How about this scenario? San Diego told the Cubs who they wanted for Peavy (e.g. Garrett Olson, Cedeno and a couple young pitchers). So the Cubs traded DeRosa, and Pie to get the missing pieces. Then San Diego, as they tend to do, increased their ask and told the Cubs they also wanted either Vitters or Marshall. So Hendry got pi—ed and closed the talks. To emphasize his point and to get rid of players he really didn’t want anyway, he traded two of the critical pieces. Any thoughts?

We cleared a lot of payroll and got milton bradely…but there is still talk that we have room to aquire peavy if we want….

If we don’t get anyone else, we essentially turned kerry wood away when he could have been very valuable to this team in 09

In my opinion the deal is dead for good, driven by two reasons.

A. San Diego’s insistence on Josh Vitters, and Jim Hendry’s unwillingness to include him in a deal.

B. Hendry was informed he can’t add a contract the magnitude of Jake Peavy’s.

Also, I think Hendry made the moves with Baltimore and Cleveland driven in part by acquiring pieces that Kevin Towers and San Diego would want in any Peavy deal. With the Peavy deal dead Hendry was left with two issues.

A. Acquiring a relatively cheap arm to compete for the 5th starter spot.

B. Finding a new home for Garrett Olson given the assumption that Towers thinks more of the pitcher than does Hendry.

The team is in the process of being sold. Once the new owner takes control of the team then their salary budget will likely zoom back up to a normative level for that franchise. Say in the $75 million or so range.

The last thing I saw says the Padres are $4-5 million over the $40 million budget that has been handed down by current ownership. That’s within spitting distance. I’m sure there are a few things they can do to shave a million or two. Trading Jake Peavy in an extreme buyer’s market would be stupid. Hence I don’t blame them a bit for wanting the moon from the Cubs, starting with Josh Vitters.

Jim Hendry has done the right thing in walking away.

It looks like the debt service on the Cubs will run $40 million a year. That’s an expense the Tribune Company never had, and keep in mind their long-time public statement was that the ballclub made modest yearly profit.

The Crains ariticle is excellent. Unless the Ricketts family is willing to annually subsidize the operation of the Cubs the ability to maintain a payroll at this current lofty level will be challenging. And keep in mind Ricketts will need to find a way to pay for Wrigley Field renovations at some point.