A couple years back Jim Hendry gave an interview in which he discussed with the journalist the supposed merits of what he called "The Notre Dame pipeline." It made all kinds of sense to brag about a pipeline with Notre Dame, because it's a school that has an extremely prestigious baseball team, you see. All this pipeline talk came on the heels of his savvy move to quickly snatch up the highly coveted Jeff Samardzija and give him 10 million dollars. What a steal. Jeff was the 2nd member of this pipeline, preceded by that other Cub legend, Grant Johnson. Johnson also was a complete bust. Now that we get the pleasure of watching the hideously mangled facial features of the Shark take the mound much too frequently (probably due to his $10 million contract) to hemorrhage runs, I've decided that action must be taken to eradicate this highly lucrative pipeline.

We must take up arms, my friends, and become Paul Revere's of a new generation to destroy this sludge pipe at it's roots. I'm holding an open meeting for planning purposes, time and location will be coming in a later post.

It's almost certain that the Cubs will open the 2010 season without Milton Bradley, and that's a damned shame. The Cubs will be a worse team without him. Numerous reasons why have been discussed here in the past, and are met with much resistance. Everybody knows Bradley is a very contentious topic around these parts.

Nick Steiner, over at the Hardball Times, took a look at Bradley's 2009 season and had this to say

The fact that Bradley has such a bad year - and it wasn't even that bad - can be placed solely on a huge drop in ISO from his previously established norms. His plate discipline and contact skills were just as good as they were in 08 and the year before that, and there is no evidence that the drop in ISO is anything "real". Despite the personality problems, teams are apparently lining up to try and steal Bradley away from Jim Hendry because he is still a very good player.

The Cubs will be making a mistake if they get rid of Bradley, although they undoubtedly will. The guy is a damned good hitter. Bradley should be given a second chance if for no other reason then the fact that he provides us a better chance to win than any other OF we'll acquire this offseason. Don't let the fans affect your baseball decisions, Jim!

Well, it looks like Jim Hendry is going to get what's coming to him. He's handled this situation extremely poorly, has made his bed, and will now lie in it. As Joe Sheehan at BP points out, players just aren't suspended over giving unhappy quotes to the media. The last player to be suspended by his team was Albert Belle, who throw a ball at a fan. This suspension is idiotic, unprecedented, and quite possibly against the rules. Here's the BP link.

And the other thing here is that the MLBPA and Bradley's agents are looking to file a grievance, because of how ridiculous the suspension his. In the article are some facts about suspension, such as the fact that Bradley hasn't even received formal notice from Hendry, or been notified if it was with or w/o pay. Jim Hendry comes out of this looking like complete shit, and he deserves it.