I almost feel like Santa Claus delivering a present early, but ESPN's quoted Dusty as saying he won't be back.

"I'm gone. I won't be back," Baker told the Chicago Tribune after the Cubs' 8-5 win over the Rockies on Sunday. "Somebody's got to take the blame, and it might as well be me."

Of course, the whole story's here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2609583

I guess there's a small possibility it won't happen, but it sounds like the Fat Lady's warming up.

Somebody should keep track of all the crazy quotes Cubs personnel make throughout the season, and at the end of the year we can vote on the goofiest one.

For example, Zambrano's quote, on the front page here, is pretty funny. I've thought that Zambrano's problems this season have been because he's thinking too much, but apparently astronomy isn't what he's focusing on.

Another one that killed me was a story on the Cubs homepage awhile back about Jones' slump. He said something to the effect of, "I know what they're trying to do. They're trying to walk me, but I won't let them." And then he later said it would help if he'd draw some walks. Geez, put two and two together there, Jacque.

And if someone really got into it, I'm sure we could have enough from Dusty that he could have his own division in such a vote. I don't know, if it sounds like fun, maybe someone can take it up. It may help if someone who keeps track of various Chicago media stayed on top of it.

Hall of Fame voting looks to get real interesting over the next few years (you can look at Jayson Stark's espn.com article on Sutter to see a list of the next four classes). After Sutter broke some new ground by getting in, I thought it might be fun for people to make some predictions on what we'll see in the next few years.

Next year's class is huge. There are some really great players in there, a lot of former all stars, and a few questions marks. Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr, are both eligible next year, and are mortal locks to get in. The only interesting thing there will be seeing who won't vote for them. Mark McGwire's also eligible, and it will be really interesting to see how things pan out in his first year. I expect to hear "I'm not here to talk about the past" mentioned a few hundred times next year.

Beyond those guys, the most interesting person to watch will be Harold Baines. Since most of his time was spent as a DH, it'll be interesting to see what voters think of him.

After that, the next three years will be relatively weak. So guys like Goose Gossage and Andre Dawson, et al, should get renewed interest again. The big question will be seeing how guys from the "steroid era" will affect those votes now that some of them are eligible for induction themselves.

I think Tim Raines has the best shot of newcomers in '08, though I don't expect him to make it. Rickey Henderson is on the ballot of 2009, but I'm not sure how that will work. If he's officially retired, it's just been in the past year or so, so I'm not sure how that will weigh in. I'm also not sure that he's a first ballot-guy anymore after hanging around so long. I think the vote totals of Matt Williams and Mark Grace might surprise us. They won't get close, but they might be more well thought of than we'd think.

The big question in 2010 will be Edgar Martinez. It goes back to the DH thing. I think a lot of that will depend on Harold Baines.

Thoughts?

There's an article today on cubs.com that talks about the performances of various Cubs players in the winter leagues. Ronny Cedeno grabs the headline as he absolutely tore up the Venezuelan winter league. Which brings me to my point.

Many people seem to think that we currently have a gaping hole at shortstop. They dismiss Cedeno's winter ball numbers because the Venezuelan league is hitter-friendly.

We need to ease up on the panic button here and give Cedeno a chance. During his starting stint at the end of last summer, he played well and put up good numbers at the plate. Regardless of the hitters' advantage in Venezuela, he put up great numbers. All he's done since his call up is hit wherever he's gone. Maybe he won't pan out at shortstop, but the guy has certainly earned his shot. He's hitting .355 in Venezuela, so that should be encouraging. If he was hitting .270, then we should freak out.

As far as hitting in the winter leagues goes, if you think that averages in these are entirely overblown and hitters will fare worse in the regular season, then you better start lobbying to trade Pie RIGHT NOW for ANYTHING (even taking consideration that he played in a different league).

We may not be able to put a lot of stock in Cedeno's numbers in Venezuela, but here's an interesting note: Henry Blanco hit .263 there, 21 points higher than he hit last season. Cedeno hit .300 last year. So if you could assume a spike of about 25-30 point in batting average in Venezuela, then you still project Cedeno as a .300+ hitter (note: obviously, the number of at bats would have to figure into making a real, solid projection, but you can still spot a trend in a simple exercise such as this one).

The other thing people tend to cite to write off Cedeno is that most of his minor league number are lackluster. But if you stop and think about it, there have been a lot of very successful major leaguers who didn't post great numbers in the minors, and likewise, stud minor leaguers don't always become superstars in the bigs (<ahem>Corey!<ahem>). Cedeno could be one of the guys in the former category.

The moral of the story here is that we shouldn't look at SS as a gaping hole, because it's simply not true at this point. Cedeno's played very well and has earned his shot at the position, and it should be his unless he plays his way out of it. But instead of being pessimists about this, we should be excited by how well he's played and be optimistic that he'll really help this team.

As long as we try to build winners by bringing in hired guns, we're going to miss out on the big prize. We're going to have to suplement our lineup with home grown guys, or we're never going to be successful. That's all the more reason to support Cedeno and Murton.

I guess this is going to amount to some sort of psychology experiment for me, but I wanted to pose a question and see how people answer it.

Let's assume that we hadn't signed Jacque Jones yet, and Eric Byrnes had all ready become a free agent. Out of the two of them, which would you sign to be the Cubs right fielder in 2006? Why would you pick one over the other? Or would you pick a different outfielder? (Please choose only from free agents, and avoid the impulse to devise trades, no matter how much sense they make or how bad you want to.)

Would you go for Jones because he hits left handed, or would you go for Byrnes because...well, he's not Jones?

Jones had posted pretty good numbers up until a couple of years ago, when he started to decline. He's 30, he plays good defense, and he seems determined to improve.

Byrnes is coming off a forgettable year, but in 2004 he hit something like .283 with 20 HRs, and stole around 20 bases. He also plays good d, but he'd be another right-handed bat in a lineup that's all ready overwhelmingly right handed. I'm not sure how old he is, but he's still fairly young. Both Byrnes and Jones seem to be good club-house guys.

In picking between these two, a consideration is that they contract you sign them to is the same as they received/should receive in reality (so if you sign Jones, you're signing him for about $5 mil per over 3 years). Once a few people respond, I may toss out something if I see a common denominator between answers.
Thanks!