Friday Notes

I realized my Cubs apathy reached a new height when I had no idea who the Cubs are playing today and don't really care to look it up.

...the necessary return.

- Daytona won in spectacular fashion last night to advance to the finals of the Florida State League and will take on the St. Lucie Mets in a best of 5 starting tonight. Down 3-0 in the bottom of the 8th, the Daytona Cubs plated four with Matt Szczur delivering the game-winning two out hit.

You may have thought I've been on vacation since May, but really just the last week and next. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things when I return.

In the meantime, the Mets visit Wrigley for this weekends exhibition. Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey and his surprising 2010 season start off the set against Randy "Sophomore Slump" Wells.

Fukudome, Castro, Byrd, Ramirez, Nady, Soto, Soriano, DeWitt, Wells

vs.

Pagan, Duda, Carter, Wright, Davis, Arias, Thole, Tejada, Dickey.

The site is broken.

The Cubs are broken.

I'm swamped.

The Friday beatdown lineup, yep, Soto batting 8th.

LF Colvin, SS Castro, 1B Lee, 3B Ramy, CF Byrd, RF Fukudome, 2B DeWitt, C Soto, P Gorzelanny

I just wanted to thank Sweet Lou and Aisle 424 once again for their guest posts last week. Be sure to visit their blogs on a regular basis as well. I had one more guest column lined up, but the server issues last week preempted it. The plan is for it to be up next week.

Speaking of the server issue, everything seems to be working smoothly once again. Or at least it has since Monday when I got back. Anyone still having issues connecting? We did have to upgrade to a higher server package at three times the cost, so I'm now forced to take on advertising on my body parts for $5 a pop.

- The Cubs made some roster moves today, Marcus Mateo, John Gaub, Jeff Gray adnd James Adduci were optioned to Triple A. Darwin Barney, Bobby Scales, Robinson Chirinos were assigned to minor league camp leaving 33 in camp. It appears James Russell will be added to the 40-man roster and make the team (a 0 ERA in spring will do that for you) and Tom Gorzelanny and Carlos Silva will be the starters, leaving the bench as the final puzzle to be solved.

I was suppose to post this Friday night, but life got in the way the rest of the weekend...

- Arizona Phil does what only he can do...an amazing retrospective on how the 1969 Cubs were built and his memories of the season.

- Ryan Theriot is losing fans in the Cubs organization apparently by sticking to his $3.4M demands. Bruce Miles on the radio and Bruce Levine both saying that an arbitration hearing looks inevitable. It would be the first arbitration hearing in 17 years between the Cubs and a player (Mark Grace).

- Orlando Cabrera signs with the Reds on a 3 million deal for one year with a $1M buyout on a $3M mutual option in 2011.  They then acquired Aaron Miles from the A's for Wily Taveras and Adam Rosales. As long as they don't land Johny Damon...

(Interesting twist to this story, A's DFA Taveras immediately. Also, the A's are sending a PTBNL to the Reds as part of the deal).

- Reed Johnson was offered $800K by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

- The mayor of Mesa discusses the city's proposal for the Cubs potential new spring training facility. The two locations being discussed are the NE part of the valley by the 202(sounds like he says by Record but couldn't find that, earlier interview he said Greenfield which is what the link goes to) or near the Gateway Airport by the 202 Freeway and Elliot Road. He also says that they'll look to try and grab another Florida team to fill HoHoKam and Fitch Park. As has been mentioned, besides the new stadium and facilties, a Wrigleyville West will be built around the park for fans to spend their cash at.

And for what it's worth, the governor of Florida says it's not quite over.

“I had the opportunity to chat with the owner last night,’’ he said during a stop at Cambier Park in Naples. “He told me, ‘governor, you’re going to see some thing in tomorrow’s papers, but no decision has been made.’’

- The New York Times takes on the Cubs convention. Speaking of the NYT, they've announced a metered payment system to start in 2011 for their online content. Basically you get 10 free visits a month and then will have to pay to access anymore articles. Don't be too surprised when the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune do something similar in a few years.

- We got a mention at Big League Stew in their Chicago Cubs BLS Blogbook. Thanks. On the left sidebar of our site, I added a Cubs blogroll that randomly features 5 of the so far 36 and counting Cubs blogs that I've found.

a lot of ground to cover here, let's get to it...

UPDATE: Muskat previews the Winter Meetings and says up to three teams are interested in Bradley. Talks have happened with the Tigers for Granderson but not looking good at the moment. Reed Johnson is welcome back and Mark DeRosa is out of the Cubs price range.

- Mlive.com has a pretty detailed report on the negotiations between the Cubs and Tigers so far for Curtis Granderson. The Tigers wanted Carlos Marmol or Starlin Castro as the headliner in a trade and they've been deemed untouchable (that always works out well for the Cubs). They did do some previous scouting on Jake Fox last season and he could of been of interest as part of the package, but they'll have to get him from the A's now.  Names like Josh Vitters, Jay Jackson, Andrew Cashner and Hak-Ju Lee are thrown around, but they don't quite bring the right mixture of major league readiness and prospectdom that the Tigers are craving.

- A very sketchy rumor of the Cubs having interest in Vicente Padilla.

- Chone Figgins to the Mariners for 4/36 according to Rosenthal. A bit pricey, but such is the cost of dabbling in free agency.

A little under the weather and mourning the end of the Bears season, so some brief notes to hold you over for the weekend.

-  To add fuel to my "they better offer Rich Harden arbitration" fire, the Seattle Times suggest the Mariners have some interest in Rich Harden as I imagine a few teams will.

- Alex Eisenberg runs Baseball Intellect and he's added a premium service where he breaks down video of prospects. Recently he did one that included  Logan Watkins and Hak-Juk Lee from a Boise Hawks game earlier this year. If you're a minor league junkie, I have to think that's a good way to spend $3 a month and I'll continue to give him a shout out when he features Cubs prospects.

- MLB Trade Rumors is reporting their own rumor that the Cubs have interest in the 21-year old 100 mph southpaw from Cuba - Aroldis Chapman. He's expected to be anywhere from $30 to $60M richer by the end of the offseason.

- Speaking of MLBTR, I read this bit over there:

ESPN's Keith Law, former special assistant to the GM in Toronto, mentioned a few interesting Blue Jays' non-trades in his chat today. He says that the Mets once offered 19-year-old David Wright for Jose Cruz Jr., but J.P. Ricciardi said "I'm not trading a major league player for some guy in the (Low Class-A) Sally League." Klaw also mentions that the Jays had a chance to trade Cruz Jr. for Rafael Soriano, but wouldn't do it unless the Mariners kicked in Clint Nageotte as well. What could have been, Jays fans.

Facepalm.