I didn’t mean to discredit the idea because it was Miles’ opinion, I meant to assign it more credence than otherwise random opinions (like mine), since Miles forms his opinions based on having direct discussions with Hendry and other Cubs officials, and since he is rather sober and responsible journalist not prone to being obsessed with scoops.

With Hendry saying he’s shopping for more pitching, it seems that there’s more money than just for Bradley, which means that the DeRo Marquis deals were not to clear space for Bradley.

…he doesn’t really seem committed to the idea that a Peavy trade will happen. Specifically, Bruce writes:

If [emphasis mine] the Cubs go outside the organization, I’d still put my money on Hendry somehow [emphasis mine] landing Jake Peavy from the Padres, unless [emphasis mine] the new San Diego ownership pledges to spend money and keep Peavy.

There’s a lot of conditional language in that statement. With the payroll being what it is (or appears to be), Peavy seems simply too expensive in both dollars and trade pieces. And I don’t have a problem believing the new Padres owners will find the money to keep him in San Diego.

I’l admit – when the DeRo trade went down, I immediately thought “Peavy!” But, with each passing day, that seems less and les realistic. I’m taking the lesson I learned from the Brian Roberts madness last season and filing away any hopes of getting the Jakester. Sean Marshall, your table is ready.

It moves the payroll to $147.5M (plus some rainy day fund for a mid season acquisition) minus let us say 6 players; let us presume Cedeno, Pie, Wuertz, Gaudin?, Vitters, Hart or Stevens & Gaub or something like this…which adds $4.5M in liabilities $143M then the additional $1M for a back up (unless we go with K Hill), and a $2M LOOGY, or $146M for 2009 going into April.

That is fine, but Peavy is $15M in 2010. Right now even if we trade the above the liabilities are $141M so adding $15M takes the Cubs to $156M.

The “tell” is that the ownership group will sign off on this being outside the standard budget against revenue stream in a recession era economy—-it an’t my money

the delay seems to be in getting some certainty in Cubs ownership to sign off on the deal, something that has always, always been mentioned in these rumors.

So, we never should have thought the deal would get done at the winter meetings.

In my opinion, the deal will not get done until the ownership situation is settled. I do not think the deal will happen midseason if it happens.

but all the beat writers mentioned it yesterday, after Hendry’s Marquis trade conference call, and he gave them some hint that it’s not completely dead.

I like parsing quotes, while others would see it as an over-obsesive waste of time. I’ll leave it for now, but I think I disagree on the timing. I think either it is done before opening day or not at all – since a lot of the parts that would be moving from the Cubs need to find homes somewhere before opening day.

It’s really not the 2009 payroll that is the sticking point, it’s 2010+.

DeRo and Marquis moves, even with adding Miles and Vizcaino saves $8.675M for 2009. It does nothing for 2010 savings, in fact it adds a minimum of $3.2M for 2010 ($2.7M for Miles salary and a $500k buyout for Vizcaino).

I say if the deal isn’t struck by about 2/20/09, it won’t be until 7/20/09.

The biggest bargoning chip the Cubs have on their side continues to be Peavy’s NTC.

Whether its 1% or 50%, as long as there’s a chance, there shall be discussion.

to trade Peavy since he’s the easiest move to get the Pads to $40M or less. But they still have to sell tickets; that’s what you’re not taking into account. And they can sell more tickets for a group of everyday players to promote than for one player who’s only out there every 4 or 5 games.

Unless that payroll is back up to the $65-75M point there is no way they will spend $11M on one player for the entire season. They will simply have so many holes, not only will they lose a lot, they’ll be losing in front of a lot less people. That makes it a double whammy, having a higher payroll than they wanted and having even less gate receipts.

I say he’s gonna be moved either in 5-6 weeks or by the NWT deadline if Towers has to be held in the $40M payroll range. The longer this goes towards spring training, the better chance Hendry has of doing something. The Cubs are in position of power, so they don’t have to sell the farm for this guy.

Giving up $13M for one year of Pettitte only costs money as opposed to Peavy who would most certainly cost Vitters plus others and more money on top of that.

I’ts kind of hard to figure out whether the Cubs are in a tight payroll situation or whether they can be flexible. There is certainly conflicting information out there on that.

…and, while he was critical of some of Hendry’s moves, Stone still picked the Cubs to win the NL Central by a wide margin.

The question would be…which team is trying to flip their acquisition.