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Cubs Won't Be Offering Arbitration To Anyone | Print |  E-mail
Written by Justin Bridgman   
Monday, 30 November 2009 09:48

The slow baseball news week should start picking up again as the Winter Meetings get closer. Today Cubs.com reports that the Cubs won't be offering arbitration to Rich Harden, Reed Johnson, or Kevin Gregg. That more or less signals the end to all three's Chicago Cubs careers, though Johnson might end up being back if he can't find another team to sign him.

Harden is the main loss here, and the most head scratching non-offer. Harden can be the best pitcher on the team, he can also be the most frustrating. The Cubs are going to be down a Ted Lilly for the first two months or so of the season and Harden would be perfect to fill Ted's spot in the rotation until June. After that anything Harden did would be gravy, heck they could shut him down until September at that point. Offering him arbitration and getting Harden to accept it would be a huge save for the Cubs. Odds are Harden would end up getting a 1 year $10 million deal. Instead the Type-B free agent will become an even more hot free agent commodity since there will be no draft pick loss for signing him.

The Cubs probably did Kevin Gregg a favor by not offering him arbitration. He is a Type-A free agent and would have gotten the Cubs a first round pick from the team that signed him, but that lost draft pick would probably lead most teams to not want to sign Gregg. Since he already has the ability to blow saves, costing a team a draft pick probably would make him unsignable for most of baseball. This way he will find a new home, get to close until August when he loses his job, and we can watch this whole thing happen again next winter.

In other bullpen news the Cubs might be interested in former Dodgers closer Takashi Saito. This would be a bargain type deal towards the end of the winter probably, and I think the kind of deal that could be good for the Cubs. Saito might not be as good as he used to be, but another veteran in the bullpen would be really nice right now. The Cubs are looking at John Grabow being the only veteran guy getting late game outs right now.

Finally it wouldn't be a post if I didn't mention Milton Bradley. Right now it looks like Bradley will be going to Tampa for Pat Burrell. Who knows when this will actually get done, but hopefully it happens sooner rather than later because it is holding back the rest of the offseason.



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