Footprints in the Snow: Chicago Cubs

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

This past season the Cubs treated their fans to the best season of their lifetime ... only to rip their hearts out of their chests with a pathetic playoff showing, getting swept by the Dodgers without so much as a whimper of life.

The task in front of Jim Hendry is to evaluate if anything needs to be done to a team that was the class of the NL in the regular season with 97 wins. Do you just assume the team hit a rough patch when it mattered, or is the team only built for the regular season?

It's a tough task, for certain, but the fact of the matter is that the window of opportunity with the Derrek Lee/Alfonso Soriano/Aramis Ramirez offensive nucleus is limited. It's not totally closed yet, but it is closing. In order to capitalize on the excitement they started to develop in Wrigleyville the past two seasons, it would behoove Hendry to push all his chips to the center of the table. Making a trade like he did yesterday shows me that's what he fully intends to do. What good is a prospect who won't be ready for another two years to a team that wants to win it all in 2009?

Who may leave?
Kerry Wood - free agent, already out the door (as I sob)
Jim Edmonds, free agent, already out the door
Ryan Dempster - free agent
Rich Hill, Sean Marshall, Ronny Cedeno, Felix Pie -- trade bait

What do they need?
A left-hander in the middle of the lineup to break up Lee/Ramirez/Geovany Soto, preferably a guy with plate discipline. I'd love to have a three-hole hitter with a higher slugging percentage than .462 ... and not hitting into 27 double-plays would be nice. Seriously, Derrek Lee is easily the worst three-hole hitter in baseball. He only hit seven home runs from June through the end of the season.

The bullpen could use a left-handed arm or two. Other than that, they should simply look to strengthen up any part of the roster they can without creating weaknesses.

What should they do?
I would like to solve the offense's postseason issue by making two simple moves. I would sign Bobby Abreu to play right-field and Rafael Furcal to play short. This shores up the defense while creating a more efficient offense. You force Soriano to drop down in the order in this scenario.

If Derrek Lee must stay, you bat him second. He's not a power hitter, so the team needs to stop treating him as such. My only concern would be the ridiculous amount of double-plays he hit into last year, but I'm willing to write that off as a fluke, since he never hit into more than 15 in any other year of his career.

Personally, I'd definitely consider moving Lee for anything you could get at this point, as he's obviously lost all his power and he's become very overrated defensively. Waiting in the wings is young Micah Hoffpauir, who hit.362 with 25 HRs and 100 RBI in only 71 games in triple-A last season. That's a 1.145 OPS. He only played that small number of games because he spent half the season with the big club, where he garnered 73 at-bats. He compiled a .342 average, .400 OBP, and .534 SLG. The Cubs found gold by turning one position over to a rookie last year (Soto), why not another?

Alas, I'm prepared to admit you couldn't get enough back for Lee. In this case, the batting order would go: Furcal, Lee, Abreu, Soriano, Ramirez, Soto; for the top six. You could slot them differently, but I think Soriano needs the protection from Ramirez in order to maintain a steady diet of fastballs. At the end of the order, I'm fine with the Kosuke Fukudome/Reed Johnson platoon the Cubs plan on using.

If I did sign Furcal, however, I'd have to do something with the middle of the infield. I love both Ryan Theriot and Mark DeRosa, but they don't have the best range up the middle and I believe we can't expect the offensive output they displayed in '08 to continue. Considering age and contract status, Theriot would have more value in a trade. It has been suggested the Cubs offered Pie, Marshall, Cedeno, and possibly some prospects for Jake Peavy. It's also been suggested the Cubs aren't incredibly serious about the deal and the Padres exaggerated to up the trade offers. Whatever, I'd jump in with both feet now. I'd throw in Theriot and any prospect they want to make the deal. I'd also be ready to let Dempster walk for the money he's likely going to command on the open market. I would thank him for the hard work he did for the team in '08, but he was too old to all of a sudden just blossom into a star.

So the rotation would be Peavy, Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, Rich Harden, and Jason Marquis. I would see if there's enough payroll flexibility left ... and if there was, I'd sign Randy Johnson to a one-year deal. You could probably convince management about the fanfare his 300th win would generate. Also, he owns the Cubs, so at least you'd be taking away a few losses from the season. If there is not enough room in the budget, I'd be fine with Marquis or Hill holding attempting to hold down the fifth rotation spot all season.There's always a trade deadline.

What will they do?
The left-handed bat is said to be a priority. I'm hoping for Abreu, but tempering my expectations to Raul Ibanez. He'd be a nice fit, but nothing like Abreu.

The Peavy deal at this point seems like a pipe-dream, and we couldn't have said this yesterday. I love how quickly news moves in Hot Stove season, don't you?

I believe the Cubs will re-sign Dempster, and enter the season with the same starting rotation they ended '08 with. And that's fine, because it's a quality rotation.

Soriano is going to remain the leadoff hitter, and Derrek Lee is going to stay at first base. I also don't think anything's going to be done around the infield.

Basically, the team is going to look very similar to the '08 version. There will be a few tweaks -- like the back-end of the bullpen with Carlos Marmol as the closer and Kevin Gregg setting him up -- but mostly you'll see the same guys who won 97 games last year.

Yeah, they were swept in the playoffs, but '09 is a different year, and I'm a glass-full kinda guy.