doesn’t seem to be interested in asking.

And the open free-agent season started on November 13, 12 days ago. That, you’d think, would be plenty of time to get an offer, if one was forthcoming.

Good one!

i’m saving it for when the winter blahs are really setting in… and/or we sign Ibanez.

OK, it took me a minute or so, but I got it eventually. That movie rules.

and the Wood info was new.

because the market is flooded with closers and Wood could easily decide to accept putting Hendry in an even bigger
corner of having to either make a deal with a pitcher he has dumped or go to arbitration ( which he never does) and then try to shop the most popular Cub in what would be a very ugly scene. I hope they offer and Kerry accepts but I am not holding my breath.

You are correct that there is no proof at all that Lou has anything to do with Wood’s being dumped other than it is impossible to believe Hendry would consider it without Lou’s blessing. The real question is whose idea was it, did Hendry say Lou I just don’t have the budget to keep Kerry and Demp and Lou says I need Demp more or did Lou indicate to Hendry he did not really want Wood. We can try grilling them at the convention but I doubt we will get a straight answer. The best face you can put on getting rid of Wood is to save money and hope Marmol can handle being a closer and Gregg is a good set up guy but very few people would consider Gregg/Marmol a better combo if budget were not an issue.

1. Woody’s statement that he felt early on that this would be his last year as a Cub. If it weren’t about his relationship with Lou, he would have felt that his performance would have determined his return — and we all know how well Wood performs when healthy.

2. The fact that Hendry held a “goodbye” news conference (or added it to Ryan’s conference) so early. If he had said “Kerry isn’t going to sign soon because he wants to test the market. We hope that he will give us a chance to match something.”, I would believe that it was about Woody “needing to do what was best for his family”.

3. If it were Wood’s idea, he would not have come out and essentially contradicted JH.

4. The fact that Lou has a long history of abusing RPs, but didn’t do that to Woody. I think that Lou was scared of the fan backlash if he had overused Wood like he did Howry and Wood would have broken down.

5. The fact that they traded for Gregg, which essentially took a chunk of the money that would have gone to Wood, without waiting for Wood to do something. They would not have traded for Gregg just to replace Howry; second tier RPs are readily available in FA. They were trading for a closer/prime setup guy.

Of all these reasons, #1 is most important. Early in the season, Kerry had no reason to suspect that money would be an issue since the sale of the team looked imminent.

Seriously, I do not know the answer.

Also, Wood has expressed a preference for staying in the NL.

That choice is like asking whether you would rather be shot or strangled.

Those three little words we all hate to hear… no. trade. clause.

Seemed like in many of the previous years, when it came time to go after the big free agents, the official line from mgmt was “we will go after players like Stud 1 and Stud 2” and of course, they never got Stud 1 or Stud 2, they’d end up with somebody else who maybe, just maybe would have numbers close to Stud 1 or Stud 2. Hence the use of the word “like”.

So what made me happy at the time was instead of going after players like Carlos Lee or like Soriano, we went after Lee and Soriano. And we got Soriano. No more of this “like” crap. We finally bagged the big target.

Now, whether or not that was a good decision or not remains to be seen – still 6 years to go. But I have to say at the time, it sure seemed like a good move, though selfishly speaking as a ballhawk, I’d rather have had Carlos Lee. Carlos been berry berry good to me out on Waveland…

I think the teams most interested in Soriano would be ones, like the Giants, who are not likely to be approved by Alfonso. He might like the Dodgers, Angels, Mets, or Yankees better than the Cubs, but none of those teams match up particularly well with the Cubs’ needs anyway, IMO. That’s why I think pundits who have little to talk about after Manny signs will start throwing around Soriano rumors, but I don’t think there will be any substance to them.