Jehrico

Pick one for my second RB spot: Frank Gore DeShaun Foster Willie Parker Tatum Bell Cadillac Williams Tashard Choice Then, pick one for Flex: All of the options listed above except for who you recommend for the RB spot above Davone Bess Braylon Edwards Deion Branch Mark Bradley Lotta crap with even potential for good games for two spots... I'm leaning towards Cadillac and Bess right now...

I'm glad it's not a 3 yr deal. Hopefully we can bring back #34 in 2011. [/irrational hope]

Sounds like we could get him cheaper than what some other teams might be looking at if that were the case. :(

Capuano for long-man/sport starter if they trade Marshall and dump Marquis.

Carl Pavano was an average pitcher coming off a career year. Ryan Dempster has Carl Pavano part 2 written all over him. Demp was always a high ceiling prospect, and had started an all-star game before developing elbow problems. He's had a few healthy years since then. Burnett is a much, much better comparison to Pavano than Dempster is.

How long until they refer to him as Burvano? Whinebrenner is showing alot of desparation and he's driving up salaries again. They should contract the Yankees if they're going to start this crap again. Didn't they learn over the last 8 years that you can't buy championships on the FA market?

I wouldn't have minded Hendry making him a similar offer. Maybe he could have gone to the pen for a couple of years and followed in Dempsters footsteps.

I think you're right. Wasn't Peavy's agent the one that referred to what he was asking for comparable to the Herschel Walker deal?

If you mean 7-8 times, then you're probably right. :-))

How do you know that package was ever on the table without Marshall and Marquis+ 5 mil or something like that?

There's a problem with moving Marshall in that deal though. Marquis gets bumped out of the rotation, and based on past experience, won't go to the pen. Plus, they're trying to move his salary, so he's gone regardless. Our rotation would look like Dempster, a former TJ reconstructee; Harden, who could break at any time; Zambrano, who had some arm problems last year; Peavy, who also had arm problems last year; and Lily, who is more or less reliable. If you want to assemble an epic rotation with multiple guys who have some history with arm problems, that's fine. But you better have some decent options to step into rotation, and you better have a strong pen to eat some innings when you can't push your guys over 5 innings regularly. Marshall sounds replacable, but there's really not alot of guys like him available that won't put us in the same salary position that we are in with Marquis. I'm sure Hendry would have done a Marshall for Peavy deal. I'm also sure that Towers wanted a whole lot more than that for Peavy as well.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any updates to this story since Wednesday...

what was that package? I'm talking about the package you referenced when you said "especially when they had a trade in place without giving him (DeRosa) up," and later "we didn't/don't need to get rid of DeRosa to get this deal done." Those quotes clearly imply Hendry should've taken the offer, so I figured you'd know what was in it. The only thing I know about it is that it's been described by the agent as unreasonable, and by the Cubs as a Herschel Walker-type deal. If anyone isn't familiar with the Herschel Walker deal, it was a trade between the Cowboys and Vikings in 1989. The Cowboys came away with something like 4-5 role players and 6 draft picks that they kept (two or three others they traded). It was basically one superstar for a whole bunch of stuff. It's generally regarded as the worst trade ever (or best, depending on your viewpoint) in sports history, and is largely responsible for setting up the dynasty that Dallas had in the 90s. This trade crippled Minnesota for a good decade. If Towers really was looking for a Walker type of package, I'm glad as hell that Hendry backed out.

Plus, if he takes injury factor into account, playing on grass in Wrigley is probably a better bet than playing on turf in Tampa. If you take the injury factor in account, he wouldn't be playing on the turn in Tampa very much at all (DH).

It probably has to do with his asking price and his horrible defense. A) We haveno idea what his asking price is B) His defense isn't worse than most of the other candidates we've been hearing about No, Dunn is a worse defender. The other options are bad too, but Dunn is easily the worse. That said, I still want Dunn over the others. I have no confidence Bradley will be able to play more than 100 games if he's playing defense too.

That's a pretty bold statement to make. In this market, I think DeRo actually has considerable value. If there's 10 teams that are calling about him, I don't think it's far fetched to think he could get something that could help us on his own. He could help alot of different teams.

Relax. The Cubs have the leverage here and it looks like they're using it as they should. Jesus. Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought Hendry is actually playing it smart. Oh geez. Well, not the only one. Definitely in the minority. I was interpreting your stance a little farther out than it was. The constant moaning about this not being done is more frustrating than the fact that it's not done yet.

What did we lose out on last offseason by chasing Roberts though? Roberts was a want, not a need. It didn't cause us to go into ST with a major hole in our lineup. It sure didn't hurt us going into the regular season. If we would have had a major hole that didn't get filled because he played around all off-season, I could see the criticism, but that wasn't the case. He was comfortable that we had a pretty good team without Roberts, but was willing to keep working on any deal that would have improved the club nonetheless. I see nothing wrong with that. The only thing that was lost in that whole scenario was that Hendry wasted time that he could have otherwise spent golfing or eating or something.

Relax. The Cubs have the leverage here and it looks like they're using it as they should. Jesus. Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought Hendry is actually playing it smart.

Who says he can't? He may be willing and able to do just that if he has to in order to do the deal, but it's probably not his most preferred course of action. Everyone is acting like Hendry should have made the deal days ago because they think time is running out. He probably has at least another week or so before Towers will really disengage. He may have all offseason for all we know. Hendry knows what kind of timeline he's working with. There's no reason for him to take a less favorable course of action if he's not pushing a deadline yet that would force his hand. He's got time and he's in the drivers seat. Does everyone here really want him to not keep plugging away at this and not see if he can get a better deal just solely for the purpose of ending the drama? If he did that, he wouldn't be doing his job. Not saying you were one of them necessarily, but lots of folks were pretty furious at MacPhail last year for taking pretty much the same stance you're advocating here. The fury at him was pretty unjustified as well, as all reports basically say he agreed to a fair deal but Angelos changed his mind at the last minute.

What do you know that we don't? You're proclaiming that he can't get it done. It's not like the talks have ended or Peavy is about to get sent to another team instead. All of this rock throwing at Hendry is getting epically stupid. Yeah, let's rag on him for not using all of the time that he knew he had to get as good of a deal as he can before there's any resolution on this situation. Why doesn't everyone that is criticizing him for blowing the Peavy deal actually wait until he blows it? There's plenty of things to criticize Hendry over. His handling of this deal so far is not one of them. As far as I'm concerned, he's playing it exactly as he should. If Towers pull the deal off of the table after he's had an opportunity to accept a deal that is fair, then throw rocks at him. That hasn't happened yet, so all of the complaining isn't justified. If he was quick to the trigger when he's got no competition in this deal, he'd deserve criticism for giving up more than he should have without working it.

If they got Barmes, wouldn't it be easier to put him at short and find a second baseman? It's only speculation that the Padres could get those guys for Marquis. Colorado probably isn't sitting around waiting on Towers. Barmes could be gone by the time this Peavy stuff gets sorted out. Lots of teams are looking for SS help. I missed the part about Hendry loosing on Roberts last year. You know that's an incredibly unfair and inaccurate statement BBB. That was all about Angelos nixing it at the last minute because he waaaay overvalues Roberts, and wouldn't approve of a trade that did anything less than rape us. The only thing that Hendry lost was alot of time and effort that went into coming to an agreement with MacPhail that got trumped. He didn't get Roberts because he haggled too long, he didn't get him because there wasn't a fair deal to be made that Angelos would approve.

Who says he can't? He may be willing and able to do just that if he has to in order to do the deal, but it's probably not his most preferred course of action. Everyone is acting like Hendry should have made the deal days ago because they think time is running out. He probably has at least another week or so before Towers will really disengage. He may have all offseason for all we know. Hendry knows what kind of timeline he's working with. There's no reason for him to take a less favorable course of action if he's not pushing a deadline yet that would force his hand. He's got time and he's in the drivers seat. Does everyone here really want him to not keep plugging away at this and not see if he can get a better deal just solely for the purpose of ending the drama? If he did that, he wouldn't be doing his job. I don't think Hendry has the time that you are suggesting. If Philly and Minnesota get tired of waiting and find other options, Hendry loses the trade resources necessary to facillitate a deal for Peavy. How long should all of these teams remain in a holding pattern? He may have the time, and he may not. It's not like we need Philly and Minny in the deal anyways, we weren't receiving their players. If they bow out, Towers still has to deal Peavy (depending on which reports you believe), and either he has to rework a deal with someone else, or take our players then move them on his own. Maybe his deadline is later today, maybe it's early next week, maybe it's sometime in January. Either way, we don't know what kind of timeline he's really working with, and there was no good reason for him to hurry and pull the trigger the last couple of days. He also probably has a better feel for how interested Minny or Philly really are in DeRosa too. Hendry has shown to be pretty darned good at these kind of deals in the past, I don't think we're going to lose out on Peavy solely because of his indecisiveness. If we don't get Peavy, it'll be because they couldn't come to an agreement on a fair deal, not because of timing.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/35941629.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU Lee (plus cash) + DeRo = Morneau :beg: I like that one.

Who says he can't? He may be willing and able to do just that if he has to in order to do the deal, but it's probably not his most preferred course of action. Everyone is acting like Hendry should have made the deal days ago because they think time is running out. He probably has at least another week or so before Towers will really disengage. He may have all offseason for all we know. Hendry knows what kind of timeline he's working with. There's no reason for him to take a less favorable course of action if he's not pushing a deadline yet that would force his hand. He's got time and he's in the drivers seat. Does everyone here really want him to not keep plugging away at this and not see if he can get a better deal just solely for the purpose of ending the drama? If he did that, he wouldn't be doing his job.