With the regular season drawing to a close and the Cubs being cellar dellewers in the National League, it’s time to start looking towards next season. Not to sounds like the real optimist, but the Cubs are pretty close to getting that team together for a playoff run. I think there are definately a few “ifs”, “ands” and “buts” in order for them to succeed next season.

First off, and the most important thing is the Cubs need resign Juan Pierre. Before you anybody start yelling at me for not mentioning Pie, hear me out. This was JP’s first year playing for real big name team. He came up with the Rockies, an expansion team. He next went to the Marlins, an expansion team. He had a horrible start off to the season, and he was always man enough to admit that he was not playing to his fullest. He leads the NL this season in hits and stolen bases, even after his slow start.

He also got his…

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With the White Sox win last night they pulled within 6.5 of the league leading Tigers. They are starting to pull away from the pack, and making the White Sox only chance at making the post season by winning the Wild Card, of which they only have a half of a game lead over the Twins.

I would very much welcome the Twins passing the Sox and them not getting into the playoffs. I’m sure being a Cubs fan, makes me a White Sox enemy, but regardless I don’t like some of the players on the team, and I don’t like the coach at all. Putting it nicely, they are jerks. Also, their two play-by-play guys are the most biast announcers I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. Every time I hear the phrases, “He gone!”, and “You can put it on the boarddddddddddd YEAH!”, I want to throw something at the TV. They can never say thing good about the other team, it’s always about the Sox.

Getting back to…

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We are reaching the home strech of the baseball season. Teams have been unloading players, and teams have been filling the holes that they have. The reds have pretty much completely re-worked their entire bullpen by getting a new closer in Eddie Guardardo from Seattle, and middle and late inning relievers. They had to lose once top prospect Austin Kearns and former All-Star Felipe Lopez to the Nationals for some relievers, with the big name being USA Team member during the World Baseball Classic Gary Majewski. Apparently Majewski had a sore shoulder and already had recieved a shot in it to relieve the pain, and is now on the DL. Obviously the Reds are mad at this because they were never told about his shoulder soreness.

On the flip side, teams that have little to no shot at moving onto the post season have unloaded some players. The Pirates got rid of a lot of their veteran players with their young player rebuilding movement. The Cubs trade Maddux and Walker now because they weren’t going to be resigned next season, so they go something for them. A couple of the Royals were moved around, but all and all it was a…

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Yesterday Kerry Wood announced that he was opting out of surgery to repair his slightly torn rotator cuff, and was just going to rehab it in Arizona. I think this was a pretty smart decesion by Wood. It’s obvious that he would just fubar up his shoulder again if he gets it fixed, and does nothing to correct his bad mechanics.

The way I see it the Cubs have a few options when it come to Kerry Wood at the end of the season. I’d say there is a 99.9% chance they will not pick up this 13 million dollar option at the close of this season. Even if he comes back as to the Cubs as a reliever, he won’t be making 13 million for the season, no chance, regardless of team. Given his success coming out of the pen last year, I think the Cubs will offer him a contract with many incentives. I’m guessing the base salary will be around 2-3 million.

Another option the Cubs have is to just let him go, pay his buyout and Wood and the Cubs will go their own separate ways. While I think this is unlikely, because Kerry Wood has publicly said…

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