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Chicago Cubs 2004
Chicago Cubs 2004
Previous Seasons 2003 Manager Contract With my contract up, I cautiously walk into the owner's office. I'm not nervous, since I met his expectations, but you never know what could happen. He offers me a 1-year, $600,000 contract to stay with the Cubs through 2004. It's not ideal, but I accept. Owner mood: 99 Team chemistry: 99 Owner expects: Play better than .500 ball in 2004! Reasonable expectations; hopefully, if I can add a few key free agents, they will be easily exceeded. But with defending champion St. Louis and ever-dangerous Houston in our division, you never know. The free agent season will be crucial for almost every team in the league, as young stars are available and not too many teams have a lot of room to work with. Coach Signings I fire pitching coach Larry Rothschild and our AAA manager, whose name I have already forgotten. Along with the newly vacant AA position, we now have three open slots to fill. I go all out, and we sign three solid coaches to long-term deals, all over $1 million per year. Pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre (LEGENDARY), AAA manager Tom Lawless (Outsanding/Good), and AA manager Dave Clark (Excellent/Excellent) all climb on board. With a young team, these signings should help out immensely. St. Louis loses its pitching coach and signs a new one with a rating of "average". ... On an unfortunate note, our payroll has risen to over $50 million, which greatly hinders our ability to go after a great young player. Our income last year gives us about $9 million to blow, and we have a lot of money in the bank, but I don't want to spend that yet. I'm hoping for a higher revenue this year. |
2004 Free Agency Period
Needs
SP: With Estes and Castillo in the market, we need to replace them. Glenn Bott is ready to take over the #4 or #5 spot, but we're still one short. With no lefties in the rotation, that appears to be the logical path; however, there are no solid lefty free agents out there. Pedros Martinez and Astacio are available, as is Bartolo Colon, Greg Maddux, and Jeff D'amico. I will also look to be active on the trading block. C: Damian Miller did a mediocre job last year, and is clearly on his way down. None of our divisional opponents have stars at catcher, so this would be a good opportunity to get a leg up on them with a signing or trade. Pudge is available but would probably command too much money; also out there are Gary Bennett, Javy Lopez, and Doug Mirabelli. Pudge is the only one who I will initially consider for a signing. RF: Orlando Palmeiro did an excellent job of stepping in late last year and was rewarded with a three-year contract, but realistically, he isn't a player that will lead us to a championship. A slew of big names are out there, such as Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Juan Gonzalez, and Vladimir Guerrero; once again, however, I don't think we can put up the money for these guys. MR: Francis Beltran will help, but we really need a nice solid reliever here. Guthrie was terrible and will be traded, Veres could collapse this year at 37, and I've lost hope for Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz. Solid middle relievers are dime-a-dozen in this game, so hopefully I can get a steal and still keep enough money to go after a Pudge or a Bartolo Colon. Priorities: SP, RF, C, MR --- |
Free Agency Moves
I start with what should be the easiest of the four needs to fill, which is middle reliever. The entire league seems to be a little bit short in this department, but I approach Oakland about a nice young reliever of theirs, 24-y-o Joe Valentine. LF Chris Magruder was developing nicely, but was by no means a long-term solution for us.
Cubs get RHP Joe Valentine from A's for LF Chris Magruder, P Chadd Blasko, and LF Jason Fransz. I'm disappointed with the asking prices of nearly all the free agent starting pitchers. I don't put an offer through to most of them; Pedro is the only one asking for a reasonably low price, and we can't afford him. I put in conservative offers to SS Miguel Tejada, Pudge, and Bartolo Colon. None should be high enough to land the big fish. On day 2, we get the normal three e-mails. Tejada surprises me by telling me that he likes my offer. Colon has been offered more money by Seattle, and Pudge laughs in my face. If we sign Tejada, then I plan to deal Bellhorn for a starting pitcher. In a "why not" move, I offer Guerrero a 7-year deal for $12.5 million per. He only has a few offers on the table, so we might get lucky. On a sour note, Houston appears to be seriously pursuing Ivan Rodriguez. Sosa surprisingly has no offers, so he might be an interesting possibility if he keeps it up, which is unlikely. On day 3, we get two e-mails. Guerrero laughs at our offer, and Tejada has received more money. I offer him a 7-year deal at $10.5 million per, but I don't expect it to go through. Sosa and Renteria are possibilities at this point, although I don't have an offer to either of them. I shop around Bellhorn to see what type of players he would fetch, and the response is generally good--St. Louis would even give us Jason Isringhausen. We'll see how the next few days of this process play out first, however. Day 4 is off to a good start as Tejada informs us that he is favoring our offer at the moment. Sosa still has no offer. In an interesting move, St. Louis has passed Houston as the frontrunner for Ivan Rodriguez. This could be very interesting. |
Free Agency Continued
As we move along, it appears that our entire plan is on the verge of collapsing.
Renteria was signed for about $5 million/year by Tampa Bay. Sosa has been offered big money, apparently, so that's out of the works as well. Pudge signs happily with St. Louis. Houston is now in the running for Tejada, who is joyously raising his asking price to well over $15 million. Pedro goes to San Francisco. Colon goes to Cleveland. Guerrero won't sign. We still hope to land Tejada and trade Bellhorn, which has become more expensive than initially expected. Finally, on day 15, we land Tejada. $15.5 million per year through 2010. This puts us overbudget by a considerable amount, but that should be helped by unloading Bellhorn's $3.75 million dollar contract. I'm now leaning towards hopefully picking up a young star in the making rather than a pricey veteran. We'll see how it shakes out. Angel Guzman will be given a shot at the major league level at some point in the year--he only has an ERA rating of 4, but maybe he'll work some magic for us. None of the top pitching prospects are even at AAA, so I nix that idea. More from the trading front later... |