CUBZ99

No, he didn't, but he bought a company that owned the Cubs and that investment plummeted in value, as did his own net worth. You can talk about write-offs all you want, but there is a tremendous financial risk at stake here and some people are without question losing money. Zell's purchase of the Tribune was not your typical case study in major league baseball ownership. He bought a company that happened to own the team, and then tried to flip the team. We have no idea how much Zell valued the Cubs portion of the purchase, nor how much the Cubs were worth when Zell bought them. Everyone knew that the price was going to be high, but until there were actual bidders everything was just speculation. Ownership of a major league baseball team has been very profitable for most of the owners and is generally seen as a safe investment. Not only do they get to depreciate the value of the franchise and retain all of/if not most of the profit every year for the first 15 years, when they do sell they only pay the long term capital gains tax, which is substantially less than income tax. Also, they do enjoy the ability to write-off items for gain, but in the Ricketts case, I don't see how writing off anything would help them considering the amount of depreciation they will be entitled to take.

Dont bet on it. Whoever signs Chapman will likely be paying ace money, which we dont have, and if we did, I wouldnt recomend spending it on such a raw commodity. Judging by the names of the teams involved in the Chapman sweepstakes(Marlins, A's...), I doubt that he is going to receive ace-type money. Some reports say that his contract will be in the Strasburg range.

The Cubs rotation would be pretty pitiful without Z. And even if they made it to the playoffs, they wouldn't have a shut down guy they could go to.

I'm planning on going to Mesa this year during Spring Training and looking for some advice as to hotels, getting tickets to the games, maximizing my time (when do the minor league games start and where are they played, etc.). Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA

Fuld and Colvin are going to have to pray for a miracle to get a chance to start in this organization.

http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2009/12/cubs-may-lose-out-on-capps.html Doesn't sound like Capps is coming to Chicago. I would like Capps, but good to see Hendry exercise some constraint.

Only if its a vote for a Cubs player.

Amazing that any Cub fan would want to go back to the days of always losing again. Trading the core of the current team when they still have a good chance would be ignorant. The farm system is starting to produce again on its own, and the Cubs have absolutely no reason to shed that much payroll in the market they are in. I would much rather perfer that they try to win this year.

I wouldn't mind seeing Capps in the bullpen next year at all.

I think the point of the discussion is that if someone is going to act as the team spokesman, please be someone really good, like Derrek Lee or Aramis Ramirez. That's way better than someone who only has the job because the team doesn't have someone better to play that position. I see your side of it, but I guess I don't think Theriot is intentionally putting himself out there to bash Bradley. He was asked about it and gave his opinion on the situation. I'd figure any Cub being interviewed would get the same question. Now, if Theriot was the one bringing the subject up in interviews, that would be a different story, but you have to know the question is going to be asked, and not just to him. I understand the concerns about Theriot no longer being a "cheap" source of production, but I still think the difference between him and a guy like Blanco (offensively speaking) is still a rather large gap that shouldn't be discarded without any other lineup improvements. It bothers me that a guy that can do no wrong in the eyes of 95% of the public was repeatedly critical of a guy who could do no right in the eyes of 99% of the public. Theriot should be on his knees thankful for the love he gets and shut up about his teammates, and it doesn't help when a teammate willingly calls out a player that is likely to be traded. I'm sure he could have said he didn't want to talk about the Bradley issue, but the quotes in the article are pretty tame and nothing that hasn't been said about Bradley through the media anyways.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/121409-Latest-MLB-buzz Rosenthal thinks Capps is headed to Washington.

Tim, for some reason the message texts on 312sports.com are all in white and you have to click and drag a box over it to read. Is that changed by user settings?

This is why he was non-tendered. Capps' people figured someone would, and he's right. Neal Huntington wouldn't overpay. Offering Arbitration is a guarantee of overpaying. The Pirates & Capps were still talking early this week, although there is no optimism. The media reports state that $5.5MM of the money saved from the Bradley trade could be used this year, so I don't see how Hendry would be able to grossly overpay Capps. Especially considering the Cubs haven't filled their hole in CF yet.

Her articles are all puff pieces. It's PR, not journalism. The fact that it takes effort is meaningless. She works for Cubs.com, what do you expect?

Why does Muskat takes so much grief over writing her articles for Cubs.com? I thought the article was fairly informative, and considering the off season so far, I'm sure it takes some work to get a story together.

Hendry's MO has never been to trade a player at his peak value. In fact, DeRosa, is one of the only situations that I can think of where Hendry did this and DeRosa was moved because of financial reasons. Unfortunately with the Yankees getting Vasquez today, the list of places to trade Z to (and get him to waive his NTC) is likely pretty small. Angels? White Sox? Mets? I can't see many other teams willing to take on an $18MM year contract.

I would rather see the list of those players playing out of their mind and the Cubs 10+ games ahead in the division by the trade deadline. I think too many people are overreacting to the 2009 season. Sure it was a bad season, but I think going into 2009 the Cubs were the clear favorites to win the division. In regard to Theriot, would someone please post or give me a link to all of these things he has been saying about Bradley in the media? I read his interview with Muskat on Cubs.com and don't remember him saying anything terrible about Bradley. Theriot always struck me as the type of guy that would stay out of that type of nonsense. Either way, I think Tim is right. Ideally, the Cubs should be fielding offers for him and finding out what they could get. I'm sure that there is some team that would overvalue him, and give the Cubs a decent return.

It would be funny to see Silva pitching in the AL East.

Oh, and now it is time for Rothschild to use some of his pixie dust and turn Silva into a serviceable pitcher. We all know that a groundball pitcher can excel at Wrigley. :-))

I would have rather kept Bradley, but its easy to say that when I don't have to be on his team or see him every day for 3/4 of the year. According to Bruce's blog, the team gave Hendry a standing ovation when Bradley was suspended from the team and sent home last year at the end of the year. We know for a fact that Lou called him a piece of [expletive] and couldn't stand him. We know for a fact that he got into a heated confrontation with Von Joshua when the Cubs asked him to pinch hit during a game. And we know for a fact that his team disliked him. I think it is easy for us to sit here and say, "get over it" because we don't have to deal with him every day. The way it sounds, the whole team was miserable while he was on it. Now does that give them an excuse or make them a bunch of babies because they wanted him gone? Maybe. But once again, we don't have to deal with it. So it is real easy for us to complain. I think the trade for Silva was terrible, and Hendry has no excuse for his ineptitude, but I think it is clear that Bradley wasn't going to come back.

Yes, the words "Hendry couldn't possibly be that dumb" will never be uttered again.

And just when I thought there was no way that Hendry could possibly get any dumber..... This is the last straw for me. I don't see any benefit at all out of this trade, other than to take a decent hitting OF and turn him into one of the worst pitchers in baseball. Silva is going to have us all begging for Jason Marquis back. Hendry went from looking stubborn regarding Bradley, to looking like an idiot. There is no defending this move.

He's not going to take Mike Fontenot and turn him into Chase Utley or anything, but I think he will help with the hitter's consistency, quickly finding flaws in their swings and adjusting it before it turns into a prolonged slump. Will be interesting to see what he can do with Soriano and Fukudome, 2 hitters that have been known to fall badly away from their swing mechanics from time to time. \ gerald perry and von joshua were already considered among the best hitting coaches. rudy's contribution will be negligible. Considered to be the best hitting coaches by whom? This has been said so frequently on this board that I think people are taking it as the gospel. I find it hard to believe that if they were in fact considered two of the best hitting coaches that they haven't found employment yet. In Von Joshua's case, he ended up going back to the minor league system. I'm sure its possible that Von Joshua loved Des Moines so much that he would rather be there than with a big league club, but it is unlikely.

Reading Bruce's article in the Daily Herald today gives me the impression that Hendry is in no hurry to sign Byrd or any other CF.

Looking at Byrd's stats he doesn't look that bad. .800+ OPS for the last three years at CF? I would take that. Sure he wouldn't be a huge upgrade over Bradley, but considering defense and the fact that Fukudome would move back to RF, I wouldn't be against signing him for a reasonable contract. What makes you think he's gonna have an .800+ OPS outside of Arlington? And crossing into his mid-30's? Wrigley is not necessarily a pitcher's park, and he would have the same hitting coach, whom he seemed to excel under. I'm just saying, it's not like he only put up decent numbers last year. He has put together three solid seasons in a row. I wouldn't pay him Cameron numbers but if Hendry can get him for 5MM a year, I would take him.