What would i do now???? or what would i have done a few years ago????

because if i was a GM now my hands are completely tied by the long-term deals we've signed in the past AND the no trade clauses handed out with them.

Soriano, Aramis, DLee, Lilly, Zambrano are all tied in for the next 3 years with no trade clauses, so we've tied up:

so here are our unmovable committments:

2008 = $65 Million
2009 = $75 Million
2010 = $75 Million

These guys are all at the edge of their primes, so since we can't move them we have to take a shot at winning these next 3 seasons....

So....my plan for this year would probably be similar to the plans of Hendry, but i'll outline it anyway, despite it missing the broadscale point (analyzing the past)

but here goes:

Fukudome is the obvious target and the first part since he fits some holes they're trying to fill

Only sign Fukudome if it costs 10-12 Million for 3-4 years, anything else is too pricey and too restrictive for future years

that would put us at committments to 6 players at:

2008 = 75-77 Million
2009 = 85-87 Million
2010 = 85-87 Million

that leaves me with the current rest of the 08 payroll at right about the projected 115 Million we've talked about. So i'd need to shed current salary to free up any more moves.

I'd trade Marquis for almost anything, market him heavily as a cheaper/shorter committment to the Kyle Lohse and Carlos Silva's of the world, hopefully you get a lower level prospect for him and in the process shed the 6 Million this year, but more importantly the 9 Million in 2009.

If you can market Dempster this way as well, move him if not he should be in the pen as a 6th-7th inning guy. The committment to him is 5.5 Million for this season and this season alone, so you can roll the dice, hope he has a good season and then Elias ranks him as a Type B and someone signs him

I'd fill out the rotation using Marshall as our #4 and Gallager as our #5. Hart should be the long man.

The pen should be set with:

Wood, Howry, Marmol as the high leverage guys. Dempster, Wuertz, Eyre as the low leverage guys and Hart as the long-man.

Stick Pie at CF and watch him blossom, don't yank him around. Just let him play and he'll be fine. Open up a competition at SS for Ronnie and Theriot, Theriot would be the favorite to start but Ronnie should get a chance since his natural talent and ceiling is certainly higher than Riots

Our lineup would be set with:

Soriano
Fukudome
DLee
Aramis
Soto
DeRosa
Pie
Theriot/Cedeno

bench would be Murton, Ward, Blanco, Fontenot/Patterson, Fuld

Pump any excess money we save into the draft, don't play around and say we're saving it for the trade deadline, pump it into the draft. Give Wilken the ability to choose whomever he wants irregardless of salary and reap the benefits.

If we can't sign Fukudome...

DO EVERYTHING THE SAME, stick Murton in RF... we'll get 75-80% of the production at 1/15th the cost.

stick excess money into the draft, dont go out and try to do the usual plug RF with a mid level guy because he's LH... we've made this mistake with Burnitz and Jones... just stop it.

and again....Pump excess funds into the draft and intl scouting

Notice i'm not including any trades because of 2 reasons:

1. I dont believe we have a deep enough system to move prospects for any players that could currently help us more than what we already have
2. any trade ideas I propose you'll likely shoot down saying, how do you know Hendry could get that done or how do you know he's not trying to do that, etc

but that's missing my point

my point is the moves we've made in the past and the way this organization has operated in the past is one for concern. IE Signing mid-level guys (losing draft picks) and then trading them at the end of their contracts when we're trying to shed salary for likely lesser prospects than we could've drafted

that's where my criticism was, and while i'll argue that we could've fetched more for Jones, Ohman, and CASH than Ascanio you're going to go straight to the "how do you know we could've gotten more", which i dont

which i guess makes it impossible to ridicule any trades we ever make, based on the premise none of us know the negotiations

which creates a circular dilemna of never being allowed to criticize management, because we dont know all the facts

and there's some truth to it and there's some element of laziness to it as well... because as fans we're supposed to speculate on how our club can improve, not simply sit back and take whatever they give you without question

anyways, this is kind of an exercise in futility because you're asking me to make a plan for THIS offseason and this one alone, when i've been complaining about the Cubs just making plans for 1 offseason at a time instead of having an overriding plan for a number of years at once.

Because of the past moves we've made trying to plan starting with this season for a few seasons in advance is quite a difficult task since we're tied up with unmovable assets encompassing 40-50% of our entire budget. There just isnt a lot of wiggle room given the way they've operated in the past

but if you're asking me about my overall philosophy or the thing that has frustrated me most about the cubs, well its pretty simple

Avoid spending through FA for league average production

i.e. Jones, Eyre, Marquis, Dempster, etc...

instead pump that money into your scouting and your draft budget and target the highest level prospects coming out of the draft

leverage your financial advantage through the intl scouting and through the draft and you wont have to overpay in FA

which is why i would never have signed Soriano or Marquis, etc.... i would have never tried to turn a 67 win team into a 95 win team overnight.... because its almost impossible to do...

whenever you're playing in FA you're paying a guy who's heading towards his 30+ years, for the production he had when he was in his mid 20's

its a bad gamble

does this satisfy your request?