Baseball season is fun and all, except when the Yankees win, but it is almost as exciting when it ends because baseball offseason is one of the greatest things ever. Wild rumors, crazy free agent contracts, and plenty of great debate. At times, and especially if you are dumb enough to root for the Cubs, it is more fun than the season itself. This offseason will be no different. We've gotten a small taste with the Milton Bradley stuff, but that should explode in the next few days while the Cubs have their organizational meetings. Budget constraints might prohibit too much dipping into the free agent market, but you never know. Anyway, we are here to keep you up to date on the latest rumors as they come along.

Five Cubs filed for free agency. Reed Johnson, Rich Harden, Kevin Gregg, Chad Fox, and John Grabow. Good luck to Gregg and Fox. I guess Grabow is probably coming back, Johnson too unless a small market team wants to give him a longer term deal. Harden is a tricky case, I would bring him back because we need somebody to cover for Ted, but I don't know that the Cubs agree.

First Cardinals beat writer Derrick Goold had some updates on the Cardinals, buried in there is the fact that he thinks the Cubs will offer Mark DeRosa a deal in free agency. I would have to say no to this personally, DeRosa would have been a solid player to have this season, but he will be 35 and coming off wrist surgery. We already have Jeff Baker who showed he was able to handle third along with second and first. Second basemen are a dime a dozen and there is no need to go out and spend precious money on an older player like DeRosa.

JJ Putz of the Mets was given free agency yesterday. He was injured most of 2009 and might be a solid buy low candidate for the Cubs bullpen. He would make a nice set-up guy for Marmol if he got healthy.

JJ Hardy and Carlos Gomez were traded for each other today. I think the Twins are the big winners in this because Hardy is an excellent defensive shortstop and his bat is due for a comeback after a rough 2009. The Brewers did get a good young defensive centerfielder in Gomez though, and that means Mike Cameron is up to the highest bidder.

Hopefully that highest bidder is the Cubs. Cameron might have some issues with our friendly bleacher fans, but he and Lou Piniella are buddies. Lou had him in Seattle and I'm almost positive he would love to have him again in Chicago. He's an excellent defensive centerfielder and a solid hitter. No reason for the Cubs not to hand him the centerfield job for next year.

The Sox plan on moving Gordon Beckham to second base and having Teahen play third, I'll let Ken cover that.

Stay here throughout the entire offseason, there promises to be plenty of rumors to discuss and based on today alone I think we are in for one fun offseason.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment