Now What?

With the start of the Baseball Winter-Even-Thought-It's-Still-Fall-Meetings today, Jim Hendry finds himself, quite possibly at a career crossroads. It's possible that failure by Jim this week could also go so far as to sink three other ships. Dusty Baker, Andy McPhail, and the Tribune Corporation as owners, may all founder if Hendry doesn't pull that screw out of his butt and right the listing Cubs.

Phil Rogers echoes many thoughts that this page has held for a long time. Namely, that one of the primary reasons Dusty Baker was brought here, and a reason I advocated his hiring at the time, was his ability to recruit free agents.

When Rafael Furcal took a job away from Dusty Baker with a team that HAS NO MANAGER, what does that say about Dusty? And what does it say if Bruce Miles is accurate and that the Cubs may have actually offered Furcal more dollars over the first three years of the contract than the Dodgers did?

A source close to the negotiations said the Cubs had a three-tiered proposal in place: one that would have guaranteed Furcal $47.5 million over three years to leave the Atlanta Braves; another worth potentially $50 million over five years; and yet another that included a sixth-year option that would have made the deal worth $57.5 million.

Rogers goes on and says that the Cubs may have to trade Prior or Zambrano to get Bobby Abreu. That's nuts. Sure, the COULD trade those guys and get Abreu. But, they won't need to. They may need to trade Pie and a Ricky Nolasco and a Sergio Mitre to get the deal done, but it will all be a factor of how much salary the Cubs are willing to take on.

They better be willing to take on a lot. Failure by Hendry will lead to his firing, which would lead to the dismissal of Dusty Baker. Andy McPhail, having blown through three GMs (Ed Lynch, himself, and Jim Hendry), might finally get the axe he so richly deserves. And lastly, the Tribune, facing profitability issues and the death spiral of the newspaper industry, may have its board question why it owns a baseball team. A team with a $100 million payroll. A team that provides the negative image of losing. A team that provides fewer and fewer nightly broadcast opportunities for WGN as the WB Network takes up the bulk of the evening timeslots.

Anyone who things that 2006 isn't a pivotal year for the Cubs as an organization completely misses the overall.

Be patient? Way too late for that.