Jim Hendry probably won’t have as busy an off-season as he has had in recent years, with no obvious holes to fill and only four key free agents in Ryan Dempster, Kerry Wood, Bob Howry and Jim Edmonds.
Hendry’s primary task may be to get an extension for manager Lou Piniella, who is poised to become the first Cubs manager to take his team to the postseason in back-to-back years since Frank Chance did it in 1906, ’07 and ’08.
Hendry declined to discuss Piniella’s contract Wednesday, though there are indications he would like to exercise the 2010 club option and add another year to take Piniella through 2011. New York Yankees general partner Hank Steinbrenner has told friends in Tampa that Piniella will be offered a consulting job with his organization whenever he decides to leave the Cubs, so Hendry basically will be bidding against the Yankees to keep him with the Cubs.
Because the Cubs ownership situation won’t be settled until after the season, it’s likely Piniella will have to wait.
“We’ll all have to deal with the ownership situation when that comes,” Hendry said. “Lou and I feel we’re doing well together, and certainly we’d like to stay a while.”
The most important free-agent signing will be Dempster, who could be on target to receive a deal comparable to the ones signed recently by Mark Buehrle ($56 million for four years) or Jake Peavy ($52 million for three years). Dempster, who signed a three-year, $15.5 million deal in the final weekend of ’05, understands Hendry’s position.
“I want to play for the Cubs and will just see what happens,” Dempster said. “I’m just trying to win a World Series more than anything else.”
The Cubs could have almost the same roster they have this year in 2009, with a few exceptions.
“There are a lot of guys here who are locked up and will be around for a while, so we have the chance of having a good team for quite a few years,” Dempster said.
Hendry isn’t worried about next year. When Wood became a free agent last fall, he told Hendry to give him what he thought is fair and he would return. The trust factor is what separates Hendry from some general managers.
“They know if they need to talk to me about next year, they can talk to me about it,” Hendry said. “When you’re going well, you’d like to keep the guys you want to keep, and that’s where the relationship part comes in.
“[But] there are some ownership issues that obviously aren’t conducive to doing that kind of business in the middle of the season. In the past, most of the guys who have done well and we’d like to keep, we’ve had no problem keeping. I would hope that would be the norm again.”
