thecubsfan.com

I need to write about the trip, still, but this is quicker and those photos are someplace else.

Locks That We Knew Going Into Camp and I Really Can Stop Mentioning,

01 SS Theriot
02 RF The Fuk
03 1B D Lee
04 3B A Ram
05 CF Byrd
06 LF Soriano
07 CA Soto
08 2B Fontenot

09 SP Dempster
10 SP Z
11 SP Wells – not that you would’ve known it today.

12 CL Marmol
13 RP Grabow

14 ?P Marshall – the position is another argument…
15 ?P Gorz – …and no one seems to have the first clue…
16 ?P Silva – …on even who’s leading here…

17 CA Hill
18 2B Baker

And I think that’s it, at least coming in. There’s three more who had/have hopes of being included

possible opening day Disabled List!

DL SP Ted Lilly – this one keeps bouncing back and forth like a metronome. Even best case, it makes since for him to start on the DL and get the extra warmup starts, since they may only need four starters anyway.

19 PH Xavier Nady – I don’t like the idea of an OF who can’t throw until June; doesn’t really work at most any position, but since the idea here was to platoon him with Fukudome, that’s not very helpful. I’d start him on the DL until he can at least do something, but Lou brushed off that idea.

DL RP Angel Guzman – :( At least he got one good season. I’ll be shocked to ever see him pitch in the ML again.

Up four grabs

That still leaves 6 spots, and four of those are in the bullpen. One of those jobs is already accounted for:

20 RP Esmalin Caridad – already know how this one plays out. He’s got a live arm, so Lou will be thrilled to give him a shot. He’s got a walking problem, so Lou will bury him deep in the pen. This is your anointed setup man!

I’ll get back to pitching in a couple spots, but the bench is easier to finish out

21 OF (who can back up all three) – this was clearly supposed to be Sam Fuld coming into the season, but he might have had it snaked from him. Tyler Colvin does not have the positionally flexibility (he’s really more of a corner guy) but has been killing the ball and has that 1st round draft pick tag. James Adduci has hit a little less, but still really good and offers more defense. Colvin’s thought of a prospect (though I doubt he’ll be much more than he is at this point), but Adduci isn’t really and it’s not as though the Cubs would be risking a great upside by having him sit on the bench 6 days out of 7. No idea how this is turning out.

22 ?? – This spot is supposed to be backup shortstop, which means it’d be Andres Blanco, but he’s been hurt a week. It was never going to be Starlin Castro…but now it seems like it actually may be some other position entirely.

Bringing in Chad Tracy and Kevin Millar on NRIs never made much since, because there really wasn’t going to be a spot for them on the 25. That math changes if Fontenot can actually play a little SS – there’s no need for the fourth guy, and there’s room for an extra 1B/3B type. (As I’ve pointed out too many times, this is why they shouldn’t have bothered to keep Fontenot, but he’s hitting good so I should lay off.) If this spot exists, it looks like it’s Millar over Tracy, with Hoffpauir and LeHair trailing far behind. I don’t know that any of them will actually hit when the calendar turns to April, but the bench could use one more hitter so it’s worth trying.

The thing is, Fontenot has played all of four innings of SS. Maybe he’s been putting in a lot of work on the back fields, or maybe that was enough for Lou, but I’m not so convinced this plan is actually happening.

And all of that was easier than the last three bullpen spots.

23 + 24 + 25 RP (or maybe starter?)

Gorz and Marshall probably won’t make the rotation, or at least won’t be there for long, so there’s no specific need for a LHP over a RHP. Past that? Who knows. Everyone left who’s pitched, minus those not on the 40 man roster, and those cut already

• RHP M Parisi – Rule 5 pick, seemed to be here as a starter not at all (and definitely won’t be hid like Patton last year); has been good in short stints
• RHP J Samardzija – coming in, the idea seemed to be start in ML or AAA with no chance of bullpen; does Guzman’s injury change that? Has been hit hard and not looked good.
• LHP J Gaub – on the fringe of the bullpen coming in, has pitched good
• RHP M Mateo – not this year and lit up
• RHP J Stevens – probably had a spot at the start, but has been hit hard, who knows
• RHP J Berg – like Guab, but with a win and a save
• RHP B Parker – not this year and lit up
• RHP B Schlitter – not the year and OK

If you based it on just Spring Training, which is both dumb and what will probably happen, it’s clearly Parisi, Guab and Berg as the last three, with Stevens and Samardzija on the perphiary. But there’s still plenty of innings to change things.

“Rey Bucanero”, Right Wing, Sniper.
Think I scored 1 goal and picked up an assist in the prospects game. Was drafted 7th (?) by the Dallas Stars. Spent most of the first half of the season on the Texas Stars (least creative team name ever, and there sure are a lot of AHL teams in Texas.)

Stats:

AHL: 34 GP, 28 Goals, 6 Assists (34 points), 37 PIM, +24
NHL: 45 GP, 34 Goals, 14 Assists (48 points), 34 PIM, +20

Notes

• Played all 81 games myself (missed 1 game due to promotion)
• The (18 year old) player rating started at 74, and has only moved up thru equipment bonuses. There’s no way I should’ve scored 62 goals and 82 points with a 74 guy. Need to bump up difficulty (at Pro now) …may wait until after playoffs
• Ended regular season with 4th most points and 1st in goals on Dallas, despite playing 40 less games. Not coincidentally, took twice as many shots than anyone else, again despite playing 40 fewer games. I’m a black hole and would need to fix this if I ever played a team game online.
• Not coincidentally, the only Season Expectation I missed was assists (supposed to have gotten 28)
• Something between 15-20 of those goals were empty net goals at end of the games.
• Led the NHL in goals by rookie, but finished 17 points out of first place
• When promoted to Dallas on a permanent basis, they were around 13th in Western Conference. They’ll go into the playoffs as the #1 seed. Again, difficulty needs to be slightly adjusted…

Still can’t make a shootout goal to save my life. At least that’s not a big deal in the playoffs!

If Xavier Nady’s 2010 is 85% of Xavier Nady’s 2008, it gives the Cubs a much improved backup at the corner outfield positions and first base. It pushes Micah Hoffpauir off the team, but Micah had really pushed himself off the team with his 2009 struggles.

The concerns are

• everyone’s been very careful to say Nady MAY be ready to start the season, and may not be.
• the 2008 season might have been fluke

     OBP SLG
2005 321 439 (Padres)
2006 337 453 (Mets/Pirates - of course the SLG is going up)
2007 330 476 (Pirates)
2008 357 510 (Pirates/Yankees)

The 25 point jump in OBP would be great if he could sustain it, but a good portion of that seems to be BABIP increases that aren’t likely to be kept. And the big leap in power is a bit amazing and probably not going to stay that way.

It’s a bit of a risk/reward play, but this team needs to take some risks and have them work out if they’re going to be competitive this year. If he doesn’t come all the way back, he’s either an average backup outfielder or someone who can easily be pushed aside for a Colvin or Hoffpauir or someone else. If Nady can hit like 2008, the Cubs have a great option for when the starting outfielders inevitably go cold.

Signing Nady officially ended Reed Johnson’s time with the Cubs. It’s no surprise, and seemed to be headed that way at the end of the season. His teammates all love him, but he’s 33 and breaking down physically. Aside the foot injury that kept him out most of has last season, he’s got back issues and all sorts of other minor issues from a career of running out every ball and getting hit by many pitches. Reed can still hit lefties if he’s healthy, but the Cubs were hampered by too many people being question marks each day (Milton being gone helps here) and they have a lot of younger/cheaper options.

Reed will probably be okay for the Dodgers; he’ll be able to handle the pinch hitting/defensive replacement/occasional starter role. He probably just isn’t a good bet for the 300 PA spot that Nady’s filling for the Cubs.

Still wish the Cubs would get an actual backup option for 3rd (or a better option for 2B, but that seems unlikely.) It does sound like they’re out of money and will have to get lucky on an NRI panning out, so this team is pretty much set:

RF Fukudome
SS Theriot
1B Lee
3B A Ram
CF Byrd
LF Soriano
2B Baker/Fontenot
CA Soto

CA Hill
OF/1B Nady
2B Fontenot/Baker
SS Blanco
OF Fuld

SP Z
SP Lilly (DL)
SP Dempster
SP Wells
SP Gorz

RP Marmol
RP Guzman
RP Grabow
RP Marshall
RP Silva
RP Stevens
RP Caridad

with Castro and a whole host of pitchers looming as possibilities to steal a spot.

Is back up. Has been up for a while but I didn’t remember to put a post here. Sorry!

Just because it’s been bumped down quite a few posts by now, here’s the full episode list again:

63B: THE END [Part 2] (09/07)
63A: THE END [Part 1] (09/07)
62: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 2] (08/21)
61: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 1] (08/15)
60: Naylor and Bix [ICW/IWCCW] (07/27)
59: Mike Quackenbush [CHIKARA] (07/17)
58: Bryan Alvarez [f4w] (07/14)
57: Tanvir Raquib [Rap & Wrestling] (06/21)
56: Rob Naylor [everything] (06/14)
55: Mike Sempervive [japan] (05/30)
54: Matt Foy [ROH] (05/16)
53: Alex Koslov & thecubsfan [lucha] (05/13)
52: Justin Shapiro [the condemned] (05/06)
51: Dr. Keith Lipinski [everything] (05/02)
50: party time (04/22)
49: Rob Naylor & Bix [GWF] (04/11)
48: Dean Rasmussen [everything] (03/31)
47: Phil Schneider [Best of Japan Indies Results and more] (03/26)
46: Justin Shapiro & Matt Foy [WrestleMania, XI-XXIII] (03/22)
45: Justin Shapiro & Matt Foy [WrestleMania, I-X] (03/17)
44: Chris McLeod, Chris Dempsey, Alan Counihan, Kelvin Cabrerra, Llakor, Kid Zombie and Hobbes [potpourri!] (03/14)
43: Rob Naylor [everything] (03/07)
42: Mike Coughlin [MMA] (02/27)
41: Matt Foy [ROH] (02/21)
40: Mike Quackenbush [CHIKARA] (02/14)
39: Tanvir Raquib [WSX] (01/31)
38: Mark Coale [DVDs] (01/24)
37: Christopher Robin Zimmerman [a little bit of everything] (01/17)
36: Dr. Keith [a little bit of everything] (01/06)
35: Matt Foy & Rob Naylor [year in review, ROH] (12/27)
34: Justin Shapiro [year in review, WWE] (12/23)
33: Adam & Mike [year in review, Japan] (12/14)
32: thecubsfan [year in review, lucha] (12/07)
31: Sven Mascarenhas [wrestling video games] (11/27)
30: American Balloon (2) [wrestling in Japan] (11/23)
29: Scott Christ [TNA] (11/21)
28: Tom Feely [survivor series] (11/19)
27: Rob Naylor (2) [indy] (11/12)
26: Matt Foy (4) [ROH] (11/07)
25: Vince Verhei (2) [comebacks] (10/27)
24: Justin Shapiro (4) [the Marine] (10/21)
23: Bryan Alvarez (2) [everything] (10/10)
22: Ken Dreiling and Jesse “J-tron” Irwin [IWA-MS TPI] (10/05)
21: Matt Foy [ROH] (09/20)
20: Tanvir Raquib [09/11 RAW] (09/16)
19: Rob Naylor [News and tangents] (09/09)
18: Dean Rasmussen [DVDVR, life] (08/31)
17: Phil Schneider [Best of the 80's Japan Indies DVD] (08/26)
16: CRZ [being CRZ] (08/17)
15: Justin Shapiro and thecubsfan [WON HOF, US, Mexico] (08/10)
14: Dr. Keith Lipinski and Mike Sempervive [WON HOF, Japan] (08/04)
13: thecubsfan [lucha] (07/24)
12: Matt Foy [ROH] (07/17)
11: Bryan Alvarez [being Bryan Alvarez] (07/12)
10: Mike Coughlin [MMA] (07/01)
9: Dr. Keith Lipinski [Japan, general wackiness] (06/27)
8: Tanvir Raquib [ECW, parallel dimensions] (06/17)
7: American Balloon [his career] (06/10)
6: Justin Shapiro [RAW, ROH] (06/03)
5: Albert Ching [Judgement Day, ECW] (05/28)
4: Vince Verhei [everything] (05/21)
3: Matt Foy [ROH] (05/14)
Bonus: Hogan Knows Best recap (05/08)
2: Justin Shapiro [WWE] (04/29)
1: thecubsfan [lucha] (04/22)

Marlon Byrd for 2009 seems like a fine enough idea, but I hated that deal when it was announced.  It’s yet contract made longer than it needed to be, and weighed towards the end, making the player harder to move as his performance goes down. That’s the formula Hendry’s stuck to, and it’s only caused problems for later years. They’re continually building a deficit for future years to pay for, and that bill is coming due really soon. With both Lee & Lilly as free agents after this season, the window for this core may be over this season, or it may be over the next when Ramirez has his opt out.

The only good thing is looking up the contract, preparing for a doomsday 2012 scenario (where Soraino, Byrd and Fukudome are all getting big money, and not a one of them should be an every day player), I finally remembered Fukudome only signed for 4 years (or this one and next.) Thought it was 5 for some reason, glad to be wrong.

On the other hand, the Cubs are not even halfway thru the Soriano deal yet. Yuch.

One of things I wanted to do is take a look at where the roster stands, and where the Cubs stand with that roster. I’m using the WAR – Wins Over Replacement – stat from the FanGraphs site; it’s a catch-all stat that factors in and compares hitting, defense and pitching (though it’s missing baserunning and catcher defense.) You can google a whole long explanation for that stat, but for my purposes, it breaks down pretty easy:

• 0 WAR is an freely available guy in AAA. The guys who are about to get Non Roster Invitations to spring training camps. Think Bobby Scales, over the course of a season
• 2 WAR (or thereabouts) is an average major leaguer. Kosuke was just a bit over 2 last season. Aaron Rowand, who hit poorly but fielded ok at a tough position, was just under 2 last year.
• 4 WAR is an all star season. No one actually had an exact 4.0 season last year. Aaron Hill had a pretty strong season and ended up with 4.2. Lilly, Dempster and Zambrano were all around the 3.6-3.7 range.
• 6 WAR is a hall of fame historically great season. No one who’s on the Cubs right now has had a 6 recently. There’s been 5’s – Ram, Soriano in ‘07, Dempster in ‘08, Lee last year. Adrian Gonzalez was a 6.3 last year, even though he felt like a 26.3 whenever he faced the Cubs.

Literally, a 4 WAR means the player is worth four more wins than than a random AAA guy put in that spot. A team with all AAA guys would be presumed to win just under 30% just based on random chances, or about 46 games a year. (It changes from year to year.) The Cubs need to stack wins on top of those 46. A lot of extra wins on top.

Here’s who they have, what they’ve done the last 3 years, and what I’m guessing they’ll do this year.

82 wins = probably not going to playoffs. While it seems like Hendry wants to add another arm, adding a marginal one there doesn’t seem like it’ll have much benefit. The really obvious starting lineup hole is at second base, where neither Baker nor Fontenot look league average. The obvious answer is Orlando Hudson, who’s been in the 2.0-3.0 range for the last 6 seasons and still can’t get a contract. It’s just unclear what’ll take, and if the Cubs have it in their budget to get it done.

Outside acquiring new people, what else can help? Alfonso Soriano being a better player than Ryan Theriot for one. A league average outfield means this team is staying home in October, and Soriano wasn’t even that good last year. Soto playing a lot more like ‘08 and a lot less like ‘09 would be good. Ramirez staying healthy all year would be great.

Because why write three posts when you can make it one? Things get longer once I start writing them.

—

We’ve been pretty much spared a blizzard this week, maybe by all of two degrees. Lots of precipitation, but the thermostat has been hanging around the 34 (1!) degree, and so things haven’t gone completely off the rails. Drove around a bit on Wednesday during some of the worst of it, and was so thankful for the degrees. Roads have been surprisingly great. (Parking lots, not so much – hauled a heavy computer over an inch of ice, barely manged not to have an expensive crash.)

The storms left a lot of ice behind – until I got LastFM running again, the background noise in my house was ice chunks crashing off the side of my roof and hitting the ground – but ice storms make for the neatest of all frozen scenery.

—

I’m totally okay with the Cubs not getting Matt Capps. It was going to have to be a two year deal, and that idea doesn’t thrill me for marginal relievers.

Between this, and wanting to pick the new centerfielder based on the length of his contract more than his ability, I think I’ve subconsciously realized:

a) it helps the next GM to repair things if Hendry doesn’t give out multiyear deals this year (and the next GM is coming on next year)
b) I don’t think this team is going to be very good, or at least not two marginal players from being very good.

The Pirates, the Astros and the Reds are going to be no different then the last few years. One of them will make a first half run, but none of them will be competitive by the end. The Brewers and the Cardinals will be good as long as injuries don’t cripple them, and they can be great if they get a few guys to play above expectations (and it’s the same people as always – the starting pitching for the Brewers and the non-Pujlos hitters for the Cardinals.)

The Cubs, as they are and how they’ll probably be, are a good team, but there’s not a lot of hope for a very good team. There are bounce back candidates (Soriano), but the team is starting from a worse position then last year, and there’s not much left that’ll change that.

86, 87 wins seems like the best possible number the 2010 team could pull off, which has been enough for the NL Central some years and may be for next year. The best possible win number for the Cardinals and the Brewers seem well into the 90s. I’m usually not so quick to pick against this team, but I really don’t feel strong about it.

I need to do the 25 starting roster again and figure this out a bit more quantifiably, but I’ve been waiting for the Byrd deal to get done. That it hasn’t means there’s still some serious salary issue, but I’m not sure who else is in the market for Byrd at this point.

—-

Of my four fantasy football leagues, I’m in the finals of one, in the consolation bracket of another, and in two other semifinals. It’s the first one, the one with the live draft and occasionally live other team members that I’ve been focused on this week.

Week 16 Starting Lineup, at the moment

QB Brady
RB Chris Johnson
RB Jaamal Charles
WR Greg Jennings
WR Heinz Ward (over Josh Morgan – Reggie Wayne is the normal starter)
// Marion Barber (over J. Snelling, M. Bush)
TE JerMichael Finley (over Fred Davis)
KI Hartley
TM Cardinals vs STL

Really undecided about that WR2 and Slash spots. Barber has been tremendously disappointing, but I guess it makes more sense to go down with him then an Oakland Raider.

I’m up against

QB Romo
RB MJD
RB Jerome Harrison
WR Welker
WR Calvin Johnson
// Vincent Jackson
TE Kellen Winslow
KI Akers
TM Bengals vs KC

I think Harrison won’t come close to last week, but I tried picking up him up to (lost on the waiver claim.) His other RBs are Turner (out) and Moreno, so it makes sense.

Feels like he’s going to beat me easily on the WRs and Slash and the RBs are closer than I’d like. My friends have been nice enough to tell me that I’ll win this, but I’m not feeling that confident. Figure to have a good idea on how this is going after tonight’s game.

I’ve recently started using Remember the Milk as a cloud based task manager service. It’s helpful for the obvious reasons, reminding me to do stuff (gotta go pick up dry cleaning as soon as I get done with this) and as an idea dump place, but I actually more enjoy it just for the sense of accomplishment it gives me. Whatever the odious task, whenever I’m done, I get to click a button to declare I’ve finished with it. There’s some satisfaction there – moves my mind a little bit from worrying about all the things I’ve haven’t finished to being pleased with the things I’ve gone done.

It’s just a task monitor, not an evaluation dvice, so there’s no grade of how well you’ve actually done the task. Which means I’m probably not going to recommend this service to Jim Hendry. I’m sure he would’ve had the same feeling of relief checking the boxes next “Trade Milton” and “Create Payroll Space for 2010″ (both highlighted in red, listed as OVERDUE) and clicking the complete button, but doing a job and doing a job well are two different things.

I’m glad Milton is not on the Cubs, and I don’t share the optimism of M’s fans and most internet pundits that Milton will get along this time. He is who he is, and he’s probably not changing just because his uniform does.

However, Carlos Silva is a horrible baseball player, possibly the worst baseball player who will make a roster next season. As much as I hope that to be wrong, I don’t believe Silva’s abilities will turn around any more than Bradley’s attitude. This is a deal that will handicap the club just as much as David Patton on the roster took up a useful spot in 2009, except Silva will play more and pitch worse, and will do it for the next 2 years unless something lucky (or smart) occurs.

The single hopeful note in this deal is teams are much more willing to cut someone who was signed by someone else than someone they signed. Releasing Silva would cost the Cubs nearly the amount it’d cost the Mariners, but maybe it doesn’t look as bad in the papers and maybe that gives them the nerve to do it.

Things we’ve learned from this deal
- The Cubs have NO money to spend this off season
- They had to draw the hard line with Tampa Bay (Burrell would’ve been easily better) because they had no money and needed to create some room on any deal
- When Tampa Bay traded for Rafael Soriano, they were out of this market
- Besides the M’s, no one else seemed to be in on Bradley. And so this was done just to get it done.

My worry now is that this extra payroll room will be used to give 2+ year deals for Marlon Byrd and Matt Capps. Neither moves seem to be great bets – the difference between Byrd and the much cheaper Coco Crisp is minimal, and Hendry should know by now the dangers of multiyear deals for relievers – but they completely fit how he’s run this team.

In a way, I’m happy the new ownership didn’t fire Jim Hendry, because he’s spending his off season cleaning up his own mess and it woudl’ve been unfair to saddle all of that on a new guy (then again, the new M’s GM had the same and seems to be doing better than OK.) As this offseason goes on, I’m starting to change on that too, because moves like two years of Carlos Silva indicate he’s just making a new mess for whoever comes in next year.

That’s the one other thing to note here: this Bradley saga is the noose around Hendry’s neck, and it’s starting to look pretty tight. Unless people wildy out perform exceptions, the “Evaluate General Manager” task on Tom Rickett’s tasks list is going to be checked off next October, and it won’t be completed well for the current guy.

I know it’s been too long between blog entries when there’s 150 spam messages waiting for me. Let me tell you, the post I only write in my head are super.

Cubs trade IF Aaron Miles & DH Jake Fox (and $1 million) to the A’s for RP Jeff Gray, ?P Ronny Morla, ?? Matt Spencer.

and so Chicago Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry is halfway done in undoing the bad moves by last year’s bad Cubs General Manger Jim…oh, right.

If the prospects ever turn into anything, that’d be neat and all, but this is really giving up Jake Fox to get Aaron Miles off his hand. And I guess THAT works if you subscribe to the beliefs the Cubs clearly do:

• Aaron Miles had no future on this team and was just going to eat up a roster spot until they got up the nerve to cut him and eat the rest of the contract
• Jake Fox had no future on this team because all the corner positions are taken and he’s not never going to be even an an OK defender anyway

I agree with the first point. The Cubs were clearly screwing with roster rules last year, sending Aaron Miles on as long as possible rehab stints, because they didn’t want him to take a spot on the 25 man roster. This saves the Cubs the spot in 2010, and it’s nice they can recoup $1.7 mil of a bad investment.

Can’t be emphasized enough – EVERYONE knew the Aaron Miles deal was bad the moment it was announced. The Bradley did was a dare, where you had people on both sides – those saying he’d hit, and those saying he’d crack. (I lost that one.) Miles had a disappointing season by his standards and will probably rebound, but having to do this deal to get rid of him is why it was a bad idea to give him two years in the first place.

Fox, I don’t buy into. The Cubs are going to be short on power unless Alfonso rebounds in a big way. Soriano may have entered the part of his career where he’s only going to miss 20-30 games every  year. Plus, until the Cubs actually sign someone to be a centerfielder, they could’ve still played Kosuke there and Fox in right from time to time. I understand a price had to be paid to get Miles off the Cubs hands – and they got a pretty good price for him – but the team is definitely worse of now than it was before the trade.

If they can turn the saved money into something useful, maybe this can be redeemed a little bit. But I suspect it’ll go to a veteran reliever who’s actually not that good.

I was actually happier with this trade before I started considering it. Getting rid of Aaron Miles for not full price is great, but they shouldn’t have been in that spot to start with. At least this is done, and Hendry can spend next week finalizing his other mistake.

Pretty sure this trade is going to be thrown back in Hendry’s face should he be in any trouble next year. Fox will hit 20+ if given regular DH time and it’ll be really easy to spin this against him. He knows it, too, which is why he’s already trying to make the case that he wouldn’t have the same chances with the Cubs.

Jeff Gray is a fastball strikeout (though not impressive so) reliever who will compete with a half dozen other guys for a spot in the bullpen. The other guys seem to be such long shots, they’re not worth thinking about (except hoping later we’re all dumb for not thinking about them at the time.)

better example of the state of local baseball coverage

- 7 days and running dedicated to commentary on Sammy Sosa’s face without, I dunno, having someone find him and take another picture.

- Phil Rogers writing a column about how little budget room the Cubs have, then writing about how the Cubs must pick up Curtis Granderson’s 3/$24 salary ASAP.

This is why they are what they are. And by that, I mean the Cubs, who race into situations like that without thinking long term, and all the sudden you’ve got a slumping DH playing left field for 5 more years.

I’m mixed on Granderson. I think he had the fortune to sign a contract at the exact best moment for him, and someone is going to be stuck paying for that good year for the next three. If he was in some nice spot in between his really good 2008 and eh 2009, I think he’d a fine pick up, but there’s no guarantee. FanGraphs already has the Bill Jamies projections for next year, which tend to be a lot closer 2008, but my worry is another number on that page – 13% of his outs were on infield fly balls. Seems like a guy who was trying to hit for more power, and ending up too far underneath balls.

Maybe he can correct that in an easier park to hit. And the league adjustment will certainly help. Just not so certain that I want to give up the whole farm system.

He’s definitely a better idea than giving a multi-year deal to Marlon Byrd, which seems like the current rumor. You’d think the Cubs would learn not to take hitters from Texas. The 479 slugging is not going to work out well outside that park, and the 329 on base will. He’s already the wrong side of 30, and they’d be paying for decling years. A one year deal for a reasonable price might work, but Byrd’s the sort of fungible player you don’t sign long term, because you don’t want to be stuck with him if a better option comes along (or he suddenly becomes a worse option.)

I think Mike Cameron is every single team’s back up choice, so he’s going to end up getting a lot better deal than casual people expect. Maybe it’ll secretly be the year people pay for defense.

Kinda cool that the Burrell deal is the closest, having called it a while back. I stil think it’s the best the Cubs can do – they’re going to lose any deal they make for him, because they’ll be giving up the better player. You’ve just got pick the best bounce back candidate.

Roster note few have picked up on: Mike Fontenot being declared a Super Two player means he’s eligible for a big pay raise thru arbitration unless the Cubs non-tendered him. So, he’ll be cut, and the Cubs keep Aaron Miles around as a backup instead of eating his contract this year.

In my mind, the current opening day 25 looks like

CA Soto
1B D Lee
2B ???? (let’s say Baker)
SS Theriot
3B A Ram
LF Soriano
CF ???? (someone not on the roster)
RF Fukudome

SP Zambrano
SP Dempster
SP Wells
SP Gorz
SP yo-yo Marshall or Samardzija?

CA Hill
IF Miles
OF Hoffpauir??
OF Fuld?? or Colvin? or Johsnon??
IF Blanco or ???

RP Stevens?
RP Marshall or Samardzija
RP Caridad
RP Grabow
RP Guzman
CL Marmol

DL Lilly – he’s not late if he starts on May 1st. Bet on it.

A lot of question marks. Doesn’t really seem like it’s a 90 win team there.

This might be a good place for baseball comments.

Due to the issues with the site over the last couple of days, I’ve had to take the Joe Versus The World episodes.

Didn’t want to do it, but the only way to get some stuff running again was to free up a lot of space for the moment.

They’ll be back up soon, I promise. Next weekend at the very latest. If you need an episode before then, let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can do about making the otherwise available.