Chicago Cubs Rebuild Update: Still No Friggin' Updates

Today if you were listening to Wrigley Talk Friday (Hi Mom!), you know we had WGN radio personality George Ofman on as a guest and one of the things he mentioned is that the Cubs have known internally for over a month that the season was lost.  This came as somewhat of a surprise because you would think that if you assumed the Cubs' front office was filled with logical and rational human beings, they had to have come to that conclusion.  On the other hand, this is the Cubs we are talking about so you can never really make that assumption.

George also told us that the Dodgers had inquired about Ryan Dempster a while back and Hendry considered it and said no.  I don't know what the Dodgers were offering, but if Chad Billingsley were on the table I would have to assume that when the call was made, Mr. Hendry hadn't completely come to grips with the fact that the Cubs season was done.  He was probably still evaluating.

Anyway, when it is all said and done we are still looking at a number of players that the Cubs could trade to get back some decent value (Marmol, Soto, Marshall, Byrd) and players that everyone just wants to be rid of (pretty much everyone else except Cashner, Colvin, and Castro).  Last we checked, the rebuild was not moving very quickly.

So where are we now?

Time: About 20 hours left until non-waiver trade deadline.

Ted Lilly - Still a Cub.  For now.  Supposedly the Dodgers want him, but not enough to give us anything good.  The best thing I have seen is John Ely and unless you look only at his first start against the Cubs, he isn't all that good.  The Cubs would be better off just taking the compensatory picks they get when Lilly leaves via free agency.

Derrek Lee - Still a Cub.  For the rest of the season.  Derrek doesn't want to go anywhere, so he's not.  Frankly, I'm a little glad since he can still field the throws from our infielders for the rest of the season and keep making them all look better.  Contrary to what some folks believe, Derrek wasn't bringing much in return anyway.

Ryan Theriot - Still a Cub.  The market for scrappy appears to be down this year, and what makes matters worse, any team that expresses interest in Theriot starts to play so bad they go from buyers to sellers.  Detroit?  Check.  Colorado?  Check.  Watch out, Los Angeles, you may be next to fall to the Curse of the TOOTBLAN.

Xavier Nady - Still a Cub.  I read somewhere that Nady might have more trade value than Lee.  If that is the case, Lee has negative trade value because I haven't heard a peep about Nady going anywhere even though we would all really, really like it if he did.

Carlos Zambrano - Still a Cub.  Still crazy.  Still apologizing.  Still in the bullpen.  One bright side is that Bob Howry is no longer a Cub to make room for him.  Schlitter lives!

Kosuke Fukudome - Still a Cub.  Again, I haven't heard anything other than blog speculation about who might possibly want Fukudome.

Aramis Ramirez - Still a Cub.  At least he is hitting the ball now, but he's sticking around and will probably be here next year too since he played himself out of another big free agency payday.

So as the time ticks away, the Cubs know they suck, they know they should be selling, and we anxiously await an action that would reflect that sentiment.  Tick... tick... tick...