On Thursday, the Kansas City Royals released first baseman Mike Jacobs.
Should the Chicago Cubs give Jacobs a call?
There are a couple reasons Jacobs intrigues me as a free agent, the biggest of which is that he would bring something the Cubs' bench currently lacks: power.
Over the course of his career, Jacobs has hit a home run every 19 at bats, a ratio that's significantly better than Andres Blanco, who has one career home run in 349 at bats, or Mike Fontenot, who's ratio is roughly one in every 41 at bats.
The closest thing the Cubs have to power on their ...
One of the hottest rumors flying around Thursday at baseball's Winter Meetings is that the Boston Red Sox have agreed to trade third baseman Mike Lowell to the Texas Rangers for minor league catcher Max Ramirez.
Lowell, who has dealt with numerous injuries over the past few seasons, is set to make $12 million in 2010, while Ramirez's salary is substantially less; Ramirez made $402,000 last year.
Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman first reported that part of the transaction will be Boston sending between $8-$9 million to Texas to cover a large portion of Lowell's contract.
Which brings us to another big name flying around ...
On Thursday morning, Major League Baseball held their annual Rule 5 Draft, in which teams can pirate other teams' minor leaguers for nothing.
The deal with the Rule 5 Draft is that any player selected must be on the selecting team's major league roster for the full season, or the selecting team is forced to send said player back to their original team with cash considerations.
Last year, the Cubs selected David Patton, who had an incredible spring and then disappeared because of "injuries" and poor performance.
This morning, the Cubs selected Mike Parisi out of the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
Parisi, a right-hander ...
With the dust still settling from the acquisition of Curtis Granderson in New York, the Yankees have some decisions to make about their 2010 outfield.
What happens to Melky Cabrera? Do they entertain the idea of bringing back Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui? Are they done adding outfielders?
This might be the perfect time for the Chicago Cubs to give the Bronx Bombers a call and ask about Nick Swisher's availability.
Swisher could some into Chicago as the anit-Milton Bradley. A fun-loving, goofy 29-year old switch hitter that played in Chicago for the White Sox in 2008 and, by all accounts, loved the ...
According to Jerry Crasnick , it appears the Chicago Cubs will tender an offer to infielder Mike Fontenot.
And to think things were going so well this winter for a while...
So far, Cubs GM Jim Hendry has unloaded dead weight Aaron Heilman via trade to Arizona, Kevin Gregg to free agency and Aaron Miles (with Jake Fox) to Oakland for prospects. The deconstruction of the disappointing 2009 team was well under way.
But now Hendry wants to bring back Fontenot, which puzzles me to say the least.
Fontenot emerged as a cult hero in Chicago after breaking out in 2008 as a key bench ...
The arbitration deadline has just passed, as has the first day of year's Winter Meetings. Anyone bored yet?
As is the case every winter, there's a lot of smoke and no fire on the first day of the meetings, but this year the dynamic in the National League has been developing ever since the final pitch of the World Series.
Consider the changes that have already taken place:
St. Louis signed Brad Penny to a one-year, $7.5 million contract that has incentives all over it that could escalate the dollar amount to around $9 million.
Jose Valverde declined arbitration and will leave an already ...
Is this heaven? No, Mr. Sandberg, it's Iowa!
Reports are that the Chicago Cubs have promoted Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg to the bench in Iowa as the manager of their Triple-A affiliate.
Somewhere, Joe Morgan is telling someone that Sandberg can't manage, either.
Sandberg has spent most of his professional career with the Cubs organization after being acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies as a young third baseman over 27 years ago. Since then, he had arguably the best career, both offensively and defensively, of any second basemen in the last 50 years (post-Hornsby).
Since retiring (for a second time), Sandberg has ...
Baseball's Winter Meetings have begun, and there isn't a team with as clear-cut a mission this week as the Chicago Cubs: get rid of Milton Bradley.
It appears Cubs GM Jim Hendry will do everything in his power to unload the switch-hitting outfielder/designated hitter this week after the marriage between the volatile Bradley and the organization, and Cubs fans, went south in terribly public fashion.
The reactions to Bradley from Cubs fans could have been better. Bradley claims there were racial comments made to him from the bleachers during games, something that past Cubs disappointments Jacque Jones and Latroy Hawkins have also claimed.
But ...
This week, the arbitration deadline came and went with few surprises. One player that became an unprotected free agent intrigues me as an option for the Chicago Cubs.
The Minnesota Twins have decided to part ways with Joe Mauer's backup, Mike Redmond.
Redmond's name on the availability list made me wonder who would be the better option to back up Geovany Soto in Chicago this summer between Redmond and Koyie Hill. Let's examine how these two backstops compare.
Redmond, who will be 39 in May, is a career .289 hitter with no power. (His career high is four home runs.) However, he has ...
Back in July, there were some people that thought the Cubs should have traded pitcher Rich Harden. I was among those that though Harden, having a good, healthy season, had arguably the highest trade value of his career and could have helped the future of the Cubs at the expense of a lost 2009 campaign.
Cubs GM Jim Hendry didn't agree; Harden stayed in Chicago.
Then, in August, we learned that the Minnesota Twins placed a waiver claim on Harden. Around the same time the Anaheim Angels won a waiver claim on, and paid a fairly steep price for, an underwhelming Scott ...
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