The Cubs have a handful of free agents after this season. Sadly, except for Rich Harden none of the expiring contracts are significant. Thus, the Cubs will not have much money to spend this off season unless the new owner, Tom Ricketts decided to extend the budget a significant amount from the 134 million dollar payroll the Cubs had for the 2009 season. Here are the free agents
Rich Harden-$9 million
Reed Johnson-$3 Million
Kevin Gregg-$4.2 Million
John Grabow-$2.3 million
The Cubs will also have several players who are arbitration eligible. The bullpen can be re-built with two players most likely leaving. I could see the trying to re-sign John Grabow, but we will see how it shapes out.
Dude, why do you want to sign Grabow? He's another high walk reliever. We have plenty of those on the team. Of that bunch, only Harden should be resigned
ReplyDeleteThis season the Cubs came into the season with no good left handed relievers. They had Neal Cotts, but learned early on that his one good season with the white sox in 2005 was just that. Then when Randy Wells did great in the rotation subbing for an injured starter they moved him permanently into the rotation and moved Sean Marshall into the bullpen. Now we have three lefties in the bullpen in Sean Marshall, Tom Gorzelanny, and John Grabow. Gorzelanny I am not a big fan of and don’t think he can be a reliever permanently. Marshall I like as a situational lefty, but think we need someone else with him. Grabow may walk a lot of batters, but he seems to get the job done. There may be other better options on the free agent market, but I haven’t analyzed it yet.
ReplyDeleteI do like Harden and would like to see him as a Cub, but I have concerns about him. Harden is going to want a big pay raise and want similar type of money as we gave Dempster. Depending on the payroll for next season with the ownership change and if we can afford him, I don’t think it would be great to invest a big contract into him. He has a long history of being injured. He has been healthy this year and hasn’t missed much time, but I think there would be safer options to max out our budget on.