Must say I am a little surprised given Hendry's infatuation with Heilman, but this doesn't bother me one bit. I was never much of a Heilman fan. This slightly softens the blow of Grabow's salary and frees up another bullpen spot.

It's a start...but if they make a move to obtain a reliever from the Nats to fill the spot, then it was all for nothing.

Doesn't bother you!?! This is the best news we've had in a long time!

Adios Heilman!

Man, I love that!

Big deall! Heileman was set to get a raise from his $1.675 mil, if kept by Cubs. Grabow is at $3.3mil. Net difference just over $1mil

Now lets trade the other Aaron.

Raise a glass !!

More purging from the great off-season of doom (last year) !!

Yippee...

Next: Gregg, Miles, Bradley ?

Keep your fingers crossed.

I'm surprised also.

Another Lefty too!!! Maybe Hendry is going to stockpile lefties and corner the market...lol

YES! Heilman Gone!

Basically we received these two prospects for Pie & Cedeno now. lol.

I had the pleasure of coaching Scott Maine in a colliegiate summer league here in Northern Virginia. Let me tell you that the kid is dirty. He throws in the low 90's with a wicked curveball. He could end being a great lefty out of the pen for the Cubs.

OH HAPPY DAY THAT HEILMAN IS GONE! GONE! GONE! GONE!!!!

He was hated by the Met's fans for blowing saves, so Hendry runs out there and trades for him as fast as he could. He couldn't throw strike one. But he and Gregg made a great duo to blow games late. How the Cubs finished above .500 with these two in the pen, I can't understand.

It frees up some money, now to dump the rest. Maybe these little deals will add up to create a little space to sign a worthwhile guy.
Watch Heilman next year has 30 holds as a reliever for Arizona. Or if he starts in the fourth of fifth slot goes 12-4. That would be the way our luck has gone.

The only way this news could have been better was if he had been traded to another team in the Central.

OH HAPPPYYY DAY!!!

I immediately retract my statement on Hendry being a complete doofus... This redeems him 10 moron points.

1 question for all the smart people: why are all our moves addressing our bullpen when our offense was the 3rd worst in baseball last year??? hmm!

yes yes yes yes yes!

Who fills the new 40 man roster spot now, Clevenger or Snyder???

Bill James on Felix Eugene Pie:

Minor injuries and ineffectiveness have limited Pie to 142 at-bats this season, but the four-hit game on Friday night lifted his average from .234 to .254. As long as he remains in Baltimore, Pie won't be more than a fourth outfielder since Nolan Reimold, Adam Jones and Nick Markakis have sealed up the three starting jobs for the foreseeable future, but that's probably the best fit for his limited skill set anyway.

Woody, Snyder is a minor league Free Agent right now.

Neil, what's ther deal with Cotts?
He had Tommy John surgery this year and is still on the roster...Do the Cubs give him an injury settlement/Release
him...or what? I know if he were healthy
he'd be up for arbitration.

RJ Anderson on Aaron Heilman: (don't laugh; it's true!)
Aaron Heilman joined his fourth organization in the last 12 months tonight. Last year Heilman was part of a three-way deal that landed him in Seattle. Prior to the start of the regular season he was shipped to the Cubs and today he avoided being non-tendered and was instead sent to Arizona.

Heilman pitched in 70+ innings for the fifth consecutive season. He did a nice job putting an uncharacteristic 2008 season behind him. His FIP over the past three years have been 3.86, 4.91, and 4.37, with the final two seasons coming with HR/FB higher than Heilman’s career average. He’s a slight groundball pitcher who uses a low-90s fastball, slider, and change effectively. Heilman has experience as a set-up man and the Diamondbacks seem likely to use him in the bullpen.

The return for the Cubs are a pair of minor leaguers.

Scott Maine is a stout lefty with impressive strikeout rates out of the bullpen. He’s 24-years-old and Drafted out of the university of Miami in 2007, Maine throws from a low arm slot and has a fastball that breaks into the low-90s as well as a slurve. The mandatory Tommy John surgery is out of the way and it’ll be interesting to see if deception is the key for Maine or if his stuff can hold up in the higher minors.

Ryne White is a short left-handed first baseman drafted in 2008 from Purdue. He’s shown the propensity to draw a walk but flashes few other skills despite a supposedly quick bat. He played some outfield in college and given his height, there’s a chance he could return there sometime in the future.

Considering Heilman was on his way out for nothing, it’s hard to say the Cubs lose out on this deal. Maine might be a useful relief arm sooner than later, and who knows what the future holds for White. Obviously this isn’t an ideal situation, but at least they didn’t pay a marginal reliever seven million dollars today. As for Arizona, I’m not sure giving up anything of value for a middle reliever is a good play, especially given Arizona’s placement on the win curve.

And then there is David Patton...he's still on the 40 man roster...are they afraid Colorado's going to take him?

I am SO happy to be rid of Heilman and Gregg. Both were such a waste of roster space. Both pitchers had to have demoralized the team. I mean every time they came in to the game with a lead, the usually ended up blowing it. I know that the players would never say this, but they had to have been thinking "crap, there goes the lead again"...just like all of us thought. I think that's why the back end of the bullpen is SO important. I know we had plenty of offensive issues this past year, but there were plenty of games that we should've won, but just couldn't hold the lead thanks to these two clowns. Hopefully Grabow and Marmol can get it done this year.

Is there any relation between Scott and John Maine of the Mets??

LOOK OUT ON GRABOW!

I mentioned the other day the it is just like JHendry to sign a 30 somthing pitcher to a high priced, long term contract. I also mentioned that JHendry is making a mistake signing Grabow to a 2 yr, $7.5 million deal since 2010 will be spent mostly on the disabled list, and 2011 Grabow will be ineffective due to rust, age, and trying to overcome a surgery to his pitching arm.

So now read this:

According to Paul Sullivan, the Cubs will announce later today that they have re-signed John Grabow to a two-year contract. Previous reports have put the value of the deal at $7.5 million.

Once again, we’re witness to the power of ERA as a negotiating tool. Over the last two seasons, Grabow’s thrown nearly 150 innings and posted an ERA of 3.09, giving the impression that he’s a high quality LH reliever. Yet again, ERA misleads.

Grabow’s FIP the last two years? 4.37, thanks to an atrociously high walk total. The entirety of his low ERA over the last two years is driven by an 82 percent rate of stranding runners, which is just not sustainable. He’s succeeded by putting men on base and then wiggling out of jams, but that’s not the same thing as pitching well.

It would be one thing if Grabow had developed this knack for stranding runners by elevating his strikeout rate, but he’s not any different now than he has been for his entire career.

Instead, he’s just posted artificially low BABIPs the last two years, and by not giving up hits, he was able to keep the guys he walked on the bases. That’s not a recipe for success.

Grabow is a generic left-handed middle reliever, the kind of guy you’re fine having for the league minimum but that you don’t really want to pay any real money to. He’s eminently replaceable, but the Cubs have decided to commit real money to him over multiple years because he has a low ERA.

The Cubs have money, and $3.75 million isn’t going to drastically alter their budget, but this is just a waste of cash. Betting on reliever ERA is a great way to get burned, and given Grabow’s actual talent levels, the Cubs are unlikely to be very happy with how this deal turns out for them.

Did anybody here realize that the Cubs had the fewest SB in all of MLB? 56 SB in 2009 with 34 CS! El Stinko! Funko was 6 SB for 16 SBA.

Cub's bullpen was 27th in MLB for walks allowed. Only Nats and Marlins walked more batters.

Cubs' pen allowed 52 HR last year. (With Gregg and Heilman, it sure seemed like it was 5200 HR). Braves allowed only 33; the Yanks pen allowed 72.

If Hendry HAD to move Heilman in order to sign Grabow as Sullivan suggests...
How in the heck are we going to solve our other issues?

Milton's trade won;t help that way.

Cubs used 9 diffo LF last year.

Andres Blanco, the SS that many are clamoring to start at SS for the Cubs next year, has played MLB since 2004--for the Royals. He's been two years in the Cubs AAA Iowa team, yet hasn't gotten 300 AB either year. Hit .285 and .304 for AAA Iowa those two years, and really had a big year in 2009 with 6 HRs. All his other minor & major league highs were 2 hr in 2006 (almost every year he hit zero HR). Otherwise he hit his 1st ML homer this past Sept.

It says right here that David Patton will not be in the majors in 2010. Oh, he might--might get a call up if someone goes down on the DL, but I even doubt that right now.

27 IP, 19 BB and a WHIP of 1.81. But he's better than Smardzijz (statistically).

Zambrano in 2009. The beginning of the end.

Today's Tribune is talking about James Russell...he went 14 1/3 innings giving up no runs with a 0.93 WHIP...and is expected to play at AAA this upcoming year....He's another Lefty reliever.

Maine/Gaub/Russell???

Hendry's got a bigger trade up his sleeve.

get some sleep Neil

Neil,
I'm not sure why that website said so, but there is no relation to John and Scott Maine.

http://diamondbacks.scout.com/a.z?s=247&p=8&c=1&nid=4475431