Korey Watch

Many people are expecting a trade for Korey Patterson at any moment. Well, people better be prepared for this shock. The Cubs may not trade Korey.

"WHAAAAT?!?!?!" people will scream. "They just got the Ivory Ivy Chat long time drool inducing Juan Pierre here. How could they NOT trade him? He can't be on the team in 2006!"

Well, people would be partially correct. Korey won't be on the Cubs in 2006 and they may not trade him.

They may non-tender him and give him his outright release.

See, on December 20th, teams have to make final decisions on if they plan to "tender" (or offer) arbitration to their players with more than 3 years but less than 6 years of accrued major league service time. Anyone offered arbitration is guaranteed not to have his salary cut by more than 20%. A player offered arbitration could also find gold in an arbitrator who rules in his favor and grants him a huge raise, deserved or not.

Back to Korey, he made $2.8 million last year just for being useless. That means, that anyone who trades for him will have to pay him $2.24 million at a MINIMUM.

It's very possible no team will want to pay that, regardless of Korey's upside, even if all the Cubs ask for in exchange is the phone number of a good take out pizza joint.

If that happens, look for the Cubs to let Korey walk on December 20th. Yes, the once #3 pick in the draft, the can't miss player most fans adored before they even saw him, may be let go for nothing.

I've got no problem with that.