Either Angelos is calling th shots or McPhail is timid based upon his past failures and only will consider sure things. In that Hendry has shown he cannot market his own players well or sell high he can either get fleeced here or get out. I sense that in light of the Pierre fiasco he'll move on. That being said why get rid of Jacque Jones (best hitter in second half)in Center and Pagan for essentialy nothing when it forces you to rely on Pie (Slighty more athletic Corey Patterson)and Theriot at the end of the order to get it done.

I think the Brewers getting Cameron is a good move as it get Braun off of third and adds veteran presense. Their bullpen still sucks but they will be good offensively. Jocketty to Reds is a nice front office addition for them as well.

Jacque Jones was a bum...and wasn't worth more than the local Cracker Jack vendor. I'll take Pie anyday...let the kid play. He'll provide Andruw Jones type defense, and just needs a year of seeing top pitching.

Additionally, I have no problem with Theriot at SS (or platooning with Cedeno). The kid plays hard, hits for contact, and works counts. Let's give him a break for a tough September in his first full year.

The priority is still pitching.

Speaking of GM's and Thanksgiving (for player deals that turned out to be turkeys), here are some current high priced (for value recieved) birds. JH has avoided the big disasters, so we shouldn't throw him under the bus. Injuries are a factor in some cases, but so are long term bets that ignore the downside possibilities.

The $23 million biggest bloat bird--Giambi. The $15 million + bandit birds--Schmidt, Sexson and Hampton. The $10 million + sputtering turkeys--Pavano, Vazquez, Washburn, Zito and Millwood.

And the $6 to $9 million limping rooster birds--Farnsworth, Lugo, Contreras, G. Mathews, Garciaparra, Loaiza, Pierre, J.Jones, Eaton, Kotsay, Suppan, Gagne, and Padilla.

And how about this GM on a budget. The Florida Marlins currently have only one player on their roster making more than $600,000. There total payroll is less than Giambi makes. You think that they are in a long term building program? And the best GM's may be in Cleveland, Denver and Arizona. Each has a strong contender with a payroll in the $55 to $65 millin range.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Cardinals are on the "verge" of sending Scott Rolen to the Blue Jays for Troy Glaus.

JimK:

I live in Denver and O'Dowd would hardly be called one of the Best. Do you forget the Naegle, Hampton, Walker and even Helton who siphoned off the payroll with long term contracts. The sport writers here have been asking for his head for years. Granted, Tulo, Holiday and Francis have matured wonderfully but to consider O'Dud anything but lucky at this point would be gift.

Shapiro is a wonderkin with that payroll and Beane still has to be tops.

Another subject. The price for Roberts is getting way too high. I wouldn't separate with Pie or Colvin. We have DeRosa and Theriot. Go after Blanton.

Re-signing woody doesnt count as a move... He was part of the roster that got swept by the Dbacks (same team that added Dan Haren)..

Our addition is only Fukudome... Lets not get conned into thinking resigning players is a move... those guys were part of last years squad...

so Cubs of 2007 + Fukudome = all problems solved...

if anyone really believes this -- you are conning yourself.... into further misery....

MLBTradeRumors has a report that the Roberts deal appears dead - the O's insisted on Pie or Colvin plus the two pitchers we'd all heard bandied about, and Hendry told them no and that was that.

Is it just me - or did the O's approach to the deal seem like...

"OK - what's the most you'll pay? Good then - OK - let's nudge that higher and let's talk - what's that? You'll give us that too? Well if you'll give us that then you'll probably throw in this. What? No? Well that's what it'll take. What? You'll do that now? Well if you caved and threw that in then we're adding this to the deal. What? Stick it where? Well I can see you're just being difficult - the deal is off!"

Their negotiating strategy reminds me of a 10 year old that keeps changing the rules as a game is being played and gets away with it because he brought the ball and if the others don't agree he'll throw a fit and go home.

I was looking forward to the addition of Roberts, but as the rumored price kept increasing every other day, it got to the point where I figured we'd be just as well off standing pat. If the price worked its way up to Pie/Colvin then I'm glad it's dead. Things had gotten too pricey.

The good news though is that most of the other deals haven't happened just yet, so Hendry may still have a shot at moving some of the pieces he was going to send to Baltimore for someone else.

and Baron - it's not all problems solved - noone is saying that... but it IS a better team now than the one that started 2007 - both offensively and defensively. As for pitching it's pretty close to identical.

Could we stand to add another player? Sure.

But this is a solid team top to bottom. We could use a better middle infield bat (preferably a lefty SS), another solid lefty in the pen, and maybe another guy in the rotation... but even as we stand now, it's a good team and fully capable of making the playoffs.

...and if we can't pull Bedard, Blanton, or Santana (all of which have varying degrees of improbability) then we may very well be best served by holding our prospects for the time being and making a run at someone at the trade deadline.

Gary, MLB Traderumors is reporting what Bruce Levine said this morning on ESPN 1000. Levine did say that but cited Buck Martinez as his source. I will have more details in tomorrow's article.

Brad... You points are good on Naegle, Hampton and Beane. But the Rox did move Hampton after two years, and Walker and Helton paid their way. And somebody in management has to get credit for the homegrown likes of Hawpe, Cook, Jiminez, Baker, Morales and a couple of others over the last few years--plus the three you mention.

Gary J is right that MacPhail is asking too much for Roberts--probably because Angelos doesn't want to trade him. It's degrading to MacPhail to have to negotiate in bad faith (or turn in his title.) I still think we do one more important trade before spring training (an up the middle guy). I also thnk we get another pitcher before or during spring training. JimK

Gary,

That's a funny conversation.

Baron,

Right on man, I've been saying the same exact thing....Hendry really hasn't done much to improve this team at all. You have to look at the big picture to see that. Okay, so he replaced Jones essentially with Fukodome---good move........hmmmmmmmmmmmmm------maybe, good move. Look, I was the biggest Jones critic on here probably, but the guy played well for us in the second half---one of the best second half's in the league actually. How do we know for sure Fukodome will adjust well from Japan to meet Jones' numbers? Okay, so we also had bullpen help in the Ascanio trade. But that was the least of our worries, wasn't it?

According to Hendry himself, our biggest needs were RF, solidifying CF, SS, and the back end of the rotation. So far, all he's done is possibly improve RF.

Dempster and Marquis are laughable, even for the back end of the rotation.

anyone read the article about Cedeno playing some outfield this winter? Its on cubs.com. It was saying how Cedeno looked like a natural in the outfield.

The only problem is that Cedeno can only hit when he plays winter ball, come the season he is a sketchy hitter