking, probably, at one of Vitters/Castro/B Jackson/Cashner being the key in a trade, I'd think. I'd rather give the second round pick.

I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable about that game if you all still had JaMarcus Russell. With Campbell, that could actually be a competent to good offense.

Titans have the Texans or Colts 4 times in the last 6 weeks of the season. That's tough. KC being mixed in there helps a lot. The Titans playing the Colts and Texans is a lot of fun, though. With rare exceptions they're almost always close, competitive, intense games that mean something. I love them.

That's basically my prediction. The first part of our schedule is pretty brutal – v Oakland, v Pitt, @ Giants, v Denver, @ Dallas, @ Jax, v Philly, @ SD. The key to the season will be that stretch. We should beat Oakland, the Roethlisberger-less Steelers and Jacksonville. If we can begin 4-4 or 5-3, we can win 5-6 games in the second half. Inside the division, I'm hoping we can split with the Colts and sweep the Texans and Jags. If we can, we should win 10+ games and make the playoffs. If we drop a game or two to Houston/Jax, we're looking at 8-9 wins – which wouldn't be bad for a fairly young team.

Like I said, I may be wrong here. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I don't pay that much attention to other teams' media members either.

Probably the most confusing team going into this season. I just hope to see them ahead of Houston, its funny to see the Texans fans I know lose to the Titans. We'll probably be a better team this year if we just feed the ball to CJ, but that's not in the best longterm interest of the team. That's a big part of why I'm hoping that VY and Britt (and Nate Washington as well) really step up, so that the coaching staff doesn't feel that they have to give it to CJ 25-30 times a game. And don't worry, I still think as long as we don't start out 0-6 again, we ought to sweep the Texans.

I'm thinking media members, not fans. And it's not so much being upset about firing Hendry, but more finding out why he gave the vote of confidence and then fired him. This happens virtually every year across every sport, and you never hear a peep about it from the media. Nobody cares Maybe not.

I'm thinking media members, not fans. And it's not so much being upset about firing Hendry, but more finding out why he gave the vote of confidence and then fired him.

If he were an established owner, probably not. But with him being a brand new owner, I think questions would come just to find out if he's going to make a habit of it, etc. I don't know how many he'd get – probably not a bunch – but I think there'd be some.

No idea what to expect out of the Titans this year. CJ has set his goal for 2,500 yards (though he'd settle for "just" breaking Eric Dickerson's record), but I really hope Fisher/Dinger spread the carries out a bit more than last year. The talent is there for this to be a playoff team, but guys like Vince, Derrick Morgan, Sen'Derrick Marks, whoever starts at CB across from Finnegan and Kenny Britt will really have to step up and play well. My primary interest this year is seeing if Vince can solidify himself as a very good starting quarterback and if a few of the other guys can step up. If so, this can be a really good team in 2011.

I don't think pandemonium would ensue and there'd be rioting in the streets or anything because Ricketts went back on what he said. I do think he'd have to answer a decent amount of questions wondering why he said Hendry would be back and then went on to fire him. A Cub collapse in the second half would give him a really easy answer to those questions.

Firing Hendry after saying that would be a bad PR move, but a collapse in the second half would remedy that. If the Cubs are awful in the second half, Ricketts could easily say that recent occurences changed the situation and he is acting accordingly. At that point, it's not reneging on his word (even if it was just lip service), it's being pro-active in a changing situation. Purely PR, but you'd like to avoid PR hits if you can.

You're assuming here that GMs never sign players to contracts longer than they want to. I don't think that's accurate at all. I could easily see a deal like Dempster's being one where Hendry hoped he'd be pitching well enough to trade him with a year or two left. The hope is that the player is so good in the first few years of the contract that it makes it worth having that player overpaid (perhaps significantly) late in the deal. Or that you can trade the player while he still has value. Lee signed a small enough monetary deal (for a premiere first baseman) and Aramis was young enough that both could have realistically been expected to produce well enough to justify their contract through the length of the deal. That's the thing, though. Soriano was a desperation move of sorts and I have to think Hendry knew he'd be untradeable. Early in the deal he's got too much left on the deal to trade him, late in the deal he's likely to fall off a cliff. I'm not arguing signing the contract was right, I am saying that since the contract was signed, cutting off some money or a year in a trade for a NTC was a good idea - with the idea that Soriano almost certainly wouldn't be tradeable at any point anyway. Z was almost as much a PR signing as anything. I liked it at the time and still don't dislike the contract. He's still a quality pitcher, though not living up to the pricetag. It's really, really hard to pass up re-signing an elite (at the time) young pitcher who you developed in your own system willing to take a hometown discount. I would argue that even without the NTC, the Cubs shouldn't trade Z because the money left on the deal will lessen the return greatly. Especially considering the reputation he's garnered, he provides far more value to us in the rotation (if they'll put him back there) than he does as trade bait.