Uh-oh...
7 years for a pitcher is nuts.
Anyone have a list of the longest/biggest contracts for pitchers?
I know Kevin Brown and Mike Hampton had big ones, but has anyone been over 5 years???

All that being said, I think Zambrano is worth it, but I have serious concerns as to whether Jim Spendry will think so. I would easily say Zambrano is worth more than Soriano, as elite pitching is harder to come by than good sluggers.

As fast as Hendry moved this offseason, he has NO ONE to blame but himself for letting this situation occur, and if he does not sign Zambrano because he thinks the price is too high, than he truly is the next Larry Himes.

The price is only too high, because Hendry LET it get to this point. Zambrano should have been wrapped up when Roy Oswalt's contract was being done. How stupid does Oswalt feel right now, by the way??? Oswalt is much better than Zito!

I mentioned before that it makes no sense to be willing to commit $17-18 million a year to Lily/Marquis, for average talent (and likely average results) and then to NOT spend $17-18 million a year on great talent, like Zambrano.

I would rather overpay for greatness, and pair Zambrano up with low-paid guys like Marshall or Marmol, then spend the same amount on Lily/Marquis type of talent.

This feel-good offseason could have a bad ending if it becomes apparent that Zambrano is going to be a Yankee in 2008...

Actually Jason, Kevin Brown, believe it or not, was baseball's first 100 million dollar man, signing in his mid-30's with the Dodgers for 7 yrs and 105 million.

Jason, you affirmed what I've been saying all along----Hendry is an inept general manager, incapable of making obvious decisions. I've already stated many before, so I'll spare explaining from Sosa, to Patterson, etc....but two of the biggest mistakes he made was not locking up ARAM before the season ended, and not locking up Zambrano either. Now I know there are things we might not know about....maybe the players needed to know we were committed to winning, but if we could've signed them before the season started, it would've been a lot easier now. That's exactly what the Astros, Cardinals, Indians, and Mets have done well recently---locking up their young, emerging talent before the price goes up at the end of the season. It's a given. I don't think we've seen a year yet where the prices for talent have actually gone down. It's inflation!!! But Hendry doesn't get that. He's hoping for a home-town discount.

Zambrano will cost at least 7 yrs and 130 million. And a vast majority of people on here wanted to tout Hendry for the wonderful job he's done this offseason. How? Overpaying for ARAM when he should've had him locked up earlier. Overpaying for mediocre pitching when we already had young guys ready for a chance. Not locking up Zambrano when he should have. Trading away 3 top pitching prospects for a one year rental. C'mon guys....he's not a good GM. Jason notices this, and so do I. Hendry has no one to blame but himself, and if the owners were wise, they'd fire him for letting the price get too high when he could've locked them up sooner. That's what the Cardinals, Indians, Astros, and Mets have done, with the likes of Oswalt, Berkman, Ensberg, Pujols, Carpenter, Sizemore, Wright, and Reyes----they buy out their guys' arbitration years, and a year before their contracts expire and they become a FA, they'll extend them...but the Cubs have played the waiting game, and played it very poorly. I don't know if that was a MacFail thing to wait until they're free agents to offer contracts, but whatever it is, it was a very poor strategy, and one that I feel will ultimately end up costing Hendry his job.

Aaron,

While you make many valid points in your post, I have to wonder where you got the information that Hendry and Zambrano's agent have not spoken. For all we know, Z wanted to hold out. Who knows if a contract was offered or if they would even listen.

I am not going to sit here and praise Hendry, but he landed the number 1 FA out there. Did he overpay for pitching, yes, but they are Major Leaguers, albeit mediocre. We just went through an entire season with minor league pitchers serving up loss after loss, crying just for decency. Then we go out and sign two average pitchers, well one average pitcher and one who used to be average, and people are angry and say we should just rely on the young guys. What? Am I missing something?

Did Hendry make a bad trade for Pierre? Yes.

Did Hendry make a mistake by giving A-Ram an out clause? Yes. Did he make up for it by signing A-Ram for less than the market value? Yes. I am rather confused that you can say A-Ram is overpaid when he was staring over $90 million in the face and he took $75 from us.

Do I wish we locked up Z for Oswalt type of money last year. Yes. If Hendry had the chance to do that and failed, then he made a very bad mistake. I am just not sure he ever had the chance and that is all I am saying.

Remember he was not making the decisions, MacPhail was, but not anymore.

I am not trying to start an argument, just confused on some viewpoints, and maybe I am just misreading them, that is all.

Have a great day folks.

I'm not ready to nominate Hendry for the GM hall-of-fame or anything, but step back a second...

Hendry signed A Ram for BELOW market and he turned down higher offers to stay... so don't bash Hendry for not signing A Ram before the season ended. Plus you can't say they overpaid for him... there were at least three other teams that were willing to pay MUCH higher - the Angels were probably the top of the money heap on that one.

It's fairly obvious that ownership only gave him the green light on spending after firing MacPhail and hiring Lou... and once he got the green light he's been gobbling up his targets one after the other. Pacman-esque.

SO.... saying Hendry has no one to blame but himself.... I'm not thinking that's entirely true - a person could point to MacPhail, ownership, Dusty... because once all of them vacated the picture the guy's been pretty aggressive and a real player in the FA market.

Let's wait and see what happens the remainder of the off-season regarding Big Z - there seems to be a complete and total shift in player strategy taking place this offseason that's generating an awful lot of optimism. Hendry had to answer to his boss and Dusty was given a lot of power as well... let's see what happens with the "new regime" in place - it's obvious they're changing the thinking around here.

I happen to agree with you that Z would be worth the contract length and money though

Good points Brian - you were typing while I was :-)

I agree that the Pierre deal was a disaster - but if ya'll remember last offseason everyone was looking at a table-setting leadoff guy as "the missing piece". Turns out injuries without a backup plan can be pretty devastating - who knew? (dripping sarcasm there)

Give Hendry a little credit for learning from mistakes on that too... we have a solid MLB backup for D Lee with Ward... a surplus of arms for a change especially if Prior and Wood are healthy.... backups around the IF with Cedeno and Theriot... and if we sign Floyd the outfield is deep too. Lack of depth might have been the team's biggest shortcoming last year and that part of what has me excited for 2007.

...and Brian's got another good point in that it takes two to negotiate and it may very well have been Z's agent telling him to wait on signing a long term deal to see what the market did THIS offseason. If it was - good strategy on his part obviously :-)

There's one thing that the Cards, Mets, and Astros have that the Cubs didn't have until this year that made them attractive places for their homegrown talent play and that was management that demonstrated they were committed to putting a winning team on the field.

If I was Z - before this offseason - I'd be looking at signing a 7 year contract with the Cubs as a 7 year commitment to mediocrity. As competative as Big Z is, does anyone really think that was attractive to him?

Playing on a legitimate contender is likely the biggest draw for Z... and (fingers crossed) it looks like management is heading us that way.

And I also echo Brian's "I'm not trying to start an argument" sentiment :-)

Eamus Catuli!

Here we go again with Asron's JH hatred. First, Z is making 6.5 million this year. If our payroll is only at 110 million, whats another 10 a year to keep Z. Second, you can say what you want about JH overpaying Lilly, and Soriano. I don't know about Lilly, but Soriano was going to get that much anyway and you and everbody else knows it. So you can say that the Cubs drove up the price for themselves and the rest of the league with the Soriano singing, but you in fact would be wrong. It just happened to be the Cubs for once.

Second, coming off his career year Aramis is making only 4 million more per year over the next five years than he would have had he kept his original contract. You cannot tell me that someone else would not have payed him more than we did. Remeber also that nobody had heard of the guy before he came to the Cubs. and who brought him here? Thats right Jim Hendry. The fact that we "waited until after the season" to lock him up has nothing to do with the fact that he signed with us for less than what the Angels were going to pay him just to stay in town. So I guess that in fact we did NOT overpay him. All this occured before Soriano so on this point you are again wrong. As far as "Renting" Juan Pierre goes, I believe that before and during the '06 season that JH publically stated that he tried to negotiate a contract exstention with him but JP's agent wanted to wait until the end of the season. Sounds more like a smart agent than a dumb GM.
I guess that you could argue about the Sosa and Patterson thing, but I'm not sure what your talking about. I hope your not saying that we overpayed for the guy for too long. If you are your once again wrong. Sosa was an icon in Chicago for 13 seasons. In 1998. when he was the MVP, and in the '03 NLCS the guy was close to God-like status. Anybody thinking then that we payed too much for the guy then would have been run out of town. As far as Patterson, I'm not sure what your talking about. The guy was given every opportunity to excel and for what ever reason couldn't do it in Chicago. His numbers in Baltimore aren't exactly mind-blowing. .276 Avg., 16 HR, 53 RBI's, and 94 SO's dosen't exactly evoke memories of the infamous Lou Brock trade.

And finally to sum it all up. ARAM, arguablly one of the top 3 3B's in the game, is here. Soriano, the top position player free agent this offseason, is here. Derrick Lee, who I doubt many people had heard of outside of Miami before he came to Chicago, is here. Z is homegrown and is here. Rich Hill and Sean Marshall, who I believe you would classify as homegrown talent, have a chance to make the rotation and are HERE. Someone either brought theese guys in or traded for them, and that guy was JIM HENDRY. He may not be the best GM in the league, but your assertations that he in an inept GM are.............WRONG!!!

Sorry for the typo. I meant Aaron's JH hatred.

Ryan...First of all, read all the way through before you go off on someone. Secondly, it has been reported on...and was last offseason, that Zambrano wanted an extension, but Hendry wanted to wait until after the season ended, which was a collosal mistake, given what he'd accomplished in the years prior (believe reported by Rogers in April or March). True, he is a huge competitor, and he wants to play on a winning team....but so did Aramis. Everyone thought with the addition of Pierre, we'd be a lock for the playoffs, but injuries mounted and we had a manager that didn't know what to do, and how to best use his players. The out clause was a big mistake in ARAM's deal...We were very close to losing him, but again, they could've offered a few million more, and some other perks, and secured him before the season even started----that was also reported this past spring as well, but Hendry was too focused on locking up Lee. Oh, and by the way, Ryan, Hendry also gave the out clause AGAIN. Can you believe that?

However, I do think one of the most overlooked moves the Cubs made this offseason has to be the addition of Randy Bush as assistant GM. I think that'll free up some time to work on several contracts at once. Before, it was just Hendry making decisions, probably needing MacFail's approval, but now you'll have Bush and Hendry working together. I know I've been tough on Hendry, but you have to look at some of his moves, and just shake your head. I mean, this is our team----our team hasn't won in 98 years!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our team. Do you understand? We should demand to win at all costs, and want a GM that can make shrewd moves to get us that championship we've all been waiting for.

As for Sosa.....his number one mistake was not trading him when he was clearly a self-absorbed teammate, who could care less about the other guys on the team. They had the chance to trade him for Soriano, several years ago, among other prospects like Jake Westbrook. That wasn't his fault, as MacFail was calling the shots back then, but his biggest mistake was ruining Sosa's trade value by making it public that he walked out on the team-----also noted by Rogers as being a big mistake in the whole scandal. We still could've gotten more for him. And since we're still on the subject.....Does it really make sense to trade Patterson when he knew that Baker's boys Clines and Matthews weren't able to get the best out of anyone with their hitting, and knowing that he wouldn't extend Baker either, and went after Jones---very similar stats to Patterson, and a stopgap in Pierre? Would it have been so terrible to use him as a fourth outfielder if he struggled? At the time of the trade, we had Murton, who also was a question mark....that's it!!! And we basically gave Patterson away. Now, I'm not saying that Patterson would've saved the season, but could he have done worse than Jones did, especially at the beginning of the season? I don't think so, not to mention, Pierre either. Look, Boston knows that Manny wants out, and publicly has made it known---a big problem that initially drove the price down considerably....they had offers on the table, but none that blew them away, so they just hung onto him. Hendry could've learned that too with Patterson. Patterson was still controlled by the team for 2 more years in arbitration, so it wouldn't have been all that bad to hang onto him and see if he could break out of the funk he was in from the previous year. You don't just give players like that away, and Hendry did. That's the point I was making before.....I'm saying if you had a chance to sign ARAM and Zambrano before the price went up----which he did----I think many forget Zambrano and ARAM both saying they'd sign extensions at the end of '05....and if you botch the Sosa episode and get nothing in return, and give Patterson away, then you absolutely deserve a hell of a lot of criticism, and perhaps even lose your job. I know if I were the Tribune, and saw those quotes from ARAM and Z last year, and read what Rogers wrote, only to have your GM put it off until the end of the year, when the prices for talent got ridiculous---I think I'd be pissed. Honestly, I think Hendry was betting they'd have mediocre years so he could sign them to bargain deals.

And listening to McDonough, and hearing other Cubs brass talk about Hendry, you get the feeling that they think he's a hard worker, but just doesn't get the job done. He was essentially rewarded for signing Lee to a contract with a 2 year extension himself. Because it certainly wasn't for the Cubs' performances the previous 2 years.

Aaron,

You made some vaild points, but let me say that just because a player says they want an extension does not mean they would actually sign one. Did Hendry drag his feet, probably, was Lee the most important cog at the time, yes. That does not excuse JH from dragging his feet, but chances are that neither one of their agents would have let them re-up, especially Carlos'. Look what happened, by waiting a year Carlos will make 7-8 million more a season than had he signed last offseason.

I agree that he had made his fair share of mistakes, which is unfortunately, but it is the case. However, last offseason, bullpen help and a leadoff hitter were the two priorities and he knocked those out and started negotiating for Lee. His colossal mistake, to use your word, was relying on Prior and Wood. But as you say, in order to fairly judge him, you need to take into account MacPhail and Johnnie B. Baker. His success was excessively contingent on two other people.

I do agree with some of your points, but I do not think that Corey Patterson would have produced the same way Jacque did. JJ hit .285/27 HR's/81 RBI's while Corey hit .276/16 HR's/53 RBI's. I am not supporting nor defending JJ, just stating that he is a better player that Corey Patterson.

Man, this is fun stuff. I never thought I would defend JH, I do not know what has gotten into me.

Getting kind of tired of these posts that point out the failings and accomplishments of Hendry. Strange how everybody in here is a fantastic general manager. C'mon guys, we don't know what is going on behind the scenes. All we can do is guess what is going on. Pierre a bad signing? Almost everybody was happy about it last year. Nolasco pitches good and everybody bitches! Zambrano is not given a new contract and people want him signed up for the rest of his life. We can not look into the future. We don't know what will happen. We are Cub Fans. I try to look at everything positively and hope it will work out. We don't know if Zambrano's arm will fall off or if he will continue to pitch as good as he has been the past few years. All we can do as good Cubs' fans is root for our team. All that other crap is out of our hands. Remember all the good things Hendry has done for the team. Lee, Ramirez, Soriano (I hope). No general manager is 100% right all the time. Just cool it off people.

Gramps comes through with the ultimate words of wisdom!! Thanks. You, in fact, are 100% correct.

Amen Gramps! :-)

Aaron - we're not disputing that you have some valid points - we're all just disputing that the guy isn't as completely inept as you're proposing.... and if you couldn't tell from the responses Gramps isn't the only one tired of hearing the rant :-)

He's had a good offseason so far as GM's go - be happy that we're being talked about as the Central division favorites :-D

...never though I'd say that after a 66 win season

Aaron, I did read through the whole post and as you will see disected each of your points thouroughly. You are the one going off without presenting any eveidence other than "JH should have done this or that".
Z. I agree with Brian. Why would his agent allow him to sign an exstention when his win and SO totals have gone up every year he's been in the majors? Last year he had 16 wins and 210 SO's. Both career highs. Why would you not at least wait until mid-way through the season until negotiating a new exstention? If Z continues on his current trend his paycheck can only get bigger. IF the Cubs don't re-sign him for whatever it takes then I will agree with you that JH is at least in part an idot. Until then I think you are wrong.

ARAM. Did you ever think that maybe the out-clause is what kept him in Chicago? Maybe thats why he re-upped for LESS money than he would have gotten in Anaheim? Is it a risk? Sure. But if you put together a winning team then, or at least try then why would he leave? The out-clause you hate has already been used by ARAM and he's still hear even coming off a 66-93 season. So maybe JH knows what he's doing here.

Bush and the 98 years thing. Agreed that Bush as assistant GM is a good thing. As for the 98 years. Well JH hasn't been the GM that long so why is there anymore pressure on him now to win than there was 4 years ago? And by the way, I am a fierce competitor and consider anything less than the World Series a failure of a season, even if it leads to another WS down the line.

As for Sosa for Soriano and Westbrook. As I said before, Sosa was an icon. Trading him for anybody before he was shipped off would have resulted in JH being crucifed by most every Cubs fan. Looking back now and saying he COULD have done the deal so many years ago is absurd. Sosa of '04 for two or three prospects? Are you insane? There is no way you or anybody else could have predicted Sosa's fall from grace as fast as it happened. Nobody cares if you are a self absorbed teamate as long as your winning like in '03. Again, I think you are wrong.

Patterson. As I said before, is stats aren't earth shattering. Why on earth would you drag the guy along as a forth outfielder for another day when the past two he proved he couldn't handle the pressure? If JH did that then I suppose you'd be the one on here saying that we're keeping our homegrown outfield prospects down by hanging on to Corey Patterson. In this situation is there really anything right that JH can do?

I'm not here to rag on you, but if I think your wrong I'm going to tell you. By your posts it seams like you view the baseball world as black and white. In fact its really gray. If you think I'm wrong then tell me, but put up some valid evidence. Who knows, I may agree with you.

Seems like my comment sparked some heated discussion!
My intent was only to point out that if Zambrano isn't resigned (and we may not find out the answer to that until next offseason, by the way) then Hendry has to take the blame. He certainly can't blame the marketplace, or take the attitude of a small market team.

My issue wouldn't be so much not wanting to pay a pitcher $18 million for 7-8 years. My issue would be that you spend $10 million on a pitcher that has half the talent, and then shy away from signing the top pitchers when you run out of money.

The Tribsters and Jim Spendry have a payroll budget. What that budget is, I don't know, but it is not unlimited...there is cap!

So imagine you have some money to spend, and you want a house and a car. The car would be nice, but you really want the house. You know, ahead of time, that the house will require more money down than the car.

You decide, though, to put a lot of money down on two used cars, and you now may not have enough money to buy the house, which was really more important. If you did that, you would be guilty of handling your money poorly. Happens all the time in America, and I am pointing out that it may have just happened to Jim Hendry.

Gramps,
I normally agree with you on most things, but being a fan is kind of like being a father, at least to me: you want the best for your kids, no matter what, and you want them to do better than you did in the past, you want them to avoid past mistakes, etc...

Larry Himes was responsible for a huge mistake in Cubs' history, by not paying Greg Maddux, in his prime. I don't want Hendry to make that same mistake.

I am definitely optimistic about this coming year...Zambrano is under contract after all! I was just putting an eye out to the future. While I would like a World Series, I would much rather have a run like the Braves had, where we make the playoffs every year, and have sustained success. Life is a circle, right? So with all the years of losing, we are doing for a nice run of winning! So I don't want to see the Cubs buy a World Series this year, only to lose Zambrano and revert back to lovable losers with a poor pitching staff in 2008. Aces are hard to replace. Just look how we did with Prior and Wood going down the past three seasons...

So optimism abounds, but you shouldn't just blindly cheer on your kid when he is playing t-ball, and forget about saving for his college education.

Let's think about the 2007 season. Why worry about what is going to happen in 2008? All I am saying is "Enjoy the moment". Let's not put Larry Himes and Jim Hendry in the same sentence. They are 2 different men and I think we have it much better now with Hendry. When have we as Cub fans had as exciting a winter as this one has been? Like Gary said, we won 66 games last year! Nobody can tell what the future will bring. We have seen additions to our team that have been amazing (Soriano, Lilly, DeRosa, Marquez, etc.). And also we have subtractions that have been just as amazing (McPhail, Baker, coaches). I am happy with what has been done and am looking forward to 2007. PERIOD!!!

One comment that nobody is mentioning. Cubs have been burned with Woods and Prior. Could it possible that they are worried about it happening again???
possible reason. Yes I'm guessing, but I think its possible since they have basically have taken the same road to the majors with the same workouts and training, is it so far fetched to think that he might end up with the same problems(god forbid, and I'll regret ever posting this if it happens).

Zambrano seems to be in better physical shape then Prior and Woods which might be why he hasn't had any major problems but, Rode him as much as they did Prior and Woods in 2003-2004. Which is were I put the blame.

I still hope that Woods and Prior return to their dominating ways but in the case of Woods, I think it will be as a closer. Hopefully Prior can built his confidence again in his arm and return to potentually Cy Young winning stuff.

One thing I'm looking forward too is having a manager that will actually get in a face an umpire, kick dirt, pull bases out of the ground,etc,etc. Been awhile since we've had that. Should be fun to watch.

Again with regards to Z. Last year our payroll was 95 million. Even after all the signings, this year so far its only around 110 million. Thats only an increase of 15 million. I don't see us having that much trouble signing Z to a contract exstention for 15 million a year for 5 years. Since they have promised Lou that they will provide the resources for him to win I would think that keeping Z for Schmidt like money wouldn't be a problem. I really can't believe that we haven't spent more actually.

Remember Gramps....it's the quality of signings that you make over quantity.

Ryan---you want evidence: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-061207cubsbrite,1,4930380.story?coll=cs-cubs-headlines

Paul Sullivan covers the Cubs...has more contact with them and knowledge of what goes on than any of us on here....Note that it was the "decision of the Cubs to put contract extension talks for Zambrano until after the season ended" lending credence to what I spoke of earlier that Hendry was betting on Zambrano either getting hurt or having an off year. He probably was scared off because of Prior and Wood. Who could blame him? But did Z have an injury history before? Exactly my point. Hendry waited, and it's going to cost him dearly, and if Z walks, a lot of fans will be up in arms. As for the Sosa saga---everyone knew he was probably doping, and in '03, he had a down year, injury, etc....It would've been prudent to trade him then, as most suspected players were either dealt or released following that year, when testing began. We still could've traded him at the '04 deadline too....That's my point. Look what Ken Williams does to "cancers" in the clubhouse----he doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger, and he's made some wonderful trades for the team. Carlos Lee was getting bigger every year, as was his ego, and Williams knew this and got value for him, and let Magglio walk when he knew his ego was inflated...ditto Thomas. He traded a popular veteran for top prospects, and a highly touted prospect for 3 top prospects. GM's like that are winners. They are proactive. That's why I'm saying Hendry is not the right guy. He is reactive rather than proactive. We needed a SS because the Cedeno experiment traded, so he had to trade Maddux, one of our only pitchers we could count on. He overpaid for mediocre pitchers like Lilly and Marquis because he relied too much on Prior and Wood (that's reactive). He went after Soriano hard because he knew he might lose ARAM (that's reactive)...but a bonus that we got both of them in the end. Rather than sign a stopgap like Lofton who could still produce, and try platooning with Patterson until Pie was ready, he overpaid for Pierre when he lost out on Furcal (that's reactive). I could go on and on. Is that enough proof for you Ryan?

What's more is that Williams will probably trade Crede away because he's represented by Boras, and he knows the price will be sky high for him, and he's injury-prone. So he will trade Crede for top prospects, and insert Fields to see what he can do, and ensure the team of remaining competitive long term. The Sox have three big sluggers: Thome, Konerko, and Dye, which I think is essential in the league today. We had ARAM and Lee to begin the season, and needed to go after a Dunn, or a Carlos Lee, but didn't. We went after a second tier guy in Jones (who did give us good production, but not what we were looking for. Remember he produced the same as Burnitz and they were unhappy with Burnitz's production). So don't tell me that we can't do anything. Danks was untouchable in the past, and Williams found a way....ditto Gavin Floyd. Fact is, he's not afraid. But right now we have a glut of starting pitching prospects that other teams have expressed interest in, and Hendry's blocking their ascension by signing mediocre guys like Marquis and Lilly. That makes absolutely no sense. Neither does trading Aardsma for Cotts, when he's expressed a desire to start again, and you block his way by signing those guys, AND you still have Ohman and Eyre for lefties in the pen. Point is----you don't make trades for guys, then block their path, and you don't sign guys blocking top prospects, then hold onto them. It just doesn't make sense....As I've mentioned before, you have Marshall, Mateo, Marmol, O'Malley, Guzman, Ryu, and Veal and Gallagher due promotions...So essentially, you have 8 guys for 5 spots at Iowa. That makes no sense at all.

It's like big picture-wise, we're getting mixed signals: don't mortgage the future and trade prospects....but win now at all costs. At some point you have to give the rookies a chance, so why would you block their path?

Anyway.....

Jason B....I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said.

The Zito signing will make it harder to sign Zambrano but HE IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE. He is the face of the team. They are not going to give Lilly $10 mil a year and not sign BigZ. Zambrano's agent was waiting for Zito to sign and now the talks will go farther. As for throwing Hendry under the bus for this....no one knows what happening behind the scenes. Paul Sullivan is a moron. He is always wrong and always writing pesimistic articles about the Cubs. He was the guy who started the A-Rod rumors tot eh Cubs... did that happen? He was the guy that said Aramis was going to sign with the Angels.... did that happen? These guys need to find something to write about when the off-season is getting boring. I will get worried this time next year if we are still talking about this. In the mean time I am going to get excited about this up coming season, the signing of Soriano, a healthy D-Lee, Armamis back at 3rd and a full rotation. It is so easy to say what someone should have done after the fact.

IF Zambrano wants to stay here, Hendry will get it done. He has a track record for signing guys who WANT to remain with the Cubs:

Derek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Nomar(1 year deal after 2004 season) Kerry Wood.
All of these guys wanted to be here and Hendry got it done. Obviously, Juan Pierre wanted to bolt and he couldn't really do anything about that.

Dont stop now Brian, please dont stop.

Let JH put his team on the field in 07 and lets see what happens. I would of love to see what everyone would of said if ARAM left and Soriano was playing in St Louis or Bridgeport. I think we should all be thankful for what we have going into Spring Training. Without JH pulling a rabbit out of his ass and signing ARAM, the 07 season would be a disaster in the waiting. Props to JH for convincing the shirts and ties on Michigan AVE to spend a little cash. Now let him put his team on the field before you call for the rope. I promise you if we are in this at the trading deadline, he will make HUGE moves to solidify a WS run we have all been waiting for. And we will all sing his praises...dont worry I will have the crow waiting for those of you that enjoy the fine chicken taste that crow provides.

All in good fun....

Shaun

Jim Hendry has made some decent signings this offseason as far as the offense is concerned. However, we're still going in w/o a proven CF, a minor league hype machine prospect who is hitting .216 in the Winter Leagues, and maybe 2 mediocre pitcher signings. The pitching staff is still pretty average, and w/o a dominant 1-2, this team isn't going anywhere past the NLCS as the Mets proved last year.