frostwyrm

For the rotation the only expensive SP I'd add is Zito. The rest of the available funds would go to the offense, which is currently a train wreck. No Kerry Wood for me either. Rotation would be Zambrano Zito Prior Hill musical rookiechair Prior is a question mark, but so are a lot of people we could get.

How about Zito? He's exceeded 210 innings for 6 straight seasons.

I think we're still on the hook for Glendone's $3.25 million, and making Demp go away will probably involve eating two thirds of his contract.

My money's on Piniella because he is the safest possible choice.

"Don't know why the Tigers are batting Neifi 9th tonight. Dude's a #2 hitter if I ever saw one."

Piniella or Brenly would be my guess. Hendry is fighting for his job and will do the safe thing and stick with big names that have won in the past. A GM on the hot seat is not going to take a chance on an unknown manager, and I don't think that's Hendry's style anyway.

I have actually gotten less optimistic. Going into 2006 I thought the Cubs could field a strong contender in 2007 if they fell out of contention quickly and developed young pitchers and dumped some vets at the deadline. Lots of young pitchers got chances this year but other than Hill nobody really showed enough to get me excited for 2007. I was hoping at least one other SP would emerge from the pack, plus a few good relievers. Jerome Williams was a total bust. Cedeno was also disappointing, Pie never made it up the bigs, and Izturis is just depressing to think about. Trading Pierre at the deadline was a no-brainer, but it didn't happen. Hill was the only real bright spot. Theriot is still a question mark. He's good enough to have a hot streak at the MLB level, but so is Neifi Perez.

The thing about Jones is that he was one of the few non-embarrassing moves that Hendry made last offseason, so Hendry will be reluctant to part with him, and also reluctant to antagonize him by announcing a platoon, because that would cause Jones to ask for a trade. I suspect we'll most likely see Jones back in RF again every day and flailing ineptly at left-handed pitching.

I'm very pessimistic about Eyre. I think he's most likely going to stink up the joint in 2007. Howry was pretty good but also very expensive.

In light of their horrible 2nd half, if the Tigers fizzle in the postseason I wonder how secure Leyland will be. A Dusty/Neifi reunion would be so romantic.

I agree, but would expand the idea to cover two more themes I've been harping on since the late 1990s after viewing the model of the Yankees rebuild a dynasty. Building on your bolded thought, what makes the antiquated notions even worse is the habit of starting with a fixed budget. It's the combination of the two that compounds a Pierre trade with a Jones 3 year contract just because it fits a budget, then scrimp elsewhere by starting unproven rookies in critical position on the field and in the order. We must couple a new baseball strategy with a flexible and significantly expanded budget that allows a GM to pull in the right player whenever he's available, or to extend a player when we know he's exactly what conforms to our baseball strategy. Second, it still boggles my mind that the Cubs' ownership can't recognize that any relatively modest increase in payroll ($50M is a drop in the bucket) that would enable sustained exciting, WINNING baseball would reap orders of magnitude increases in revenues for the foreseeable future. Where do get this crap ? When the CUBS traded Sosa to Baltimore, they had to shift approx $20M of his contract from a future period to the present accounting period. This in turn, caused the Tribune Co. to have to restate their financial statements and it literally caused ripples throughout the financial community, and their stock took another hit...... but you tell us that $50M is a drop in the bucket. Geez..... I guess I just don't get it, eh? Just goes to show no good deed goes unpunished. Trib ups the payroll and outspends the rest of the division, fans bitch that the Trib won't outspend the whole NL. If the Trib outpent the whole NL fans would bitch that it's still less than the Yankees spend.

Yep. Dusty's tenure has taught me that most athletes are fundamentally self-interested. Jones will paint the situation as disenchantment over Dusty's departure but we all know he has to be worrying about a platoon.

We could throw another $20M at the payroll but it would be far more cost-effective to eat Hendry's contract and get a better GM.

Allowing Hendry to remain in power is like leaving Karl Dönitz as Führer of Germany. The old regime has been de-legitimized and a self-admittedly incompetent team president gave Hendry his lastest contract. How can Hendry even portray himself as a legit leader anymore?

As recently as mid-August I fully expected Dusty to be back, but then the team went into another major tailspin, which Dusty couldn't afford if he wanted to stay with the Cubs. From a PR standpoint I think it's no longer possible to retain Dusty.

Other than Hill I don't think we have any trade bait good enough to create a package for Willis.

Moving Dempster won't be any huge cause for celebration. It will require eating the bulk of his contract, and that will come straight out of the personnel budget. Unless you can find a GM with the word 'sucker' written on his forehead there won't be any pain-free way to make this type of truly awful contract disappear.

Dusty would be the bestest analyst ever. It's too bad he'll get offers to manage again.

I never got into the Sox-hating thing. I have friends from the south and north side and everybody in the group pulls for all the Chicago teams, but of course I prefer the Cubs.

Regardless of how you want to project Gallagher based on tools/stuff/age, his unimpressive numbers above single-A ball mean his market value is only a fraction of what Crawford's is at the current time.

Just looking at his numbers, what is so great about Gallagher? At AA he has 55 BB in 86 innings, 1.49 WHIP. His K/BB is well under 2. It hardly looks like he's dominating down there. I don't see how he could possibly be a centerpiece of a deal for someone like Crawford.

If you were running the DRays would you accept that deal? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Pierre is a perfect example of someone you don't give a multiyear deal to because his entire skillset is based on speed. If he loses a step he'll be utterly useless, not even worthy of a roster spot.

Not really. The Eyre/Howry deals were largely responsible for inflating the relief market for everybody.

Alfonseca for $4 million?