While most Monday nights are spent watching football on the tube, these days the Faithful must have their eyes on the news wire. The Bears are playing well this season and for all of the Giants fans….two words….Vince Young. But with the Winter Meetings around the corner teams are preparing to make their moves and the Cubs still have a lot of voids to fill.
A late report from the Chicago Tribune by Dave van Dyck mentioned a few familiar names that could take the mound for the Cubs next season…. The first two lines in van Dyck’s report states, “Cubs bide time in pitching quest. Hendry likely waiting for winter meetings next week.” Pretty obvious there but the report does mention the Cubs have talked to Jason Schmidt’s representatives “more than once” and have spoken to “almost all of the representatives of the available starting pitchers.”
“I think Jim Hendry is not sure whether he wants one big (free-agent pitcher) or two lesser ones,” one player agent said.
According to the report, Hendry has money to spend and needs to add two or three starters. It goes on to state the Cubs do not appear to be signing Zito or Schmidt before the Winter Meetings and their agents appear to be waiting for the market price to be set by the Yankees….not to mention what will happen with Daisuke Matsuzaka’s contract. The deadline to bid on Kei Igawa was on Monday and the report states the Cubs are believed to have bid for the rights to negotiate with the lefty.
The Cubs are going to wait to talk to Alfonso Soriano, in person, about playing Winter Ball and according to van Dyck the Cubs are believed to not want him to participate because of the threat of an injury.