No More Closers

Looks like Armando Benitez will be signing with the San Fransico Giants.

The San Francisco Giants have reached a tentative agreement with closer Armando Benitez on a three-year contract worth $21 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

I am not in agreement with The Cub Reporter and some of the comments that it is a bad deal. What do you expect a guy coming off a 1.29 ERA season to get? Less than 5 million per year? If you do your crazy.

This is just another lesson in Cubs economics. Every star player is not worth the money to the Cubs or for that matter fans. "We want Percival, but $6 million is not worth it. " "I would like Benitez but not for $7 million." "I want Beltran, but he isnt worth $15 million per season." "I want Nomar back but he isnt worth $9-10 million." "I would love to get Renteria but I wont pay him more than $7 million a season."

Guess what? Other teams are more than willing to pay those prices. If the Cubs are unwilling to pay then they will end up with nothing. Cubs fans want all this talent but they don't want to pay them what they are worth and then they turn around and ask why they were shut out again on the free agent market.

We can sit and chuckle at San Fran or Detroit for signing these guys but it doesn't improve our chances to win. It may be fun to ridicule those franchises for their moves but they dont have to worry about who will be the closer next year. Who is it with the Cubs? Borowski? Hawkins? Farnsworth? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way Percival or Benitez would of helped the Cubs. Now we get neither. Now we don't improve the team. And that is all that happened with those two closers going off the market. Those teams improved, the Cubs so far have not.

Don't expect a trade for a closer either, it just will not happen.