As of Sunday morning Baseball Prospectus still listed the Cubs as having a 6% chance of making the playoffs but we can officially lick the stamp on the 2009 season for the Cubs. And if I know the Ricketts family, and I don't, I'm guessing they are experiencing the largest case of buyer's remorse since L. Paul Bremmer left Iraq.
So what's in store for 2010? More disappointment? Yes. Enough disappointment for my season ticket waiting list number to come through? Doubtful
The Cubs' only free agent of note is Rich Harden and I'm guess he'll depart for cooler temperatures. This guy's day/night splits scream for Rich to land with a northern team that plays mostly at night. That leaves the Cubs with a rotation of Big Z, Lilly, Dempster, Randy Wells and to-be-determined Jim Hendry panic signing #1 of the offseason. He let Jason Marquis go after signing for three years and $16 million, can he get Jason back for four years and $40 million? And by the way, I use "let" and "paid the Rockies to take him" interchangeably.
The rest of the roster looks to be locked in place unless a massive payroll increase/buy-out is on the horizon. Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley and Dempster's contracts are all varying degrees of untradable. That's right Cubs fans, we have another two seasons of that starting outfield taking the field at Clark and Waveland. And you wonder why the beer flows so fast and plentifully in the Bleachers.
Theriot, Soto and Marmol will be in line for arbitration increases in the coming years and the only salaries coming off the books next year are Lee and Lilly... two players you'd think they'd want to resign for reasonable amount. So the Cubs could add another player only if they had some more money to throw around. But if you're a Cubs fan do you really trust Jim Hendry to make another major free agent signing? Only if you're a big David Eckstein fan... or a fan of overpaying for "scrappiness" in general.
So a trade might be in order. And two players that may have some trade value, Aramis and Big Z, have full no trade clauses. So unless you want to trade one of your few 20-something players nothing is going to be coming along in a trade. And frankly, do you want Jim Hendry making a blockbuster trade on the Cubs behalf?
Maybe the minors will deliver an impact player. But while the minor league system has done a good job of providing some organizational depth to cover some injuries, Sam Fuld, Jake Fox and Randy Wells aren't going to lead you to the promised land. The only impact prospect of note seems to be this Josh Vitters kid. But he's only 19 and struggling in his short stint in A ball. And like most Cubs prospects, he looks to be allergic to taking a walk. So do you really want Hendry in charge of trading your only high profile prospect and/or rushing him through the minors before he develops any pitch recognition (insert hyped center field prospect of your choosing here).
In short, it looks like a lot of the same cast will be brought back in 2010 and long will be the winter of Cubs fans' discontent.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment