Regarding the "Prior" Comments

I'm not sure if Prior is a jerk or a good guy. Really, there's no way to know, sitting at home online or in front of the Cubs game on TV. When someone says this guy or that guy is a bad teammate, or a bad guy, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Is the person creating the impression that Prior is a jerk a Tribune employee paving the road out of town for Prior (to save the company money)? Is it a reporter who just doesn't like him as a person, or who has a grudge because Prior wouldn't give him some time or an interview at some point? Is it a teammate who is popular with his peers but is not as talented as Prior? (That could be any of them!)

As fans who never met these players, I don't think it is OK for us to base our judgments of their personalities without any firsthand knowledge because then we are empowering the people who spread rumors and damage reputations for ulterior motives. When we do that, the Cubs suffer on the whole as well.

Prior Signs With Padres...

Now we will see if I was right to suggest that the Cubs should have retained Mark Prior. Prior has a $1 million/ 1 year contract with his hometown team, San Diego. I somehow suspect he is very happy with this outcome. Being a Padre means he gets to pitch his home games in Petco, which will help his numbers.

How much the Padres get from Prior is unknown, but for San Diego, this contract was a no-brainer. It will be a long time before a player with this kind of ability is available so cheaply again.

So this year's rotation will be Zambrano, Lilly, Hill, Dempster, Marquis, and possibly Sean Marshall or Kevin Hart. There are enough candidates with potential that it was OK to turn Prior away from the baseball perspective. But after what Prior meant to this team, in 2003, I would have liked to see the Cubs give him another chance, to see how his arm looked after he was done rehabbing this year.

In other news, the Yankees have signed LaTroy Hawkins. So is George Steinbrenner too far gone to stop this type of madness? Yes. LaTroy and demanding fans were not a good mix; the Yankees also failed to learn not to get mid-decade Cub relievers. What, exactly, did Kyle Farnsworth do for New York?

Shawn Green?

Recently one of our readers suggested that the Cubs should go to acquire Shawn Green. Would this make sense? I wasn't aware of it before, but Green hails from Des Plaines. He's also my age, as well. What Green would offer is a fourth outfield bat; on certain days, maybe with the wind bowing out, Fukudome could play center and Green can play right. Actually, with the wind blowing out, Piniella could even see if Soriano could get by in center, and put Green in left that day. Most of this only makes sense if Felix Pie isn't ready or just doesn't work out. With Cliff Floyd gone, there is room here for Shawn Green. Whether or not he is interested in coming to the Cubs without a starting job is a good question. But being from the area, it is more likely than not that Green grew up a Cub fan and would love to play in Wrigley, and at age 35, maybe even if it's only part time.

This just might happen, if Green is willing to accept a backup job at this point. He is not the hitter he used to be, though he still can hit for average, with a .291 last year. He doesn't walk a lot but he is also not an impatient hitter. He doesn't run like he used to at this age either.

Overall, bringing in a fourth outfielder is something the cubs need to do, and Green makes sense because if Pie doesn't work out, we can still have a good team. If Pie does play well, then Green will not have enough playing time.

Pressure is off, Alfonso... Time to Show Us Your "A" Game

At the start of the 2007 season, all eyes were on Alfonso Soriano. And he responded with a slump, and then an injury. But when the smoke cleared, Soriano had had a good year.


On pure talent alone, no Cub touches Alfonso Soriano. Soriano remains the highest-paid Cub in 2008. He is also the best all-around athlete on the team, without question. He has great power and speed. He has a great arm. Soriano has the physical ability to be as good as any player in baseball. But he has received little adulation from the Cub fandom, nothing compared to Derrek Lee, or Carlos Zambrano.

What was good about Soriano in 2007? Would we have made the playoffs without him? Soriano was on a tear in September; when the Cubs needed to push, he hit more September homers than any Cub ever did. More than Dave Kingman, more than Derrek Lee, more than Ernie Banks, and even more than Sammy Sosa in any one September. Soriano was similarly crushing pitchers before his unfortunate hamstring injury.

Was he worth $13 million to the Cubs this year?
The perception of Cub fans is that Soriano is not all that he can be. ON the other hand, its not like the Yankees got twice as much player from A-Rod for the money. I would say that Soriano’s salary is in line with what a proven bat who is young and healthy can command. Also, his contract is for seven more years; by the time he is in the later years of it and not the player he was when he was signed in 2007 (he’d be 38 years old), salary inflation may well be so high that it’s not a big deal. Maybe 38-year old sluggers will cost $13 million per by the year 2014.
He insists on batting leadoff, though he has a .560 slugging percentage.
True, but any time you can get someone that good you are better off. He is still fast, capable of scoring from second on any hit that reaches the outfield, and even stealing a base or two.

He has great speed and a great arm, but is not a good defensive player, even in the outfield.
It’s true that some of his outfield assists were because his arm was not respected as much as it should be. It’s also true that left field is not an important defensive position. Maybe you’d rather see Matt Murton out there, or George Bell. Soriano does play better defense than many comparable offensive threats.
He had only 70 RBIs with his 33 homers, because he insisted on batting leadoff. He walked only 31 times but struck out 130.
It’s not abot how often you walk; it’s also about how often you get on base. Soriano’s overall OBP was .337; not worthy of a leadoff man but not a disaster either. A .270 hitter who walked a lot more would be in a similar statistical level.
Another plus with Soriano is his health. Yes, he did have some hamstring woes last season. But he has never torn an ACL, or hurt his back, or anything else that would permanently cut down his power and speed.

So it was Zell's idea...

The plan for the state of Illinois' Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to purchase and renovate Wrigley Field was originated by Sam Zell, the real estate tycoon who is in negotiations to purchase all of the Tribune Company. It is sad that the newspaper business in America has declined to the point to where it ends up in Sam Zell's hands. Now, it will be parcelled out however brings the highest possible dollar returns for the businessman Zell. Perhaps it is poetic justice for a right-wing, conservative paper so far to the right that it has endorsed the Republican for every presidential election since 1876. Yes, poetic justice to end up like so many other corporations and workforces the Tribune cheerleaded the destruction of, for the pleasure of Wall Street.

But I digress - regarding this deal: I shouldn't have to remind you all how wary I am of this state's politicians becoming involved in the care and maintenance of a building I love. Since D-Rod is a real Cubs fan, he should think twice about this deal before Wrigley goes all Hired Truck on us when the contracts for the renovations are actually completed. Believe me, taxpayers, this will cost you.

I am also not fond of the plans; MORE skyboxes? The skyboxes have already ruined the view from certain seats. And naming rights? Join with me, Cub fans, and make sure that the hypothetical corporation gets very little from splashing their name on our beloved landmark. You know Len Kasper will have no trouble getting AON Center at Wrigley Field out of his mouth but I hope none of you ever use that name. (AON is just an example. Please no angry letters to them citing my page.) I'll concede that I can't come up with a good reason there cannot be a parking garage. I would sure love it if it was nowhere in my field of vision once inside the stadium, that's all.

I don't think the state's taxpayers need to contribute this money to the pockets of politically connected insiders. Remember how it goes with these kind of projects; $350 million is just the beginning number. The real taxpayers' bill will be twice as much. But for Zell, and the governor's cronies, a great source of profit. So why is Daley mad? Well, for one, Zell approached Blagojevich and not him. That said, he DOES have a point about the awful, awful CTA.

Wrigley Uncertain Too?

Now in this era of Cub uncertainty, even the fate of Wrigley Field is not certain. My first thought when hearing that the Tribune was hoping to pull Wrigley out of the deal was that maybe they were afraid Sam Zell would try to turn it into condos or something. But Wrigley has landmark status, and there is no way this can happen. The real move behind this must come from either Blagojevich, a true blue Cubs fan (wouldn't he love, as governor, to be technically in charge of Wrigley too?) or from Zell, who would rather not deal with any landmark properties.

As much as I am a believer in government's capacity to do good, and a skeptic of current ideas about small government and privatization, I still don't feel comfortable with the State taking over Wrigley Field. If that happens, the management of it will be done by bureaucrats who don't really care about the stadium or the team. The Cubs will be at odds with Wrigley's management.

The Tribune has maximized Wrigley's potential all these years out of a desire to turn a liability into an asset; when the Cubs didn't have lights before 1988, day baseball was glorified on TV, and shown on the Tribune's WGN. When the lights were installed, the neighborhood was able to work with the team to maintain a low number of night games. If the State of Illinois is in charge, it will be much more difficult to keep the day games, especially when the state cries poor.

Wrigley should be sold to someone who wants to profit off of its potential while doing his best to make sure he does not kill the golden goose. No government body should be put in charge of a priceless but aging building to be run for profit. Especially not this corrupt state, or worse yet, the city-unless you want corrupt Sox fans as Wrigley's new masters.

No Hope for Prior?

I was expecting to blog about the Mitchell Report today, I really was. I thought Sosa would be on it. I thought SOME Cub of note would be on there somewhere. But the Tribsters spared all five of you readers from non-Cub talk today by trying to sneak the release of Mark Prior past us bloggers, seamheads, and legitimate media by doing it the same day as the Steroid news.

I said it here before: Prior's salary is not very much at all compared to his potential. We will pay Ted Lilly more this year than Prior made in his entire career; if there is a chance at all that Prior can even give us 50 innings of quality in 2008, then he should be signed prior (sorry) to arbitration. Because 3 million plus is a great deal on a low innings-pitched reliever. In this era of quantifying value on a dollar basis, I don't believe Prior at this price was very much bad business at all.

By doing this, the Cubs are saying that there is no realistic chance for Prior to revive his career. I admit I was depressed to hear that Prior's injury was a torn labrum. That's far worse than a torn elbow ligament, of the kind that normally sidelines pitchers for a year or more. Torn labrums often end careers.

Conventional wisdom states that it is bad to work pitchers too hard when they are very young; it leads to injuries all too often. Maybe this was the case with Prior. If that is a possibility, the Cubs would have been a classier outfit if they employed Prior for one more year while he was rehabbing, just to see if he had anything left. If he ever regained the magic, he might remember who had his back when he was down and out.

Or maybe the Cubs had wrong information linking Prior to the Mitchell Report. Maybe that tricky Billy Beane lied to them.

My best guess is that this is classic corporation behavior, as commonly seen in 2008. It indicates more than anything else that the Cubs decided there was more to gain financially by cutting Prior than by taking the chance. Hey, they did well without him in 2007! When I see something like this, I appreciate Kerry Wood's action in turning down better money elsewhere to be here. But I hope he did that for us fans, and not out of any naive loyalty to the Tribune.

The next time any journalist pines for the days when players spent all of their careers with one team, remember this example. The old days were built on a loyalty that went only one direction, from player to team. The present day is no different except that now the players can sometimes do what's best for themselves.

Goodbye, Mark Prior. If you attempt a comeback I will root for you, and in some cases even against the Cubs (like, before September 15th or when we're not in the race). If not, we will always have 2003 and I hope you invested some bonus money wisely.