10:59 pm CST tonight is the deadline for teams to fill out their 40-man rosters with players they want to protect from the Rule 5 draft next month.

With the trade of Aaron Heilman yesterday, the Cubs' 40-man roster stands at 33 players -- so they've got plenty of room to add players they want to protect. This article from the Atlanta Braves website gives some details on how this process works and also about some other upcoming deadlines.

The number of players added by tonight may also give us a clue as to upcoming trades or free-agent signings -- if the Cubs don't fill out the roster to the full 40-man limit, it may presage some acquisitions.

Post your guesses as to who the Cubs might add to the 40-man roster (or who -- cough Neal Cotts cough -- might be removed). Once the Cubs post the full list, I'll update this post, either later today or tomorrow.

More photos » by Al Behrman - AP

No scenes like this will be seen in 2010. Aaron Heilman is headed to Arizona.

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With all apologies due to BCB reader brian custer, a close friend of Aaron Heilman, he'll have to head to Phoenix to see his buddy pitch in 2010 -- the Cubs sent Heilman to the Diamondbacks today for two minor leaguers.

Personally, I'm happy about this -- Heilman did pitch a little better in September, which probably increased his trade value. This means it was a good thing that Jim Hendry didn't let him go for just the waiver price in August; at least a couple of minor leaguers will return. This also gives Esmailin Caridad and Justin Berg a better shot at making the 2010 bullpen; I like both those guys.

Details from the press release, after the jump.

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More photos » by Chris Carlson - AP

Derrek Lee signs autographs in Mesa last spring.

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The Cubs announced their spring training schedule today; it includes 15 games at Mesa and 20 on the road -- the road games include the two previously announced games vs. the White Sox in Las Vegas and the two games announced yesterday vs. the Diamondbacks at Chase Field that will end the spring season on April 2 and 3. There are more split-squad games this year, due to the addition of the Reds to the Cactus League, making 15 teams in Arizona. From the press release:

Individual game tickets for the 2010 Chicago Cubs home spring training games at HoHoKam Park will go on sale Tuesday, January 5 at 10 a.m. CST on www.cubs.com or by calling 1-800-905-3315. The ticket box office at HoHoKam Park will open for the sale of individual game tickets beginning on January 12, 2009 at 9 a.m. MST.

Season tickets for 2010 at HoHoKam Park go on sale Monday, January 4 at 9 a.m. MST and group tickets go on sale Tuesday, January 5 at 9 a.m. MST at the HoHoKam box office or by calling 480-964-4467.

Fans may direct ticket and additional spring training questions to info2010@mesahohokams.com.

Complete schedule after the jump. This schedule will be placed permanently on the left sidebar.

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More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP

Jim Tracy matches his SBN manager of the year award with one from the BBWAA. Lou Piniella got no votes.

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No surprise here, and the SBNation awards announced last week agree with both these selections.

Tracy got 29 of the 32 first-place votes. Two first-place votes went to Tony LaRussa and one to Joe Torre.

In the AL, Scioscia got 15 first-place votes, Ron Gardenhire 6, Joe Girardi 4, Don Wakamatsu 2, and one for Ron Washington.

BBWAA's NL Cy Young Award Winner will be announced tomorrow.

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Lou Piniella says, "Get me out of here!" the last time the Cubs played in Chase Field; they lost 10-0 on April 29.

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The Diamondbacks released their spring schedule today; included was the information that the Cubs will play the Diamondbacks in two exhibition games at Chase Field on Friday, April 2 at 8:40 Chicago time, and Saturday, April 3 at 3:10 Chicago time.

The last time the Cubs and D'backs played a similar exhibition schedule at the end of spring training was in 2003. The Cubs won both games and went on to make the playoffs. Just sayin'.

More photos » by ED ZURGA - AP

Zack Greinke is the AL Cy Young Award winner. But that doesn't make this jersey any more attractive.

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Greinke got only 25 first-place votes (of 28) -- why this wasn't unanimous is a little bit puzzling. Felix Hernandez got two of the others, and Justin Verlander the other one.

In a bit of strange scheduling, the NL Cy Young winner will be announced on Thursday; tomorrow, they'll reveal the Manager of the Year balloting.

More photos » by Lynne Sladky - AP

NL Rookie of the Year 2009, Chris Coghlan of the Marlins.

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When I posted the results of the SBNation voting for various awards last week, I also posted the BCB ballots and the results of the voting. I thought that was a courtesy to you, the reader, and also informative.

The BBWAA, apparently, feels differently, or maybe it's MLB's fault -- it took me half an hour of searching, after the results came out, to find this single article which tells us that Randy Wells got a second-place vote and finished fifth.

I haven't yet been able to find any online source that has the table of voting. Seriously, how difficult is this? If I can do it, why can't MLB?

Regarding Andrew Bailey, he had a fine year but might not even have been the best rookie on his own team (Brett Anderson also had a good year, but finished fifth). I'd have voted for Gordon Beckham in the AL, myself.

by Nam Y Huh - AP

Where will Mark DeRosa play baseball in 2010?

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As I have done here each of the last four years, I'm going to run a contest, beginning today, matching the MLB.com Free Agent Frenzy contest.

The rules are pretty simple. You'll find, after the jump, the 15 free agents that MLB.com lists in its contest. Choose the team you think the free agent is going to sign with, and your "confidence" level expressed in a point value. In other words, if you are absolutely, positively certain that Mark DeRosa is going to return to the Cubs (NOTE! Joke! I'm not suggesting this, just using it as an example), you'd assign that pick 15 points. If you'd love to see Aroldis Chapman in a Cubs uniform, but you think that's extremely unlikely, give that pick one point.

Leave your picks in the comments to this post. We'll have the same deadline for picks as the MLB.com contest: one week from today, 4 pm CST on Monday, November 23. A winner will be chosen after all 15 free agents are signed. I'll need a volunteer to keep track of the entries -- and incidentally, because one of the players in last year's contest (Ben Sheets) never signed, we never did choose a winner. If someone wants to go through last year's entries and let me know who won, I'll send out the prize -- same prize this year as last, a copy of "The Cubs", a comprehensive history of the Cubs by Glenn Stout. Like the MLB.com contest, if any of these free agents remains unsigned on March 1, we'll declare the contest over and name a winner.

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