The Offseason is starting to heat up...

Teams are starting to make moves after the White Sox closed the 2005 season with a sweep of the Houston Astros. Did I just really type those words. Anyways, teams are moving along and the Cubs have done plenty already. Let's recap.

Though it didn't happen this week, 'Trader' Jim Hendry and incumbent closer Ryan Dempster agreed to a 3 year, $15 million deal during the last series of the season. Dempster put up stellar numbers in relief this past season. In 58.1 innings over 57 appearances he struck out 53 with a 1.85 ERA, finishing up the season 33 of 35 in save attempts. Really good numbers for a closer, especially one that has started his entire career up to this point. But for some reason I just cannot shake this feeling that these will be better numbers than anything we see during his new contract. The Cubs still need to pick up another reliever this offseason whether it be one of the dominant lefties out there - Billy Wagner or B.J. Ryan - or even Brandon Looper, who's option year was declined by the Mets earlier today.

In a move that reeks of brilliant timing combined with extreme incompetence, 'Trader' Jim brought back the entire Cubs coaching staff - announcing the decision during game 1 of the ALCS. I honestly don't think it got a mention on any of the tv stations and no more than a blurb the next day in the paper. The White Sox were the best thing that happened to the Cubs this offseason, as no one cared about any of the moves they made, as there were more important things happening in town - a team was winning in the playoffs. How Hendry can bring back an entire staff that led an underperforming team who had next to zero fundamentals seriously perplexes me. Guys couldn't cover bases, couldn't run the bases, couldn't play defense, couldn't move runners over, and can't teach Michael Barrett to catch deserve to come back for one more hurrah? Give me a break. I used to think Hendry was a decent general manager but his moves from the 2004 offseason to now have been very questionable. Yes, the executive team he has assembled has drafted well and turned around the farm system, which is much better than the black hole it was for twenty years, but they still haven't produced a starting position player for any team in the MLB since Mark Grace and Rafael Palmiero came up in the late 1980's. Hendry is lining up for an extension before the start of next season, who's contract ends after the 2006 baseball season, and he better start acting as shrewdly as he did in previous seasons.

Over the past weekend the Cubs did some options work as they picked up the options of 2B Todd Walker and RP Scott Williamson while denying the $7 million option of Jeromy Burnitz. The Cubs also had the $9 million option of Greg Maddux kick in automatically when he hit inning no. 188 of the last season. So lets roll through these. Is Todd Walker making $2.5 mil next season a good thing? Only if its in a different uniform. I have to think that Hendry picked up this option only to deal Walker to someone this offseason, maybe in a package for a SS or RF? Williamson is more a of question mark going into next season as he got the Ryan Dempster deal from last year, getting his $2 million option picked up after coming back from Tommy John surgery. His velocity wasn't up to par during the last couple of months, but the Cubs apparently believe that it will be back by next season. If healthy, Williamson is a very good to dominant relief pitcher, plus its only a one year commitment so there's not to much risk here for the team, I like this move. Dumping Burnitz, please, it appears that Hendry isn't as stupid as I just questioned him to be. Now let's see if he decides to bring Burnitz back at a cheaper price - this will determine how serious the team is to winning next year. And finally Mad-Dog coming back. Hendry didn't really have to make a decision on this, but when signing him you had to expected that he would have pitched 400 innings over two years (his clause for the third year kicking in). He's not the pitcher he used to be, Maddux is beneficial in other ways besides pitching to the club, like actually setting a professional example and teaching things to the other pitchers on staff. Although I would like the move a lot more if he was our no. 5 starter.

The final note of Cubs news is that rubber armed Glendon Rusch was signed to a 2 year, $6 million contract. In doing this the Rusch gave up his player option of $2 mil for this season. He will get $2.75 mil this season and $3.25 next, with up to $500,000 in bonuses for starts during each year. At the end of the season Rusch talked to Jim Hendry about how he wanted to start this season and did not want to pitch out of the bullpen anymore. Hendry had this to say about it, "Obviously you don't promise anyone...that they are penciled into the rotation. But I assured him that he would come back as a starting candidate and that I didn't have any interest any longer in putting him in the bullpen." Here is the key line in that statement, " I didn't have any interest any longer in putting him in the bullpen," that sure sounds like he's part of the rotation to me. Even though Rusch pitched decently as a starter last year he crept much closer to his career averages than staying towards the outstanding performance he had in 2004. This is very troubling. His batting average against went from .256 to .296 - almost at his career average. His ERA went up to 4.32 as a starter much closer to his career average of 4.88. Rusch throws more flyball outs than groundouts per average start and his walk/9inn pitched ratio went up by over a full point last season. It appears to me that 2004 was an aberration year for Rusch and if anything, he should have been worse in his performance last season. This looks like a bad (re)signing to me, especially if he's going to be your new no.4 or 5 starter. This also gives the staff 6 starting pitchers, and that's if none of the younger guys just forces his way onto the staff during spring training. Right now were looking at:
1) Zambrano
2) Prior
3) Wood
4) Maddux
5) Williams
6) Rusch

Odds are that Wood will not last the year and will (hopefully) be moved full time to the bullpen, but that significantly weakens the staff overall unless one of the youngsters steps it up. The starters, which was possibly the best in MLB going into 2004, is now not even the best staff in its own division, and won't be again if Roger Clemens comes back for one more go-around. There have been rumors floating around of the Cubs going after him of the best stuff in baseball A.J Burnett or Kevin Millwood, but I really cannot see them spending on those guys. Plus getting one of those guys would add to the serious logjam starting to accumulate in the starting pitching position. This isn't a bad thing, as the old axiom goes, you can never have enough pitching, but sometimes you need to deal from a strength to correct a weakness.


Other Happenings...

Moneyballers have taken a serious hit the past week as two of their followers, Boston GM Theo Epstein and Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta quit/was fired leaving only the originator Billy Beane left in the GM ranks. Although neither man followed the formula through completely, they used a lot of the idea process to put their respective teams together. DePodesta was fired after less than two years on the job and after winning a division championship in 2004. Theo's Boston teams made the playoffs all three of his years and winning it all last season. Both of these guys will catch on somewhere else, but probably not till next season. Look for the BoSox to hire Kevin Towers as GM. Towers teamed up with Red Sox president Larry Lucchino to lead the Padres to the World Series in 1998.

Pitching coach extrordinarre Leo Mazzone flew the Braves coup and landed with the Orioles earlier this month, spurning the Yankees in the process. We'll now see how much of an impact he had on the Braves pitchers as he has been the coach there since the 1980's. Since he was still under contract at the time the O's gave up prospect Moises Hernandez to the Braves. If the name looks familiar it's Seattle phenom Felix Hernandez's older brother. He is 21 and not nearly as good as his younger brother but still is a solid prospect. Atlanta replaced Mazzone with the eccentric Roger McDowell, which should be interesting at times to say the least.

On the South Side of town Sox GM Kenny Williams has already got started preparations to defend their title as he declined the option of Carl 'dinosaurs never existed' Everett, picked up reliever Cliff Polittes option, and saw Frank Thomas accept his $10 million player option - virtually guaranteeing that Williams will use his clause for a $3.5 million buyout of that option. The Sox will probably bring him back, or at least try to, giving him a contract for $1.5 - $2 mil with heavy incentives. There wont be many teams out willing to offer him more than that - if any - so he'll begrudgingly head back to 35th and Shields for 2006.


Why aren't there Gold Sluggers....

Congrats to Derek Lee and Michael Barrett who picked up Silver Slugger awards this year at 1B and C respectively. The award is based on voting by all coaches and managers in the National League - who cannot vote for anyone on their own team. Lee should be the Gold Glove and MVP as well, we'll see if he picks those up, but here's your Silver Slugger line for catching this year: .276, .345, 16, 61. I knew I should have stuck with catching. But if you seriously look at the numbers for National League Catchers this season he probably had the best overall season. If only Cincinnati's Jason LaRue and Javier Valentin could add their numbers together they would have crushed all competition - good thing this is an individual award.


Just saying...

In 2004 the Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years, ending the third longest drought in MLB.

In 2005 the Chicago White Sox win the World Series for the first time in 88 years, ending the second longest drought in MLB.

Dare I say what's next...