Please don’t do that.

… that the dollars spent, plus the fact that Peavy might not be as dominant outside of Petco, make it worth it.

This is the Yankee philosophy — just buy “the best player available” and they’ll win. Exactly how many WS have the Yankees won in the last eight years?

The Cubs already have a playoff-caliber team. They need to tweak it and to leave enough money for a possible midseason acquisition. Getting Jake Peavy accomplishes neither of those goals.

u mean we couldnt make a trade with an abundance of good pitching?? the bat lou covets isnt there. pitchers like peavy dont come around often and sure not at a descent market value price. you can never go wrong with too much good pitching.

1. Leadoff hitter,
2. Lefty power bat,
3. Shortstop
4. Bullpen

and if I were in charge, that’s pretty much the order in which I’d rank them. Problem is, when I look at possible solutions for each of those holes, I don’t see any sure-things. Obviously, nobody is ever a guaranteed sure-thing so spare me the semantics, but seriously, solutions for each of those holes have been discussed ad nauseam here and none of them strike me as a sure thing. Furcal, Dunn, Abreu, et al – they all have concerns.

And I think most of us agree that the Cubs probably have one more big move left in them, either via trade or FA. So the prudent course of action might be to just wait and hold off on that one move. Maybe wait til spring training, maybe the trade deadline where it will be more clear where we need the most help.

But if Cubs do decide to make that one more move right now, what’s wrong with approaching it like the draft, i.e. going for the “best available athlete” (cue the John Kruk jokes in 5…4…3…) instead of merely by need. Since there are no sure things in the areas of need for the Cubs, what if they just went and got the best player out there now that they could get, regardless of position.

And frankly, I think Peavy could fit that bill, especially if Hendry continues to indirectly drive a hard bargain (thank you Mr. Towers) and can get him on the cheap. Yes, his contract is backloaded but that doesn’t start to be a problem until 2010. And yes, the Cubs don’t really “need” another quality starting pitcher, but if you’re going to have an excess of anything in this game, I think we’d all agree it should be pitching.

Ergo, I have no problem whatsoever with acquiring Peavy now and carrying that excess of quality starting pitching into next year and see what happens then. Teams always seem to need pitching, so to me adding Peavy to our staff gives Jimbo the flexibility to pull the trigger whenever the right opportunity comes along.

still gives me the chill.