Harden's agent speaks
As the general managers meetings get set to wrap up at about noon today at the O’Hare Hilton, the star of the lobby this morning was agent Arn Tellem. A dozen or so Japanese reporters surrounded Tellem, who represents Hideki Matsui, the MVP of the World Series and a free agent.
Tellem also represents pitcher Rich Harden, who is unlikely to return to the Cubs after filing for free agency.
“I didn’t see Jim Hendry here,” Tellem said of the Cubs’ GM. “I have talked to him, and I know we’ll continue to talk. I know he’s just trying to gather information and assess his team’s needs and what’s out there. So I’m sure we’ll be talking more in the next week or two.”
Tellem added that Harden, who has a history of shoulder problems, is healthy. “He’s fine,” the agent said. “If the team had been in the race, he would have been pitching (at the end of the season). No health issues at all.”
Harden told us near the end of the season that he’d like to come back to the Cubs.
“He likes Chicago; he very much likes Chicago,” Tellem said. “So we’ll see. We’re just starting the process. It’s very early, and I’m sure we’ll be talking to the Cubs over the next couple of weeks. Hendry just said that he wanted to take some time and meet with everyone and that we would be talking after these meetings.”
As I've been writing, look for Harden to land someplace other than Chicago.
If we pay or are asked to pay more than $4million a year to get rid of Bradley then we get a ton of GOOD minor league talent, like the marlins do or we suck it up, as do the Cub players and let him back We all have co-workers we don't like and don't get paid millions to put up with them I would NEVER pay any more than 40% of a salary to rid myself of someone we just signed a year ago Fiscal lunacy.
Made $2,300,000 last year I think he is a $7 million 2 year guy If more, than that, see you later Mr. Grabow It's time that management started to trust in their minor league pitchers and see them perform like Caridad and others did in fact do when given a chance Grabow isn't a necessity to sign
Okay in 2009 Cotts made $1,1 million GONE. Gregg $4.2 million GONE If and when Bradley goes and we pay at most say $4 million a season for him, that frees up $10 million If Ricketts is sincere about fielding a winner he deals with what he was dealt and keeps his good players and pays the price to keep his arb eligible players and stops allowing Hendry to bid against himself for the likes of Jacque Jones, Jeremy Burnitz, Bradley, Neifi Perez Giving those type players too much money causes the star players to ask for more And, as I said in an earlier post about signing good young players, if we had gotten ahead of Dempster being near FA, we would have probably saved $12 million over the course of a 4 year deal instead of paying him late right before FA was at the fore.
Probably gonna pay a lot more than $4M a season for Milton Bradley.
Don't forget the $3M about to be paid to John Grabow.
Hendry and Wilken are in fact building a good farm system. From ESPN and Baseball America's Jim Callis..
Jim, I read something on ESPN Insider last week that said the Cubs have one of the worst farm systems in baseball. Is that true? With Castro, Vitters, Brett Jackson, Jay Jackson, Kyler Burke, Colvin, Samardzija, Gaub, and others(you mention middle infield), seems like they are headed in the right direction. And every year, they have guys who come up and contribute like Wells, Theriot, Soto, Marmol.
Jim Callis (2:18 PM)
That sounds harsh to me. The Cubs don't have one of the top 10 farm systems in the game, but they're definitely on the rise. I haven't ranked all 30 systems yet, but they're middle of the pack, not one of the worst.
Hendry's been here running the minors directly or as GM since 1995. Good to see that those early picks have worked their way through the system!
How many prospects are vested in their pensions?
Thanks for debunking that myth the Hendry is incapable of developing a system.
If 15 years isn't enough, what's 10 or so more?
Just off the top of my head here is who the Cubs have developed and been successful:
Wood
Prior
Zambrano
Wells
Marshall
Guzman
Marmol
Soto
Theriot
Your list illustrates the knock against the Cubs farm system...it doesn't produce star position players (holding judgment on Soto at this time). The system has produced nice returns on the pitching prospects, but sooner or later they have to develop a few star position players so they don't have to pay $10+ million a year at nearly every position.
They do have the money He made $7 million As I said, trade Zambrano and save $19 million If not, then the payroll will be hostage for the next three seasons
Not offering Harden arbitration doesn't really make any sense. If the Cubs offer arb and Harden accepts, the Cubs will be on the hook for $9 - $10 million for one year and they'll have a good (sometimes very good) pitcher. If he declines arb, the Cubs get a draft pick. Either scenario is acceptable. The only way the Cubs lose is to let Harden walk away without getting anything.
The problem is the Cubs don't have $9 - $10 million to pay Harden. They have very little payroll flexibility for the 2010 season.
It is the same team as last year. We haven't added anyone and we have subtracted Gregg(4.2 million), and Johnson(3 million), and possibly will subtract more before the season starts. This is not including the Gathrights, Taguchis, etc that we had and paid for a while.
Lets just call it 8 million. That money right there will nearly pay Harden.
2009 salary was 134 million. We have already been told the 2010 expected payroll figures to be about 143 million. Subtract the 8 million for the free agents and that makes 17 million for Hendry to play with.
I can understand why he wants to settle the Bradley situation. If he trades Bradley for another bad player, then the money will probably equal out. If he can trade Bradley and get someone else to pay part of his salary, then that gives him more money to spend.
If they have something else in mind for that money, that is cool.
But the money is there if he chooses to use it on Harden.
about normal annual raises?
Soriano's $3 million bump. Dempster's $4.5M bump. Fukudome $1.5M.
And then all the arbitration raises.
If he really will take a one year $10 million or 2 year $20 million-ish deal it is a steal Zambrano is the bloated contract that sucks the life out of the coffers He and Soriano But I see why we overpaid for Soriano But Zambrano has been inconsistent the entirety of his career here
He would go in a trade if it were to a good team and felt ownership didn't want him
There is nothing about the handling of this situation that makes any sense to me: not offering arb, not resigning him, or not dealing him to Minnesota. Harden would get about 9-10M in arb. If the Cubs reallly, really can't afford that risk, Harden on 1 yr/ 10M won't be that hard to trade. If Ricketts can't accept this small risk to get high picks, he probably shouldn't be preaching about building through the system. If the Cubs knew they didn't want Harden back and that they couldn't afford to offer him arb, I have no idea why they didn't trade him to Minnesota and get something when they could. I guess it's possible that there's something in the health reports that we don't know about, but even then, wy not trade him to MN for something last August.
as they offer him arbitration...
Not likely. If he accepts then they are on the hook for what....$10 - 12 mill? Not sure many other teams are going to swoop in and offer him that kind of guaranteed money. Since he's Type B the draft pick wouldn't be as valuable as it would if he finished Type A.
If the team didn't offer Woody arb last year then it's hard to see them offering it to Harden this year.
he accepts and they get an extremely talented pitcher on a one year deal...that's less riskier than letting Samardzija get the job imo.
More importantly, as a Type B free agent which would cost the signing team no draft picks and the fact that there are few good pitchers on the market, he's likely to get a multi-year offer somewhere else and unlikely to accept arbitration. It's a risk to offer him arbitration, but a calculated risk in which the odds favor the Cubs.
Plus, the Cubs could have just dumped him to the Twins in late August if they didn't want to keep him or weren't planning to offer him arbitration and saved a $1M or so. That's the most egregious error of all this.
Wood was a Type A free agent last year so offering him arbitration was a little riskier since teams are more hesitant to give up one of their own picks to sign a free agent. That being said, they still should have done it.
He made $7M last year, he won't be getting a $5M raise. They can easily meet and agree upon a 1 year, $9M deal. Even this past season Harden was still worth $8M and it was considered a down year in terms of effectiveness.
Harden's value is more as a type B than it would have been as a type A....so offering him should be a no-brainer IMO.
Even if Harden made $10M going into next season, would it be that hard to find a trade partner before Spring Training? 1 year, $10M for Rich Harden? I dont' think so.
Hendry *HAS* to have something else he wants to do with that $9-$10M. $3-$4M is John Grabow. whoohoo!