Catching Up from Fukudome Mania

Tuesday night and Wednesday's discussions in Cubdom centered around the Cubs agreeing to terms with Kosuke Fukudome on 4-year, $48 million dollar deal and what else Jim Hendry has planned to add to his club before the start of Spring Training.

The rest of baseball was business as usual.... making trades and attempting to improve their team during the off-season. Early Wednesday afternoon the news broke of the big trade between the Astros and the Orioles that has half of Houston trying to figure out what is going on with their team. The Astros traded Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, along with third baseman Michael Costanzo to Baltimore for Miguel Tejada. Later in the afternoon, reports surfaced that Aaron Rowand agreed to a 5-year, $60 million dollar deal with the San Francisco Giants.

Here is the rest of what was happening while Jim Hendry was all over the airwaves talking about his newest player....

The Cubs

Craig Monroe agreed to a 1-year deal with the Twins on Tuesday and avoided arbitration. Monroe took a pay cut but will still make $3.82 million in 2008 with a chance to make more with incentives based on plate appearances. This is good news for the Cubs, with Monroe signing the deal the Cubs will receive a PTBNL....as terms of the trade the Cubs worked out with the Twins.

Dayn Perry made a pre-season pick in December on Tuesday. Perry looked ahead to next season and has the Cubs finishing second behind the Brewers in the weak NL Central in 2008.

From Around the League

The price of pitching continues to go up and up and up. The Rockies agreed to a 3-year contract extension worth $30 million dollars with Aaron Cook....with an $11 million dollar option for 2011.

Eric Gagne and the Brewers finalized the 1-year, $10 million dollar deal on Tuesday that the former Cy Young Award winner agreed to last weekend.

Speaking of the Brewers, in order to add Gagne to the 40-man roster, they DFA'd Kevin Mench on Tuesday.

Paul Lo Duca agreed to a 1-year, $5 million dollar deal with the Washington Nationals.

The Padres signed Randy Wolf to a 1-year deal on Tuesday before the news about Fukudome agreed to terms with the Cubs was announced. Late on Tuesday night, the Padres signed Tadahito Iguchi to a 1-year deal.

Still waiting on the official word on the future of Mark Prior with the Cubs....

Neil

Matt and Ryan, Dayn Perry does not have a "bias" against the Cubs. He actually lives in Chicago and goes to Wrigley on a regular basis....but he is a Cardinals fan.

This will not be a popular statement, but Perry ran his article before the Cubs signed Fukudome and on paper, the Cubs had not done anything to improve the team while the Brewers had.

Shaun and I discussed this on the phone and he did not agree with Dayn but I did. The Brewers addressed a big problem they had last season by getting better, again on paper, in the bullpen. I do not remember the exact number of games, but they lost more than 15 after they had a three run lead and led the majors in that stat.

Matt, like you said Dayn is usually right and if you ever want to understand why, you should really read his book....remember numbers usually do not lie.

I think most Cubs fans have a problem with Dayn because he does not wear "Fan Goggles", when most of the time the Faithful do. I am not saying you have to agree with what Dayn says, but he knows the game and you should at least listen (he is on XM all the time) or read what he has to say.

Matt, here are the links to the interview I did:

http://chicagocubsonline.com/archives/2007/01/dayn_perry.php

http://chicagocubsonline.com/archives/2007/01/dayn_perry_2.php

Matt Haggard

Yes he did. Suprised the hell out of me when he did jump on our bandwagon too. I believe Neil ran a interview with him, where they discussed his apparent bias against the Cubs too. You still have it up Neil?

The guy always seems to pick against us..He's also proven to be right about most of the time (The Burnitz season, and the Pierre season, heh). It felt good to make him eat it last year, although he would and does blame it on the division...

My sentiment exactly about the Brewers Ryan R.

Ryan R

Dayn Perry. Who is this guy? I believe he actually jumped on our bandwagon at the end of the season. Typical sportswriter BS.

I just don't see how the Brewers got better. At best the broke even. Their starting pitching isn't any better than it was last year.

Matt Haggard

Typical Dayn Perry..Wont throw us a break ever will he? If the Cubs were the only team in the NL Central, the Central wouldnt represent in the playoffs I tell you..

Has Mr. Perry looked at that pitching staff in Milwaukee...Starters and bullpen..atrocious and injury prone..

JimK

The Cubs site says Prior was non-tendered. It will be interesting to see if he gets more than the $1 million type deal we gave Wade Miller to see if he could come back. Prior's a "different drummer"--not caring to meet the Cubs half way like Kerry Wood has done, and JH did the right thing. A couple of other interesting names on the non-tendered list: Ensberg and Lane dropped by the Padres. They are not old and both were 25 homer types and decent position players a couple of years ago. You wonder why they tailed off so rapidly.

In the meantime let's get A.J. Burnett from the Jays so we have a second shut down right hander. The Jays expect him to opt out of his $11 million per deal after 2008, and we have players the Jays need. Knowing all too well that ALL of the 2008 hard work remains to be done, we need another horse capable of putting down a dozen or so Red Sox or Yankees in a row next October. That would be a 2-1 or 3-1 Cubs victory on our way to a little 100 year party that would make Ernie, Billy, Ron and Fergie very proud. JimK