Jim Hendry

One year after an offseason filled with all the wrong moves, the Chicago Cubs have started this one off on a much better foot.  On Thursday, the Cubs made their latest offseason transaction by trading INF Aaron Miles and 3B/OF Jake Fox to the Oakland A’s for RHP Jeff Gray and two prospects.

I keep reading and hearing from both Cubs fans and the media alike that Jeff Baker is likely to be the starting second baseman for the Cubs in 2010. If that happens, I think it will be a mistake.

You see, Baker has never done anything outside of Coors Field. It would be a leap of faith by Cubs general manager Jim Hendry to expect Baker to post the same numbers over a full season as he did during his time with the team in 2009.

With things so quiet on the trade front, you have to assume that the winter meetings will start the momentum of the offseason going—someone will overpay for a reliever that had a career year or a position player that was great two years ago but has been injured since.  The question for us is, what will Jim Hendry do?

The 2003 season changed Cubs' fans lives forever.

We all know about Steve Bartman, Moises Alou, Alex Gonzalez, Mark Prior, and Dusty Baker in Game Six of the 2003 NLCS.

Each of them had a role in the epic collapse, and each has left a sour taste in the mouths of Cubs fans.  

The one man who nobody talks about is the GM at the time, Jim Hendry.  

All is quiet on the northern front in Chicago baseball so far this winter.

Which is odd, because Jim Hendry's last few winters have been highlighted by more big game hunting than a weekend with Ted Nugent.

When a guy's resume includes bringing in names like Alfonso Soriano, Ted Lilly, Kosuke Fukudome and Milton Bradley, and when you consider how public Hendry's courtship of each player was, the fact that there hasn't been much of a peep from Hendry so far in November is intriguing to say the least.

I was wandering around various baseball sites today, and came across a thought that honestly made me laugh when I first read it.

"[The Cubs] have the finances... have a chance to win, which is what [Roy] Halladay will certainly require, and while the Cubs' farm system isn't atop the league right now, there are a few intriguing talents that could fill out a package for Halladay."

That's on ESPN.com's Rumor Mill. I've read a couple other places that the Cubs might be a "darkhorse" candidate to make a splash for the Blue Jays' ace.

It's the middle of November, so there's a ton of speculation flying around the web about baseball players moving addresses before the 2010 season.

For teams like the disappointing Chicago Cubs, the final out of the World Series means the beginning of a new hope. But, this winter, that hope needs to be tempered with a strong dose of reality.

In the 40 hours or so since the conclusion of the World Series, four trades have sent nine Major Leaguers to new teams. Eight players filed for free agency, and two more were released by their 2009 organizations.

Milton Bradley, however, remains a Cub.

This is not yet a critical failing on the part of Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry. The key word, however, is "yet."

First of all, here's a link that will help us establish a proper frame of reference. The sheet attached is from Cot's Baseball Contracts, a valuable source for contract information for baseball players. It breaks down the 2010 financial obligations of the Chicago Cubs.

According to this breakdown, the Cubs are already obligated to $119 million in 2010, a number that's down from the nearly $135 million it reached this past season.