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I'm not giving up, and I would hope Hendry wouldn't, either. I can appreciate a comment like "we can't afford Milton Bradley, or Bobby Abreu". But when a guy like Peavy is available, you make room in your budget, even if it means someone has to go. The rumors that have floated around was that the Cubs could get Dempster AND Peavy, and another one was the Cubs could get Dempster and Randy Johnson. Hendry was quoted directly as still having interest in Peavy, so I'm not going to take much stock in anything Muskat writes on the subject. Where did he say that? AllI saw from him was the "we're keeping our options open and are always looking to improve the club" stuff.

you're going to be really disappointed then. i don't think hendry has enough money to sign 2 of those guys let alone all 3.

of course it would. Lilly is under contract for two more years at 12M each Peavy is under contract for four more years at 8--15--16--17 with a 22/4 club option for 2013 trading Peavy for Lilly straight up, just as a thought experiment, would save us four million this year, while adding three million in fixed costs to next year's payroll. even with the pessimistic assumption that the time value of money is zero, the trade would be a salary wash. since Peavy is a better pitcher than Lilly, the trade would be a performance boost at no (financial) cost. obviously, though, we need to include the value of the prospects we'd lose in the deal as well. start by imagining a quantitative system that assigns dollar values to performance increments above league average (or, if you prefer, above replacement level). now, use that system to calculate the value of the prospects we'd be giving up: first, make predictions about the likely contributions of our prospects to the major league team in 2009 and 2010, the period in which we're directly comparing Peavy and Lilly...then, plug the expected contributions into your dollar evaluator. finally, plug Peavy and Lilly into your calculator in order to get a number for the Peavy-for-Lilly bump. I think you'll find that none of our prospects are likely to make 2009/2010 contributions that exceed the value of the 09-10 Peavy-Lilly bump. if you'll agree to that, then we already have a strong argument for doing the deal, especially since the Cubs are at the peak of the contention cycle and thus should place a strong premium on immediate results. but wait, there's more! given the magnitude of the contracts that baseball's best pitchers have been signing recently, there is plenty of reason to believe that Peavy's contract in the post-2010 time period will be a significant bargain. pitchers like Santana and Sabathia are looking at paydays in excess of 20M/year, and it is not hard to imagine that many major league executives will see Peavy as an equivalently talented pitcher. it is obvious that a Peavy-like talent on the 2009 free agent market would pull in far more than 16/17/22 in the first three years of a new deal, and while the economic downturn might raise questions about baseball's ability to sustain giant contracts, it is hard to imagine that marquee contracts will decline by 20 or 25 percent. so, if you agree to both parts --that the Peavy bump has more immediate value than our prospects, and that Peavy's contract is probably going to remain a bargain after 2010- you've got a great case for pulling the trigger even if Lilly must go as part of the deal...and, really, just one of those two arguments should be enough to convince you I don't know, I'm just worried about 2 things with peavy- how he would perform without getting half his games at Petco and most of his games vs the NL West, and also his injury concerns. I'd ultimately give up Lilly+ for him, but I just have a feeling that it would backfire.

if it's really true that we're out of the Peavy talks then I think it's only a matter of time before a Brian Roberts rumor surfaces

your life is a disgrace

No surprise there yay for paying dempster 52 million for a 4.35 era

i'd rather have the doc than pretty much any other pitcher in baseball

That could be pretty interesting. Damon could interest the Cubs because he is a leadoff hitter. Cubs get Peavy and Damon (Yanks eat 5.5Mil) Yankees get Lilly, Gerut, Wuertz, Cubs prospect Padres get Kennedy, Pie, Hill, Cedeno I wonder if the Yanks would take Fukudome. As a Soriano, Damon, Fukudome OF wouldn't be too great to me. Would it really be worth it to go after Peavy if we had to give up prospects AND Lilly?

i always liked him just because he looks like the dude from office space

Another small note from Gammons yesterday. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3709231&name=gammons_peter

I saw this over on braves-nation.com. The first part of the post doesn't really have to do with Peavy but it's not really worthy of it's own thread so I'll just post it in here. This would be kind of an interesting spin on the Peavy/ATL stuff and might make DonnieD's story make more sense. I read this on another article too. The Braves don't want Peavy's NTC but Peavy doesn't want to give it up. Maybe this is why Peavy told Donnie he wouldn't be going to Atlanta. http://www.braves-nation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13039&page=128

The Cubs are currently the only team in serious negotiations for Peavy. However, due to our lack of pitching prospects, we're trying to get a third (or maybe even fourth) team involved to facilitate a deal. No other team is making a serious bid at Peavy right now though, so we're taking our sweet time getting a deal worked out. It could be a while yet. No, the Braves are back in. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081118&content_id=3683690&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp Edit: Actually, wait a second. That was posted earlier but I think I may have interpreted wrong. He says "we certainly made more progress with them". By "more" is he saying that he made more progress with the Braves since they supposedly dropped out of talks last week, or is he saying that they made more progress with the Braves previously than they have with the Cubs?

Forget it. There is obviously no reasoning with you. Are you joking? Nice copout there. I'll make this simple "Not close to happening" - current tense "Was never close to happening" aka "never got close to happening"- past tense At this time, it was not close to happening. Since we're talking abbut the past, it's now "never was close to happening" Do you really not understand this? It's not my fault you're misinterpreting things and then rolling your eyes when you don't understand basic reading comprehension. The bottom line is that you acted as though the ball is in Hendry's court and all he has to do is "not screw it up" when that is not even close to being true.

How can he screw up something that was never clsoe to happening? Peavy to the Cubs has always been a long shot. You're acting like he could have him right now if he wanted, which is not true. Something that was not close to happening? Let me see..... The Cubs were one of 5 teams that had a chance at Peavy. Then they were one of 4 teams. Then they were one of 3 teams. Then they were one of 2 teams. Then they were one of 1 teams. But, yeah, you're right. It was never close to happening. :roll: Umm, wasn't "not close to happening" an exact quote from Towers multiple times? He just said in that radio interview a couple days ago that the Cubs don't have the pieces and that it would take a 3rd or 4th team, and that it would be very complicated and would take a while. So that is close? Riigghhhhhhhtttt. The fact that the Cubs were one of the few teams talking with Towers about Peavy does in no way mean something was close. Come on. Excuse me. But let's not change your exact quote of "never close to happening" to "not close to happening". When you were the only team bargaining with the Padres, you cannot toss around the term "never close to happening". I really don't see the difference between those 2 different things. If you're interpreting those differently then you're mistaken, I use them both the same way. There is close to happening, and there is not close to happening. "Never" close to happening means simply that it never got the point where it was close to happening. Pretty simple. By you saying "don't screw this up Hendry" you're implying that Hendry has the option of getting Peavy and all he has to do is take care of business, which is not at all true. "Never close to happening" doesn't mean that it couldn't have quickly gotten close to happening. It just never did.

That's true...I remember last offseason he kept saying how the Cubs were after him... only for that to be denied by the Cubs (and other souces) later on. I really wouldn't put too much stock into what Dave Kaplan says. Really at this point I listen to the 2 Bruces and that's it. Mostly Miles but Levine seems pretty accurate too.

Don't use logic with BigBadB. He says that we were close even though it was literally impossible for us to get it done with the players we currently have, so it must be true.

How can he screw up something that was never clsoe to happening? Peavy to the Cubs has always been a long shot. You're acting like he could have him right now if he wanted, which is not true. Something that was not close to happening? Let me see..... The Cubs were one of 5 teams that had a chance at Peavy. Then they were one of 4 teams. Then they were one of 3 teams. Then they were one of 2 teams. Then they were one of 1 teams. But, yeah, you're right. It was never close to happening. :roll: Umm, wasn't "not close to happening" an exact quote from Towers multiple times? He just said in that radio interview a couple days ago that the Cubs don't have the pieces and that it would take a 3rd or 4th team, and that it would be very complicated and would take a while. So that is close? Riigghhhhhhhtttt. The fact that the Cubs were one of the few teams talking with Towers about Peavy does in no way mean something was close. Come on.

How can he screw up something that was never clsoe to happening? Peavy to the Cubs has always been a long shot. You're acting like he could have him right now if he wanted, which is not true.

I think you guys are putting too much stock into the "unforeseen" part. It was probably Dempster or Peavy all along and never both.

I'm not surprised. I had a feeling when Demp got his deal we would be out of the Peavy sweepstakes. I'm a bit disappointed but Hendry can make it up by signing Furcal and Bradley :) No way he could afford both of those guys

lol do you just copy and paste that phrase every time a sports guy says something you don't like? You've used that phrase verbatim like 5 times in the past 2 or 3 weeks.

Maybe Hendry realizes he just wasted most of his spending money on Ryan Dempster. He didn't foresee that happening

No. Teahen can actually play outfield as well as others positions Hoffpauir can't. I don't want him though, unless it's for scraps and he's used as a bench player And the other positions that Teahen plays are positions he won't be playing for the Cubs, thus he really has no more value than a guy we already have that can only play corner outfield positions. Guys who can lay multiple positions always have more value even if those positions are filled. Felixibility is always welcome and needed over the course of a fukll season. My point is that I don't get the comparison between Teahen and Hoffpauir. Hoffpauir is a first baseman and can't play the outfield every day. Teahen can, as well as other positions Hoffpauir can't. How much value does Teahan have playing anywhere other then pitcher with his .715 OPS or 91 OPS+? He has had one year as an acceptable big league hitter. I would hate to see us give up anything good to get him. You're completely missing the point. I'm just saying that I don't get the comparison between him and Hoffpauir. I don't want Teahan. My point about positions was that a guy who can play multiple positions has a bit extra value because you can plug him in late in games after double switches or when guys need a day off, blah blah. The only reason I brought it up was because that's something Hoffpauir is not. I don't want Teahen. Yeah I get that point. I just don't like it the guy who can play multiples can't hit at all and the one who can't can hit a bit. Neifi Perez could play a lot of spots, but I wouldn't want him on my team over Darryl Ward. Again, I wasn't using it to pump up Teahen. I was using it strictly to show how he's different than Hoffpauir. Nobody here is saying they want him.

If that's true nobody should be surprised. Just another reason I hate the Dempster signing.

Suing fans for not cheering, that's a new one. :D I should sue MLB for allowing Florida to still have a baseball team. it's going to blow your mind when you find out they have 2