Pittsburgh's surprising decision to non-tender closer Matt Capps on Saturday could lead him to Chicago.
Capps, who has closed for the Pirates the last three years, already had calls from three teams as of Sunday morning. His agent, Paul Kinzer, said Capps is interested in the Cubs, and apparently the team has reciprocated that interest.
The 26-year-old right-hander is coming off a poor season, with a 5.80 earned-run average, after recording a 2.28 ERA in '07 and 3.02 ERA in '08. His career ERA is 3.61, and he's issued only 50 walks in 271 2/3 career innings.
The Cubs aren't looking for a closer, but Capps could fill a void in late-inning relief, joining Angel Guzman as a right-handed set-up man. Capps made $2.4 million in 2009, and the Pirates did not want to go to arbitration, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, since he'd receive a significant raise based on his past success.
Photo: Pirates closer Matt Capps. (AP / Al Behrman)
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Cubbies unable to flush POS Bradley. Cubbie payroll so tight they can only spend for other Crap.
Ah too bad. In the older days Hendry would offer Capps lets say maybe 8 years at 92 million. Where have those days gone?
WHADDA YA MEAN, THE CUBS ARE "not" LOOKING FOR A CLOSER ??? IS HENDRY GONNA STICK WITH THAT GOOF FROM FLORIDA ??? DOES HENDRY AND GOOFY LOU REALLY THINK THAT MARMOL IS THE ANSWER AS A CLOSER ??? I DUNNO IF CAPPS IS THE ANSWER, ESPECIALLY WITH HIS 2009 RECORD, BUT YOU GOTTA REMEMBER, THAT WAS WITH ONE OF THE WORST TEAMS IN MLB. ANY CONSIDERATION FOR THAT ASTRO GUY, VALVERDE ???
THERE SEEMS TO BE PLENTY OF DECENT TALENT AVAILABLE VIA THE FREE AGENT LIST, BUT THE CUBS ARE ONE OF THE TEAMS WHO ARE "not" TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE "on sale" PRICE STICKERS !!! I WISH WE WOULDA GOT THAT LEFTY WOLF BEFORE THE BREWERS DID, AND NOW HOW ABOUT THAT RIGHTY, JOEL PINERIO, WHO DOESN'T GIVE UP ZONK A DONGS LIKE THE HEADCASE GUY WE GOT NOW IN ZAMBRANO ??? I'M BEGINNING TO THINK THAT HENDRY IS OF THE IDEA THAT ALL HE NEEDS TO DO IN THIS OFF SEASON IS TO UNLOAD THE LEOPARD, MILTON BRADLEY !!! HOW ABOUT THE OTHER CLOWNS WHO ARE STILL PART OF OUR NORTHSIDE CIRCUS ???
People of the world should be like China.
After reading this article, I realized that many of the shortcomings of their own, I think I still have to study hard engineering, my ideal is to do a mechanical engineer,haha.
Attention Jim Hendry - Please report to your job. You've already pretty much locked in the roster for the next 3 years. Why in the name of all that is holy won't you admit that you had chances to ditch Bradley, Soriano and Fukodome during the winter meetings but were expecting everyone else in MLB to bowl you over with generous deals that you frittered away any chance of moving these losers until 2012 or after. You're starting to sound like Lovie ("There's lots of football left in the season - we'll be fine. A lot of teams are in the same position as we are ") Smith. Wait - maybe Jim & Lovie are the same person???
Yeah, and any real cub fan owner would have traded fontenot for Pujols STRAIGHT UP!!!!
And then...then he would have made Ryno the manager and brought Dawson back to play RF, cuz that's how real cubs fans do it!!!!!
Idiot.
I second the Kelly Johnson agent comment. But of course Mighty Mike Fontenot was offered arbitration as well as Jeff Baker. so we can plan on an offensive hole at 2b all year no matter which is playing. Tom Ricketts you suck so far. Does anyone know he is not a real cubs fan? He is not even from Chicago. He started liking them in his 20's. That does not count. Any real cubs fan would have made waves instantly by signing Johnson, Hudson, or Polanco for 2nd and Grnaderson trade would have happened. Typical Cubbie BS. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Wow, this overload of talent might just be more than we Cub fans can handle. Let's be honest here though, the real reason why he might become a Cub is he falls into the right price range, and it has nothing to do with his skills. I won't speak for the rest of the Cub fans; however, i hope you'll excuse me for not jumping for joy about a reliever coming off a season of a 5.80 ERA.
First of all you guys saying KW could have gotten Capps for a fraction of what he is paying Putz, read Capps made $2.4 Mil last year and is looking for a big increase, which means more than the $3 Mil Putz got. Sure Kenny could have waited, but then he may have missed out on both. Putz is a huge risk/reward guy and Capps is more risk with little chance of big reward. Capps would fit great with the Cubs, as long as he comes in knowing he is the set-up guy (which I doubt) because Marmol needs all teh time he can get learning the closer role. All that being said Cubs sign him, offer him the competition for closer, give him the closer spot out of spring training, he stuggles, gets replaced by Marmol, and let go after the year (sound familiar).
So you bowl with a guy who claims to be the agent of Matt Capps, Aramis Ramirez, and Geo Soto? Since an agent usually takes a 10% cut, this guy would be making over a million a year on Aramis Ramirez alone. But he's also on a Monday night beer league bowling team and doesn't mind telling his buddies confidential information about his clients. Nor does he seem to mind his clients getting into big trouble since I'm sure the Pirates would love to know exactly how he has been "trying" to get Capps to the Cubs for 3 weeks while Capps was under contract with the Pirates. Being accused of tampering would not exactly help further your career as a professinal sports agent. But this guy would risk it all just to be buddies with his Monday night beer league bowling team? Yeah right. I call B.S. on that!
Im from Pittsburgh and this is an absolute joke. We just gave away one of the only players that we have that has any value. We were scared he was going to be raised to 3.3 million from 2.5 millon. I would rather watch little league then the Pirates. Seriously
I bowl in a league on Monday nights with Paul Kinzer...and he's been telling me for 3 weeks that's he trying to get Capps over to the Cubs...Kinzer also represents Aramis Ramirez and Geovanny Soto,so I'm sure he likes to bunch guys together....he was also telling me about the Starlin Castro kid before the rest of the world started creaming over him...lol..I always bend his ear when I can...gonna ask him tommorow night what's up,but I doubt he'll divulge anything with it being this close...
don't wait, sign him now. The only hope for the cubs and hendry are gifts from teams like the pirates. Just sign him and go back to trying to fix the other foulups and crevices in your lineup.
do it fast, before the rest of the league catches on.
I'll take a Capps over a Putz any day
Did you simpletons not read or somethin? Did you see it say that caps was released last night at the non tender deadline?? Williams signed putz on friday capps was not available until last night.STFU you F'n crybabies
Being a Pirates fan is worse than being a Cubs fan.
He would make a great pickup, especially with Marmol being a totally unproven closer. Now Hendry needs to get on the phone to Kelly Johnson's agent. A left handed 2nd basemen with good plate discipline and 20/20 potential. A no brainer. Why is nobody talking about this?
He would definitely be a good pick-up. The bullpen is looking like it could be a strong point this year, though I think the Grabow contract is a bit too high.
I don't know if Capps would want to play here after his near tragic injury last year. Based on past performance might be a good pick up.