Well, the Winter Meetings are over. Let’s sum up.

NEEDS: 67% of our outfield, 20% of our rotation, at least ten fewer second basemen. Naturally, Jim has shown serious interest in only one outfielder and two second basemen. I love my job.

Anyhow, here’s the Roundup:

• Ryan Theriot is set to hold a baseball clinic. I saw the agenda.
  1. Getting Dirty: “Look, Ma! I Played!”
  2. You Can’t Spell “Scrappy” Without “Crap”
  3. The Hair Down There: Your Changing Body
  4. Playing Major League Baseball With Your College Teammate: When the Story Never Dies
• Bruce Miles says that Hendry isn’t worried that all he did was got rid of two useless players with 14 chins between them. He has time to get stuff done. Bruce suggests that one of those things he’ll get done is NOT Erik Bedard, so quit drooling over him.
• Shawn T. Estes stays in the National League, signing with the Padres. Looks like Christmas came a bit early for Cubs fans this year.
• Chris DeLuca apparently can’t read between the lines on the Dempster situation. When you ask a coach why you would move a player from one position to another one, and the coach says he has no clue, that means he has no intention of the player being alive on his team by Spring Training. Dumb ass. Paul Sullivan claims that the “Cubs brass” is sold on Dempster as a starter. He either meant to say “Cubs ass” or doesn’t include me in that group, because if you read the article, it says Hendry thinks he can start, and I say let’s wait and see if he doesn’t blow.
• I’m sure Emo Boy is thrilled that his hero won’t have to serve a suspension for using HGH. The only thing suspended on the Cardinals is The Genius’s drivers license.
• I WANT FUKUDOME, and apparently, he’s coming to the U.S.
• I thought it odd that Hendry was showing interest in Chone Figgins. Then, I remembered he can play second base. Just like this guy. Who he’s also after. So can DeRosa. And Theriot. And Fontenot. And Cedeno.
• Mark Prior is still a Cub, and that’s still a good thing. Look, essentially in 2007 this guy is very low-risk potentially very high reward. If the Cubs gave up on him now, it’d be like throwing $20,000 on the table and not paying the extra $100 to see the other guy’s cards.
• Looks like we picked up Tim Lahey, another live bullpen arm from the Minnesota Twins via the Tampa Bay Devils (fuck you, political correctness) in the Rule 5 draft. There must not have been any second basemen available.
• My highlight of the Winter Meetings was Doug Melvin saying he already has a closer in Derrick Turnbow. Bwaaahaahaa!
• Have fun, Reds. Dusty is still spewing his same old bullshit. “Sometimes there are things in your life that, you know, that knock you down for whatever reason,” Baker said. “But the key is, you can get down, just don’t stay down. You let the champ get off the mat, the champ is going to be stronger than when he had been down. And I had been down a long time, and sometimes it’s good to go down.” Later in the article, Baker plays the pity card. “It’s very encouraging,” he said. “That’s why I came here — [to win]. I don’t like that losing, man. That losing was miserable. I don’t like that. I don’t like that ‘L’ by my name at all. I don’t want my name even associated with anything that starts with an ‘L,’ you know what I’m saying. I like ‘W’s.’ … That last year in Chicago, that ate me up big time. Oh, man, I don’t want to go through that ever again.” I didn’t make a single word of that up.
• If you think that Johan Santana isn’t going to fetch a king’s ransom in a trade, you must not realize how dry the free agent market is when it comes to pitching. So dry, in fact, that no fewer than three teams have expressed interest in Glendon Rusch. TO PITCH! I need to sit down for a while.
• As much as I’d like for it to happen, writing about Cuban possibly owning the Cubs is a total waste of ink. He has as good a chance of being connected to the Cubs as Hendry does of being connected to Dancing With the Stars.
• Looks like Rothschild can’t wear his pajamas to work anymore. I hope they don’t end up banning sunglasses. Quade’s invisible eyebrows scare the shit out of me.
• Adam Godson over at Bugs & Cranks found this vintage Harry Caray gem. How does a man who was so awesome share the same genes as his overdramatic gasbag grandson?
• Need more proof that the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Get your hands off me, you dirty ape!
• I wasn’t around in 1898, but I’m definitely going to use a few of these next year:
  
  
  
  

  My personal favorite? “I’ll make you suck my ass!” I’m going to go find Dempster.

Have a good weekend, you prick-eating bastards!

-Sweet Uncle Lou