But it’s apparent that that’s what the Cubs intend to do. After suspending Bradley, Jim Hendry has no leverage in trading him, and the Cubs will no doubt pay a large portion of his salary for him to play for another team. This is in spite of the fact that for all the talk about chemistry surrounding this team, Piniella said on ESPN 1000 yesterday that the most important thing for clubhouse atmosphere is winning. (Listen to the sound clip, starting from about 14:00.)

So it seems odd that the Cubs will squander resources to send Bradley to play for another team. Not that there aren’t good options for the corner outfield spots out there. Matt Holliday and Jason Bay are free agents-to-be, and Manny Ramirez may opt out of his contract.

The problem with all three players is money - they’re all going to cost a lot more than Bradley did, and when you factor in the portion of Bradley’s salary the Cubs are going to have to pick up, to sign any of them the Cubs are going to have to invest close to $30 million into right field to pick up any of those players.

So the list actually looks a lot slimmer. In fact, it looks like Kosuke Fukudome moving back to right field (where his bat doesn’t play as well but he’s a great defender) or some unholy combination of Micah Hoffpauir, Jake Fox, Sam Fuld and possibly Reed Johnson. It’s not exactly appealing, and it makes me wonder: if winning breeds chemistry, aren’t the Cubs setting themselves up for more bad chemistry here?

But with Milton Bradley obviously done in Chicago, the Cubs are going to need to fill Fukudome’s old position, and Fukudome seems like the most likely candidate. If that happens, the Cubs will need to consider who to replace Fukudome with. I’m going to throw out Reed Johnson here. The Cubs have had ample opportunities to give Johnson a starting role and I think they recognize that he’s best used as a situational player - although he may be a better option than the two in-house options I’m about to talk about.

The Cubs have a pair of lefty rookies who may get a shot at the job next season. Sam Fuld has been embarrassingly lauded by Cubs fans, getting “Sammy” chants at least once at Wrigley field. He has played very well in limited major-league playing time this season, with a .288 average and .406 on-base percentage, though no power to speak of. He’s been below average in center field this season, but that’s in only 13 starts, which I agree means almost nothing - he ought to be at least average defensively. But Fuld is a 27-year-old rookie for a reason: his numbers in the batter-friendly Pacific Coast League at AAA were good but not especially impressive, suggesting nothing good about his major-league prospects.

Tyler Colvin is another option the Cubs may look at heading into spring training. Colvin was drafted by the Cubs in the first round of the 2006 draft, even though he probably could have been taken much later. But the Cubs saw something in him, and given his September callup, it seems like they may still. His minor-league career has been hurt by injuries, but finally healthy this year, he hit .300 and with power in AA, although he wasn’t great at getting on base. In only a few major league at-bats he hasn’t been impressive, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he was in the mix for at least a fourth outfielder spot for the Cubs in spring training.

If the Cubs need a center fielder and are going to go outside the organization, the options aren’t great - the best free-agent outfielders this offseason are not center fielders. The two that seem most likely to me are both in the division - Mike Cameron and Rick Ankiel. Cameron is the better player, but he’s older - he’ll be 37 next season. But the last two seasons he’s been a good fielder and a good hitter, and could potentially be an upgrade over Fukudome.

Ankiel is, meanwhile, not an upgrade. While his comeback and conversion from pitcher to position player is impressive, he’s not a good position player. He’s been, over the past few seasons, very slightly above average offensively, owing entirely to his ability to hit for power. This season he hasn’t hit at all. Defensively he’s been worse than Fukudome in center field. But he’s a free agent and Jim Hendry seems to have a thing for former Cardinals (Aaron Miles, Jason Marquis, Jim Edmonds) and I’m not going to be shocked if he makes a play for him.

Hopefully it won’t come to that - as we’ll see next time, if the Cubs are willing to spend money there are better options in right field, and anyway, Fukudome has found a position where he can be worth what he’s paid, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to move him.

The big question with Soriano is what will his health be like next season? He’s getting older and we can expect his performance to decline, but he fell off a cliff after a hot April this year. Not coincidentally, his performance nose-dived after he hurt his knee. He had surgery on the knee a week ago, and his doctor found inflammation and cartilage degeneration. The good news is that coming back from the knee surgery should be easy enough. The question going forward is whether Soriano can stay healthy aside from that.

The good news there is that Soriano has generally been good even when he hasn’t been 100 percent, this injury aside. He was very good in his first two years as a Cub in spite of a couple of injuries which lingered a bit. The bad news is that as he keeps getting older, he’s going to keep getting hurt and have more trouble recovering from injuries.

More than anything else, Soriano’s injury seems to have deprived him of his power. He hit .241/.303/.423 this season, with 20 home runs in 522 plate appearances. He only hit home runs on 11.5 percent of his fly balls, down from around 16 percent or 17 percent in his first two seasons as a Cubs and down from 15.3 percent on his career. If we assume that the decline is due mostly to the knee injury, and not to age — because it’s odd that he would have started showing his age suddenly after having a great April — we can guess what he might have done had he not gotten hurt. (All stats via FanGraphs.)

Soriano hit 174 fly balls this season, 20 of which went for home runs. If he had hit according to his career average, 15.3 percent of them, or 27 (well, 26.6, but we’ll round) would have been home runs. Assuming nothing else at all changed his season line then would have been .256/.314/.482. That’s an OPS of .796. It would have still been a down year for Soriano, but not nearly as disastrous. The odds are that if he had had a little more power he would have walked a little more, too. And without a bum knee his defense, which was also down this year, would have been a little better. He may not have been able to carry the team, but he probably wouldn’t have been the drag on it that he was this season.

So, I’d expect Soriano to rebound some next year. He’s getting older and he’s probably going to continue to decline, but with his knee healthy he should be good until the next injury. If it’s the sort of injury that saps power and speed, again, he could be in for another disastrous season. But if he can stay reasonably healthy he’ll be a positive contributor, even if not quite worth what he’s paid.

That doesn’t mean the Cubs don’t need to think about third base, though. The team went in to 2009 without a solid backup plan if Ramirez got hurt, and as it turned out, he missed significant time and the team got burned because of it. I wouldn’t blame the team’s failure this season on the lack of a backup third baseman - they managed to get back into first place after Ramirez came back, even if temporarily, and the number of wins they lost because of his absence is not enough to make up the deficit with the Cards.

So, who can back up Ramirez? Well, if the Cubs go after Chone Figgins, he’s certainly an option. I’ve detailed that I worry about signing him to play second. I have fewer worries about him playing third base, though - if Ramirez got hurt with Figgins as the team’s every day second baseman, Figgins would probably move to third, where he owns a career UZR/150 of 6.9, which makes him worth almost a full win a season over Ramirez’s -1.3 at the position. My reservations about a Figgins signing aside, if he were on the team it would probably be easier to deal with an injury to Ramirez.

Jeff Baker is another option, and of course he’s already on the team. His UZR numbers aren’t pretty, so he may not be a good option at third. But those UZR numbers are over a very, very small sample, and as a competent second baseman he probably has the necessary athleticism to move to third, assuming his arm can handle it. Still, the danger with Baker is that the Cubs could run into the same problem they did with Fontenot this year - that he starts out as a bad third baseman and while he learns the position his hitting is affected. Plus, Baker would be exposed if he had to play every day and face a lot of right-handed pitching.

A third option would be Jake Fox. Fox has been really bad defensively in limited time at third base, and his reputation suggests that more of the same is in order. But he’s also been a decent offensive player.

The odds are that none of these players will have to worry about being the primary backup at third. I can’t imagine Jim Hendry will make the same mistake again, and I expect a free-agent utility player who has played more third base will be brought in in the offseason. But assuming no free agent is brought in to back up third base next year, it’s interesting to think about what a sort of platoon of Fox and Baker might look like at third. They’re both right-handed, so it wouldn’t be a traditional platoon. But I wonder if you could leverage their talents in such a way as to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts - use Fox when you have a fly ball or strikeout pitcher on the mound, and use Baker when you have a pitcher who relies more on his defense. Give Baker the bulk of at bats against lefties, and use Fox more against tough righties who would give Baker fits.

Regardless, third base is the least of the Cubs’ problems. We’ve been talking backups because I don’t think this is a position where the Cubs could or would attempt to get better by messing around with the starter.

Through the end of may, Theriot had a .293/.355/.459 batting line, which is very good for a shortstop. But since then, he’s hitting only .282/.325/.339. It was nice seeing him hit for a little power while it lasted, but it’s not surprising that he’s not really slugging. What is surprising is that on-base percentage. His season .335 OBP is about 50 points lower than last season’s and about 20 points lower than I would have guessed he’d be able to put up. He’s walking .43 times for every strikeout, his lowest total ever. (Last season he walked 1.26 times for every time he struck out.)

Meanwhile, he’s made up for some of that with his glove. I’m certainly not a scout, but to me he simply looks better as a shortstop this season than last season, and his UZR/150 numbers bear that out. In 2008 his UZR/150 was .7 runs above average per 150 games - basically negligible. This season it’s 5.5 runs, which isn’t amazing, but is obviously good. As a result, even with the slide in hitting this season, Theriot has been worth 2.3 wins above replacement so far this season, not too far off his mark of 3.1 last year.

That’s not to say the Cubs shouldn’t consider doing something with Theriot. For starters, Theriot hasn’t always played shortstop. For a long time, the Cubs were grooming him for second base. If he were to move back over there, his glove would probably be even more valuable than it has been this season. Defensively he’d probably be at least as good as Fontenot, with the difference being that he’s an adequate major-league hitter, too.

The Cubs have a couple of intriguing shortstop prospects in the minors, but none of them is probably ready to start at shortstop just yet (with the possible, but unlikely, exception of Darwin Barney). The Cubs could entertain the idea of signing Orlando Cabrera, who should be a free agent, but he’s been pretty bad this season, both on offense and defense. Miguel Tejada is another free agent, but his numbers suggest that on balance he’s not as good as Theriot at this stage in their careers (although he’s a lot more talented; he can simply do things Theriot can’t sometimes).

The one free agent I find sort of intriguing is Marco Scutaro. I think signing him might be a bad idea - he’s having a career year going into free agency, and he’s probably going to be overpriced. This year he’s hitting for power, he’s walking quite a bit, and he’s fielding about as well as Theriot. The drawback is that he’s 34 and he’s got career numbers that are roughly in line with what you can expect out of Theriot, give or take a little.

But still, the prospect is intriguing for two reasons. First, it’s possible that Scutaro’s career year is in part because he figured something out. His BABIP isn’t crazy, and just from looking at his numbers, he’s simply driving the ball more and taking more walks. But second, even if his numbers were just Theriot-esque, if you put Theriot at second base he’d be a lot more valuable than Fontenot has been. In other words, you wouldn’t be replacing Theriot with Scutaro, you’d be replacing Fontenot with him at a price that’s a lot cheaper than you’d have to pay for Chone Figgins.

I’m not sure the numbers on that work out. For starters, I don’t know what Scutaro is really going to cost in the offseason. I also don’t know how real his 2009 numbers are. And I’m not entirely sure what the value of Theriot at second over Fontenot or a Fontenot/Baker platoon really is, especially because I can’t assess what the value of the extra roster spot you have to devote to a platoon is. I may try to break this down further in the offseason, but for now I’ll say that it’s an idea that the Cubs should at least consider, even if it turns out not to be a great one. I’d be happy going into 2010 with Theriot at shortstop, but if the Cubs can utilize his skills better, they ought to look at whether they have a way to do that.

But Baker is a flawed player. He hits lefties very well, to the tune of a .916 career OPS, but he hits righties poorly, only OPSing .728 off them. Since Baker is a righty and Fontenot bats left-handed, one option for next season, it would seem, would be to platoon Baker and Fontenot at second. But Fontenot isn’t hitting lefties or righties very well, OPSing .685 off right-handed pitching this season, so he doesn’t seem like an ideal platoon player at this stage.

One could discount this season somewhat, though. Fontenot has had a rough go of it, having to spend 50 games at 3rd base and learn a new position. I don’t want to assume that’s the only reason he’s hitting poorly, but it may very well be a part of it. If he were to stay at second base all season his numbers might be more in line with his career numbers, where he OPSes close to .800 against right-handers.

Still, it’s hard to justify a platoon where the left-handed half may not be able to hit right-handed pitching. You’re giving up two roster spots for questionable production. So the Cubs are going to have to at least look at other options. Some Cubs fans will probably ask, “what about Bobby Scales,” but for purposes of this post I’m going to assume there’s a reason a 32-year-old rookie didn’t get a chance to play before.

The two obvious outside options seem to me to be Chone Figgins and Mark DeRosa. It’s rumored, of course, that the Cubs want Figgins. And there were rumors that they might try to reacquire DeRosa mid-season, before he went to the Cardinals. But both players will be free agents, and I’m not sure I like either one as a full-time second baseman. Here’s a graph of the career offensive numbers for each of the four players I’ve listed, by Weighted On Base Average:

I’d discount Baker’s numbers a little bit there - I think they’re contingent on getting most of his at-bats against left-handed pitching, and so that’s only playing about 30% of the time. But still, all four players are in about the same range. And then you look at what they’ve done as second basemen, by UZR/150:

That’s in runs above or below average over the course of a full season. Baker is a little bit above average, Fontenot is way above average, and Figgins and DeRosa have both been bad at second in their careers.

I worry a little less about Figgins’s defense than DeRosa’s. Figgins hasn’t played a lot of second base, and never consistently. And the fact that he’s a very good third baseman leads me to believe he could at least be a middling second baseman if given a chance to find his rhythm there - second is supposedly harder, according to the defensive spectrum, but I’m not sure it’s that much harder. Plus, he could certainly move to the outfield, or take over third base for the Cubs if Aramis Ramirez opts out of his contract after next season, so I’m not sure it’s a big deal if it turns out his defense can’t stick at second.

DeRosa, meanwhile has played the position more, so I’m more confident he’s just not a great second baseman. He’s also 34 and putting up his worst offensive season in years, leading me to believe he’s declining. So I’d stay away from him.

So that leaves Figgins as the likely free-agent signing. It’s going to cost a lot of money to get Figgins on the Cubs - maybe in the ten million per year range. He’s been worth that much almost every year of his career, but again, most of that time wasn’t at second base. So it would be a somewhat risky move for the Cubs to sign Figgins to play second every day. They might get their money’s worth, but they might not.

I think the decision comes down to money. I suspect Figgins will be better than a Baker/Fontenot platoon could be next season, but I’m not sure by how much. And Figgins is older than either of those players. If Ricketts intends to keep raising payroll, Figgins might be a good target. But if he’s only increasing it a little, the money may be spent better somewhere else, and a Fontenot/Baker platoon might be best. It’s cheap and at the cost of two roster spots you get great defense and a poor bat against righties and a great bat and average defense against lefties.

2010 is the last year of Lee’s contract, and he’ll turn 34 this weekend. And really, this season has shown us two Derrek Lees. In April he hit .189/.253/.284. It looked like his power outage from last season was set to continue, and that he was aging quickly. He managed just a single home run for the first month of the season. Since May 1, though, he’s hit .315/.398/.603 with 26 home runs. Just to give you an idea of how good those post-April numbers are, only three players in baseball - Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Joe Mauer - have produced that well over the full season.

But that April concerns me. After not hitting for power the second half of last season, Lee opened up the season demonstrating absolutely no power. It seems to be back now, but is it possible we could end up with another 80 or 90 game stretch where he can’t hit home runs? I don’t know, but that’s my concern.

Nonetheless, I think the Cubs go into 2010 with Lee as their starting first baseman. His value is higher now than it’s likely to ever be again, but he probably won’t be traded. He can veto a trade if he wants, and all indications are that he would do so. If he struggles I imagine he would give way pretty quickly to Jake Fox, whose glove wouldn’t do as much damage at first base as it would anywhere else. If he doesn’t struggle he can be a solid contributor, and his post-April season this year suggests that age hasn’t quite caught up to him yet. I think the Cubs will let Lee walk at the end of next season - not necessarily to give his job to Fox, who I’m certainly not sold on. But at 35 it will probably be time to say goodbye to him.

Still, for 2010, the Cubs will probably stand pat at first base, and that’s probably the right move - if Lee is, say, 75% as valuable next season he’ll still be about a 3-win player, and that kind of production would be hard for the Cubs to simply pull out of thin air.

But what we can do is look at what the team needs to do going into 2010. Of course a lot of the media are going to say “get rid of Milton Bradley,” as though that will solve anything. But if what Bradley says to the media makes other players on the team play worse, I want those players off the team, too.

So, over my next several posts here, I’m going to take a look at what the Cubs should do with some of their positions. I’ll start with one of the most disappointing, catcher.

Geovany Soto has been at least partially benched in favor of Koyie Hill. But Piniella has said that he wants Soto to start next season. So this benching seems to be less of a permanent thing and more of a way to just get him out of the lineup while he’s struggling.

It’s not really clear what’s wrong with Soto. Part of it is simply bad luck - he’s hitting .245 on balls in play. That’s well below his career numbers and what we could reasonably expect, and it isn’t explained by a drop in line drive percentage or an increase in ground balls. He is hitting fewer home runs on fly balls than last year, but not so much so that it explains much of his drop in production.

Encouragingly, Soto is actually walking more this season, which suggests to me that in his second full season, his skills might actually be improving a little bit. That seems odd to say, but he’s walking .65 times for every strikeout this year, after walking .51 times for every strikeout last year.

Still, there are questions about both Soto’s conditioning and just the general state of his body - at various times this year he’s had to battle through wrist and shoulder injuries, plus the time he spent on the DL this year. The Cubs are in a better position than we are, of course, to assess those things. If Soto has a lingering wrist or shoulder injury that explains the problems, and it’s not going to get better, then maybe the team needs to look elsewhere next season.

But if a lot of Soto’s fall this season is, as it appears to be, due to luck, then the Cubs should probably hang on to him. He’s dirt cheap, and even as bad as he’s been this season, he’s still been worth almost a win above replacement - well more than the team is paying him for. The Cubs can reasonably expect him to rebound some, and even if he never puts up superstar numbers, he ought to provide them with value at the catcher position for another few years, letting them spend their money to improve elsewhere.

So what’s a season ticket holder to do? Only the most masochistic of Cubs fans (yes, I suppose that is redundant) could enjoy 38 more games of this mind-numbing mediocrity and visibly apparent apathy. If you’re lucky, you can sell about half of your remaining tickets to tourists looking to experience Wrigley Field for the first time, good baseball or not. That still leaves you with about 20 games. So if you can’t imagine actually watching roughly 60 more hours of 2009 Cubs baseball, here are a few other ways to pass the time at The Friendly Confines.

10. Keep score like they did in the old days. See how many times you can pencil in “6-4-3 DP” and notate the Cubs’ stranded base runners in the margins before your brain implodes.

9. Bring an inflatable beach ball for you and your fellow fans to send around the stands. Nothing beats the rush of adrenaline and excitement when, of all the people in the stadium, the beach ball comes to YOU and your fingertips touch the–Oops, that one’s for Dodger fans.

8. Bring several dozen posters with cleverly worded phrases that incorporate the letters WGN or CSN in them and block the patrons behind you with them at every chance possible. Might I suggest:

7. During the Seventh Inning Stretch, encourage those around you to replace the lyrics “if they don’t win it’s a shame” with “if they don’t win it’s the same” in peaceful protest to another year of disappointment.

6. Play “Spot The White Sox Fan.”  You know, the South Siders who “hate” the Cubs but can’t resist the siren song of America’s greatest ball park. Here’s a hint: the fans behind them will likely be straining to see over the massive chips on their shoulders.

5. Prop bets. For example: Guess how many lyrics the Seventh Inning Stretch singer will sing incorrectly. Guess the exact time the seagulls will descend on the field. Guess how many minutes into the game the first boos will begin.

4. Bring a friend and fake a wedding proposal. If nothing else, you should get a few free beers from fans in your section happy to be a part of your “special moment.”

3. Count the number of times Alfonso Soriano’s first step towards a fly ball is in the correct direction. You’ll only need one, maybe two fingers to count on for this activity.

2. Smuggle in a small video camera and record your own version of WGN’s “Budweiser FanCam.” Remember it’s not about quality, it’s about quantity. And don’t forget to give equal face time to brunettes, blonds and redheads. Gingers need love, too.

1. Drink. Heavily.

• Josh Vitters: After tearing it up at Peoria, Vitters was promoted to High-A Daytona, where he’s struggled a little bit and has battled a hand injury. His line there is .245/.265/.371. That’s bad, but not as bad as it looks - if you adjust for his park and luck, his line becomes .287/.306/.420. That’s still not what you’d want to see out of your supposed best hitting prospect, but he’s still young enough that it’s not panic time just yet.
• Welington Castillo: Castillo came into this season as one of the Cubs’ best prospects, a 22-year-old catcher who seemed to have found his hitting stroke. But he had dismal numbers with the bat the first three months of the season. They’ve ticked upwards since then, and in the last month he’s hit .303/.338/.500, so a good performance this fall could go a long way towards easing concerns about him.
• Andrew Cashner: Cashner pitched well enough at Daytona to get himself promoted to AA this season, and his AA numbers are a mixed bag. On the one hand he’s sporting a 3.5 ERA, which is good. On the other hand he’s given up seven unearned runs to 18 earned runs - he seems to be allowing a lot of balls that his defense, for whatever reason, can’t handle. Maybe it’s on his defense, maybe it’s on him. But his 24 walks in 45 innings are not too encouraging, either.
• Starlin Castro: Castro is 19. He plays shortstop. He hit well at Daytona and was promoted to Tennessee. He’s still hitting after the promotion, to the tune of .280/.349/.347. I guess if I wanted to look for negatives it would be that he’s committed an incredible 39 errors in 110 games this season, and that he isn’t hitting for power. But he’s 19 and we can expect him to develop a little more power at some point. And shortstop is the most difficult position to play in the field, so even if he doesn’t improve with his glove there’s hope that he could be moved elsewhere.
• John Gaub: He put up cartoon numbers in AA, and after being promoted to AAA, has done even more of that. In 26.1 innings with Iowa he’s struck out 30, walked 11 and allowed only two runs. I’m guessing that if he has even a decent fall league performance he’ll be a virtual lock to make the Cubs roster next season.
• James Russell: I don’t know much about Russell at all, but he was promoted from AA to AAA this summer and responded by putting up better numbers than his uninspiring AA performance. At Iowa he’s got a 3.51 ERA in 53.1 innings, after putting up an ERA around six in two partial seasons at AA. I imagine the Cubs are looking to see if the change is real or not with the extra work this fall.
• Blake Parker: Like every other pitcher in the Cubs system, Parker strikes out a lot of guys and walks a lot of guys. He’s another player who’s split time between two levels this year, and he’s done well in his 45 innings in Iowa, striking out more than a batter per inning. Once again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him in the Cubs pen next season.