Olney: Cubs maxed out
There was a little nugget buried in Buster Olney’s writing today on Manny Ramirez over on the 4-letter’s website.
The Cubs have maxed out their spending for the winter and in any event couldn’t consider an outfield of Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano.
Now I never expected the Cubs to go after Manny, so that isn’t news worthy. What surprised me was the idea that the Cubs are maxed out. Maxed out as far as what? Now there is no proof to any of this, this is just Olney’s report. So this should all be taken with a HUGE GRAIN OF SALT. If true, this would mean there are some real concerns regarding the Cubs adding any sort of payroll at this point. We can speculate on the reasons. Lord knows, I’ve done so in the recent past. Still, the Cubs being maxed out at this point is news to me. I had not heard that before today and am kind of surprised to hear it in the msm. I struggle with that being the case, but who really knows at this point what is happening behind the curtain at Clark and Addison.
Just so I have this straight so far:
Cub departures:
Kerry Wood
Bob Howry
Henry Blanco
Jim Edmonds
Darryle Ward
Jose Ceda
Cub additions:
Kevin Gregg
Joey Gathright
we’d better hope they are not ‘maxed out’…
wpbc
December 29, 2008 at 1:26 pm
interestingly, ccd, so far that’s a salary dump. $4.2mm for wood, $4.5mm for howry, $3.2mm for blanco, $1.2mm for ward — that’s over $13mm in annual expenditure removed from the roll.
add in the arb-eligible gregg at less than $4mm (last year $2.5mm) and gathright at less than $1mm — the club has dumped more than $8mm.
gives some credence to those who think they are maxed and paring payroll, doesn’t it?
gaius marius
December 29, 2008 at 4:39 pm
The problem gm, is that they haven’t reduced payroll. End of year payroll for the Cubs was reportedly $133 million. If the season began today it would be $137 million.
Meaningless, but something to discuss anyway, I think Gregg will get at least $4.5 million, if not $5 million. Also, Kerry Wood, after incentives, made over $8 million last year.
The Cubs just have a lot of players under contract who are getting raises. If payroll is staying about the same then it means they have to lose payroll elsewhere. Interestingly, as I said on ACB today, the Cubs went into 2008 with about a 6-8 game advantage on the Brewers in true talent level. The Brewers seem to be hurting for money as well and if the season began today the Cubs would have an easy 12-15 game advantage on the Brewers in terms of true talent level anyway. You have to figure that neither the Astros nor the Cardinals will have 2 lucky seasons in a row so it’s looking like the Brewers are still going to be the team closest to the Cubs and they have a lot to do just to become a .500 club. The Cubs true talent level is probably around 89-90 wins right now. Funny, isn’t it, the Cubs may do nothing and gain a larger advantage before the season than they did spending over $500 million the last 2 seasons. lol
Maddog
December 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm
MD, The question that this begs to ask, is can the Cubs actually sign a RF like Bradley, or do they have to clear payroll first. Only time will tell, I hope they have money set aside for Bradley, but I am starting to wonder.
wpbc
December 29, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I’m starting to wonder too, ccd. That being said, does it really matter? The Cubs are almost certainly going to enter the 2009 season as the best team in the NL and even more impressively the best team in the NL Central by 10 or more wins. Like you, I’d love to see the Cubs improve even more, but this has been the first offseason in my life where improving meant very little for the Cubs as they are superior to other teams in the league. As you and GM have noted, it’s not an economic climate that allows many teams to spend a lot of money. If I had to guess right now, simply based on the number of people who have said the Cubs DO have the money available, I’d say the Cubs can sign Bradley, but those people saying it may be full of shit. Those saying they don’t may be full of shit.
And I’m not at all going to be upset if the Cubs begin the season with DeRosa in RF and Fontenot at 2nd base. I’d like to get Bradley and then let Theriot and Fontenot platoon at SS with DeRosa at 2nd of course.
Maddog
December 30, 2008 at 6:40 am
Yeah, I have really began to wonder what the issue is. It could be the nothing, could be the economy, could be the sales process, could be the Trib’s Chapter 11 filing. There are so many fucking issues surrounding this team, I guess we could pick any one of them. I’m just curious what it really is. A good chance we won’t find out what it is though. As a Cub President used to say: ‘It is what it is’.
Assuming the Cubs are tapped out: at this point, I’d like to see the Cubs offer Edmonds another shot. Invite him to ST as a reserve in the OF and at 1B. I’m not sure Edmonds is ready to accept a role like that, but I think he could be a productive player in that role. The other interesting thing will be come ST there might be many more solid veteran players like Reed Johnson made available for nothing. Hendry might just wait and add a bench player and a bullpen guy at that time.
The DeRosa/Fontenot situation you outline above to start the season will be okay. It will be something the Cubs I would hope the Cubs would upgrade at some point during the season.
I guess, I’ll hold out some hope that once the sale is complete that the new owner will allow Hendry to make a big splash move like a trade for Peavy. I still think Peavy is the player the Cubs want to add this offseason. For whatever reason that couldn’t get done ear;lier this offseason. But if the sale is completed, Hendry may have more flexibility than he did earlier this month. He has a contract that has to make Jim Hendry salivate and putting him at the front end of the Cubs rotation with Z for the next few years would just be tits.
wpbc
December 30, 2008 at 8:33 am
I don’t know why, but I FEAR THE CARDINALS.
wpbc
December 30, 2008 at 8:38 am
I always fear the Cardinals in some regards, but they aren’t even close to as good as the Cubs are barring a Yankees like flurry of spending and it appears they have cut payroll.
Maddog
December 30, 2008 at 3:38 pm
The Cubs just have a lot of players under contract who are getting raises. If payroll is staying about the same then it means they have to lose payroll elsewhere.
yep, i was going to say that explicitly in the post. backloading is making its impact now, as was suspected back when they signed these guys — though it’s certainly aggravated by the downturn.
gaius marius
December 30, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I agree the Cubs are more talented, who wouldn’t? But the team with the most talent doesn’t always win…
wpbc
December 30, 2008 at 4:52 pm
The team with the most talent should always be expected to win though. I think you’d agree with that. The Cardinals can pull shit out of their ass with the best of them as they almost did in 2008, but I’d think it’s unlikely they do that again.
Maddog
December 30, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I don’t think the backloading is going to have as much of an impact as I initially thought it would. I took a look at this recently and between the end of this season and the end of 2010 the Cubs are going to have about $65-80 million come off the books. And it’s from some players that won’t be worth what they were making so I actually think it’s worked out well for the Cubs…ASSUMING that money is re-invested in the club and invested wisely.
Maddog
December 30, 2008 at 6:33 pm