Same old Hendry and the Cubs, overpaying for crap. Typically, this is what your minor league system is for: not necessarily to produce a star at every position, but to be able to fill out your roster with capable, low-cost players. Yeah, it's great that the Cubs are adding payroll, but Hendry has yet to show any fiscal common sense. These small deals add up. Think about it, you've now got 6.8 million dollars tied up in DeRose/Blanco -- both players coming off career years. Read that again, 6.8 million dollars! For Mark DeRosa and Henry Blanco! Yet Hendry continues to whiff on the big free agents like Carlos Beltran and Rafeal Furcal. When some other team makes the definitive offer, the excuse is always "we didn't want to go that far" or "we weren't going to pay that much." Shyea right. This is why I think it would be almost better for the Cubs to have a 30-40 million dollar payroll. At least then, the Cubs would have to get serious about player development and payroll management. Anything's got to be better than Jim Hendry's annual shopping spree.