Much Ado About Nothing; Or, Chicago Cubs Hot Stove Report

My paternal grandmother was a White Sox fan. Luckily, my Cub-loving grandfather married her anyway, and raised his children to be Cubs fans. I’ve been a Cubs fan since I knew what it meant to love a team, and this offseason has been as full of promise as any in recent memory (except for 2006, of course, when we signed Soriano.)

I kept thinking we’d find a way to trade for Peavy, or we’d sign a good left-handed hitter off the free agent market. I’m a Cubs fan, after all, and that requires optimism. Everything Hendry did this offseason left me thinking the Cubs were one step closer to The Answer. And no, I’m not talking about Allen Iverson.

Trading Marquis for Vizcaino saves about $6 million. Surely that’s a precursor to spending big money on someone, right? However, Soriano and Big Z each make $3 million more in 09, so that uses up the $6 million saved in the Marquis trade. Whatever..that new-Peavy smell is tantalizing. His two-seam fastball already looks as good as an Old Style vendor in the bleachers on a hot Wrigley afternoon. It'll happen.

Wait a minute! We just traded DeRosa, and that saves about $5 million! Back in the Peavy market, baby, yeah…what? Mm-hm, mm-hm. Harden and Dempster each make $2.5 million more in 2009 than they did in 2008, you say? There goes that “savings” from trading DeRosa to Cleveland. See ya, Mark, and thanks for the fun times. You’re a good guy, and we really liked how you could hit for power and average and play every single position well. Oy, vey. Kid probably could've pitched if we'd asked.

Well, we DID let Kerry Wood walk away. That saved about $4 million from last season’s payroll. But we’re going to pay Aaron Miles $2.2 million, and Reed Johnson got a $1.7 million raise, so the money we paid Wood last year is eaten up just like that. Jake who?

Here’s a quick recap: We let Wood walk, trade Marquis and DeRosa, and this saves us $15 million. However, it’s costing us $15 million to give scheduled raises to Soriano, Zambrano, Harden, Dempster, Johnson, and to sign Miles as a replacement for DeRosa. I’m not sure I like where this is going.

Now, I know we’re paying Joey Gathright about $800,000, and Aramis Ramirez gets a $1.5 million raise. And Kevin Gregg gets arbitration. So we’re a few million over last year’s payroll. We’re a big-market team. It’s Chicago, for chrissakes! Somebody call Ditka…he’ll fix this. This is no big deal. And then it hits me.

Kosuke Fukudome gets a $5.5 million raise in 2009.

I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.