Jehrico

Definitely. The bullpen is nowhere near being a disaster or even really a liability. Bullpen pitchers are typically such crapshoots anyway. The Cubs hae a bunch of cheaps guys they can plug in there...sign Wood, boom, done. Even if we sign Wood, there's still too much uncertainty in bullpens from year to year to call it a mess or solid. Wuertz could pitch like a dominant closer, or he could have a year that justifies him getting sent back to AAA, options be damned. We still have to find a replacement for Howry whether or not we keep Wood, and who knows if Wood would make it the year and be that great. Marmol may look like Cy-Young Gagne next year, or he could turn into Latroy when put in that closers spot. Gaudin is prone to hot and cold streaks as well, and I think will also do some starting next year as a 6th man. Hart, Ascanio, Ceda, Cotts, Shark, Gooz are all good enough where they could be outstanding contributors to the pen next year, or any or all of them could suck. Such is the fickle nature of bullpens, and why it's not a good idea to throw alot of money at them. It's better to throw a lot of guys at them, and hope you get a good idea early on who is in for a good season. Either way, I don't support calling the bullpen a "mess," we're potentially in as good of shape or as bad of shape as any other offseason as far as the pen goes in recent history. If anything, we're in good shape, as we have at least one guy who should be the lights-out stopper type. That's a good starting point in and of itself. I'd like to get one more decent BP arm via FA or trade in the 2 million range (or maybe 2 if Wood isn't brought back), as we've got 6 good young candidates to relieve, but I wouldn't count on more than maybe 2-3 of them sticking at most at any given time. I don't count Marshall as a potential BP arm, as I think he's a sure bet to be traded in one deal or another. I don't consider the bullpen to be a concern, especially if they bring back Wood. Just eliminating Howry should make them better. If you have Wood in the fold, here is a list of potential bullpen candidates: Wood Marmol Samardzija Guzman Gaudin Wuertz Cotts Cashner Ceda Veal Leave the bottom three guys in the minors to start the season, and you have a very solid 7 man bullpen. I'm sure another lefty reliever will be on the priority list, since Cotts is the only real threat to break camp with the team at this point. Hopefully, and I think the same, but as with most any bullpens, there's alot of question marks as far as exactly how many innings and/or what kind of performance we can get from Gooz, Wuertz, Cotts, or any of the bottom three guys. We also don't know whether they want to bring Shark back for the pen (at least initially), or if they're going to commit to getting him more starting experience in the minors. If Shark is out of the equation to open the season, Wood isn't brought back, and if any of our injury concerns in the rotation force Gaudin to fill in, then we're nearly out of options if any relievers struggle. We have enough good options in house already to field a good pen, we just need a little more depth.

If only the same could be said for Adam Dunn as well. He will never ever ever ever EVER be a Cub. Ever. Maybe, but for different reasons. Giles will never, ever be a Cub because he would never come to play in the midwest for any team. Dunn would if the Cubs wanted him and made a fair offer and were able to convince him to come here over any other suitors. However, who knows who the next owner will be, and that could open the door to the Cubs taking more of an interest in guys who are in the same mold as Dunn.

Well "could" and "should" are very very different things. Yes they are. That's why I listed them both.

They're building options in house for when they inevitably fire Macha in the middle of their late '09 collapse.

Not necessarily.

I'd put Ibanez at about the center of that list, with McClouth 2nd behind Hawpe. Other than that, I'm on board.

Good article. I even liked the link on the side about the rooster getting arrested. :)

Definitely. The bullpen is nowhere near being a disaster or even really a liability. Bullpen pitchers are typically such crapshoots anyway. The Cubs hae a bunch of cheaps guys they can plug in there...sign Wood, boom, done. Even if we sign Wood, there's still too much uncertainty in bullpens from year to year to call it a mess or solid. Wuertz could pitch like a dominant closer, or he could have a year that justifies him getting sent back to AAA, options be damned. We still have to find a replacement for Howry whether or not we keep Wood, and who knows if Wood would make it the year and be that great. Marmol may look like Cy-Young Gagne next year, or he could turn into Latroy when put in that closers spot. Gaudin is prone to hot and cold streaks as well, and I think will also do some starting next year as a 6th man. Hart, Ascanio, Ceda, Cotts, Shark, Gooz are all good enough where they could be outstanding contributors to the pen next year, or any or all of them could suck. Such is the fickle nature of bullpens, and why it's not a good idea to throw alot of money at them. It's better to throw a lot of guys at them, and hope you get a good idea early on who is in for a good season. Either way, I don't support calling the bullpen a "mess," we're potentially in as good of shape or as bad of shape as any other offseason as far as the pen goes in recent history. If anything, we're in good shape, as we have at least one guy who should be the lights-out stopper type. That's a good starting point in and of itself. I'd like to get one more decent BP arm via FA or trade in the 2 million range (or maybe 2 if Wood isn't brought back), as we've got 6 good young candidates to relieve, but I wouldn't count on more than maybe 2-3 of them sticking at most at any given time. I don't count Marshall as a potential BP arm, as I think he's a sure bet to be traded in one deal or another.

Hopefully this article will prevent there being any future suggestions ever that we should or could somehow acquire Brian Giles, and we'll never see the idea on NSBB again.

Haha. The Mets giving Dempster a big contract sounds like an absolute disaster. let's hope that happens. What's more likely to happen? The Mets... A) Give Ryan Dempster a ridiculous 5 year contract B) Give Francisco Rodriguez a ridiculous 5 year contract C) Give both players ridiculous 5 year contracts I choose C. Anything over what Hendry has already proposed to Demp is overpaying since Dempster can't hack it in pressure situations. I can't imagine him faring any better in NY with the way things have gone over there the last few seasons. He'd have to be nuts to sign with the Mets. I was with you right up until there. Last I recall he couldn't handle 9th inning closer pressure in 2007, You mean when he saved 28 of 31 opps? Yeah yeah...that's the year. The one in which he also lost 7 games and had an ERA of 4.73(and a whip of 1.33). So 6 bad innings of work outweigh 60 innings with a WHIP of .965 and 1.65 ERA? Cause that's what he did in the games he didn't lose. Both arguments are bad. Almost any mediocre reliever is dominant if you leave out the bottom 10% of their outings. The "clutch" stat on Dempster is a bit selective, and it's a small sample size, so the opposite argument holds no water as well.

Surely we can pull this trade off, and then see if some team will take on Marquis for this year without us picking anything up. I don't care if we get a player in return who will never go above AA in his career. Just get his salary off the books. If we give up Shark and Marshall, I'm not too crazy about dumping Marquis for nothing. If Harden and Z or some other combination of two pitchers spend any time on the DL, we'll lose Gaudin from the pen, and be forced to dig for a Glendon Rusch type of pickup to plug the hole. Either that, or throw in Gooz and hope his arm stays attached, or pray for 2007 Hill to emerge from the depths of Lake Michigan. I'm all for going for Peavy, but it'll probably cost us depth. As much as I don't like Marquis, I wouldn't give away the insurance policy he serves as for nothing more than saving some money. It's not like that $7 mil we'll save by dumping him is going to help add depth if we really are also bucking to bring back Demp.

Can't happen on Monday. We're still about 150 pages shy of being able to call this BRTII. Either that, or we need to get busy with this thread.

If he can get Peavy without giving up too much, I'll gladly give him a mulligan on that horrible 2006 trade. He's defintely had more good ones than bad ones, at least when we're talking major trades and not the type of trades no one on either side cares too much about. He did quite well in the minor trades of Todd Walker and Freddie Bynum. I didn't mean to imply he bombs on the small trades, only that he's had mixed results. There have been several good ones, but also had some not so good ones like Cruz for Pratt, Sosa and Farns both for crap, Wellemeyer for nothing, Maddux for Izturdis, anyone for Kendall, all were deals that looked bad when they were made and look anywhere from bad to neutral at best. There's been several other good ones too. On the major trades, he'd be batting 1.000 as far as I'm concerned if he hadn't overpaid for noodle-armed Slappy.

If he can get Peavy without giving up too much, I'll gladly give him a mulligan on that horrible 2006 trade. He's defintely had more good ones than bad ones, at least when we're talking major trades and not the type of trades no one on either side cares too much about.

I wonder if Hendry has another Nomar up his sleeve, because this trade is looking like it could be another one like that.

What does that even mean? It means we've given them a proposal, but are interested in hearing any changes or counterproposals they may have. In other words, we don't want them to make a deal with Atlanta or anyone else without giving us a chance to beat it.

Mark Pawelek and Ryan Harvey Didn't we cut Pawalek? I thought he was gone.

They aren't normally because it's so dependent on the rest of the team. A guy can rack up a ton of RBIs due to having a good team around him, and that doesn't mean he's that good of a hitter. That said, Ibanez has done this in Seattle the last three years. I'm sure Ichiro is a good part of his RBIs, but the rest of that team is pretty bad. It certainly doesn't mean he's better than some of those other hitters, but it is definitely noteworthy when you look at the rest of the team that's around him.

If we erected a fence post in the outfield, then nailed a glove to it, it would get to more balls than Adam Dunn. It would throw about as well as Juan Pierre too.

The same article says that they'll probably exercise Giles 9 mil option...that's surprising, and suggests that the owners aren't putting as much pressure on the GM to slash payroll with their divorce going on.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-03-cubs-chicagonov03,0,5636386.story Does he really want to find one who would jell better with him, or is he setting the stage to buy him out so he can go back to Japan. I know, probably the former, but I can hope, can't I?

Depends on what you need. If you've got a borderline playoff team and need a guy more likely to pull down 50 yd+ TDs any given week, I'd go with Evans. If you've got a solid team and are just looking to get a little more production from WR, Moss is probably the better (more consistant) week-to-week bet.

I had the all-underperforming team this week: Orton, Graham, Lee Evans, Hester, Boldin, Dallas Clark, TB DST, Ryan Longwell. The only guy that didn't underwhelm his projections was Boldin. I'm trailing the other guy by 7, while I've still got Portis to play tonight, and he has Mewelde Moore (ironically, I traded for Willie Parker from this guy, and he wouldn't even have Moore on his roster had I not made that move).

Nick Saban has a philiosophy at Alabama with regards to recruiting and it's the "you shop, we shop" plan. I wonder if Dempster is testing the market, will we see/hear Hendry talking to Kevin Towers sometime this week. Sabans approach apparently works better in the NCAA than the pros.

and a first round pick What percentage of first rounds picks are actually "productive" major league players? If it's not very high, then who cares about losing the first round pick, especially if the guy you are signing is already a "productive" major league player? On the flip side, what percentage of superstars come out of the first round as compared to any other round? I don't like the idea of giving up our first round pick for a reliever. For someone like Dunn, sure, but a middle reliever or a setup man, no.