Latest on Cuban, Ownership, Dempster and the Incompetence of Christ DeLuca

Many of you have heard by now that Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and bidding for ownership of the Cubs, is being investigated by the SEC for and insider trading incident that took place 4 years ago. This is just a civil suit, so Cuban will not face any jail time, just financial penalties. Does this hurt his chance at being Cubs owner? Probably, a little bit. The certainly hurts the reputation of a man who never had a great one in the first place. Major League Baseball and its owners will not want to get involved with someone who is currently being investigated.

A week before the insider trading situation became public knowledge, Chris DeLuca of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote an article explaining why there was no chance that Cuban would be the next owner of the Cubs.

"Global financial crisis or not, baseball's old guard plans to stand firm against letting Cuban into the club. ''There's no way Bud and the owners are going to let that happen,'' a Major League Baseball source said this week. ''Zero chance.''

That might make some sense if there was any actual new information presented. There was nothing new in this article suggesting that Cuban cannot be owner of the team. Assuming the previously stated information was true, than fan-favorite Mavericks owner never would have had a shot at buying this team in the first place. On top of this DeLuca suggests John Canning is the favorite to buy the team...

"All of this likely will put the group headed by John Canning Jr. -- Selig's personal favorite -- back as the front-runner."

Forget the fact Canning was eliminated from the bidding after his initial bid did not reach the minimum of $1 billion. Call me crazy, but I do not see how a guy who has already been eliminated from bidding being the front-runner.

There is probably some way Canning could get back in to the bidding, but calling him the front-runner is ridiculous.

I still have a difficult time believing Cuban will not be the owner if he impresses the owners with an offer. Cuban was reportedly the highest bidder at $1.3 billion. Accepting Cuban as the highest bidder improves the value of the other 29 teams. If I were to make a prediction i would say the Ricketts family is the front-runner.

I am not done with Chris DeLuca....

DeLuca had a Cy Young vote and was the only person to not put Tim Lincecum on the ballot. Really Chris? Are you too dumb to realize that Lincecum was not one of the top 3 pitchers in the NL this year?

"It's funny because toward the end of the season, in early September, I was thinking Lincecum would be in my top two," De Luca said. "I thought Webb's victories (22) stood out to me more than anything, and Lincecum didn't have the victories. Twenty victories was a big deal. We had a stretch there where no one was hitting 20."

Well I suppose I cannot argue with that logic, except for the fact that wins mean next to nothing when determining the quality of a pitcher! Webb is a good pitcher who had a good season, but Lincecum was sooo much more dominant and everyone but you realized he was at worst the #3 pitcher in the NL. Ok, DeLuca rant over....

On to Dempster....I wanted to make a correction on the contract. It is not a straight up 4 year deal. It is 3 years with a player option for $14 million for a 4th. He gets a $4 mil signing bonus and will make $8, $12.5, and $13.5 million over the next three seasons.

There is little to no chance that he would turn down $14 million at age 35, but I maintain this was still the right move for the Cubs. He certainly did not come cheap, but they did not really over pay for him either.