“Here’s the deal. Cubs GM Jim Hendry has been working the phones, and was doing so today, trying to move Bradley. Cubs people tell me Jim has been talking with several teams, so there appears to be no shortage of interest, something also reported by national baseball writer Ken Rosenthal, who cites baseball people as saying there is widespread interest in Bradley.

“Bradley can’t come back to the Cubs for several reasons:

–How does he walk into the clubhouse and face teammates who lined up last month in St. Louis to tell the writers they were glad Bradley had been suspended and that he ought to look in the mirror?

–What happens when Bradley says something provocative to the media in spring training? The Cubs do not want any more “Here we go again” moments.

–What would happen if Bradley goes 0–for-5 with 3 strikeouts in the home opener at Wrigley and the fans start booing again? Heck, what happens the first time he heads out to right field, the scene of all that “hatred and adversity,” to use Bradley’s term?

–The Cubs will have new owners any day now, and you have to believe the Ricketts family wants no potential public-relations disasters on its hands, courtesy of Milton Bradley.

“As I’ve written, if Hendry can create a market or even the perception of a market for Bradley, he might be able to get decent return and not have to eat all of the $21 million coming to Bradley over the next two years. Of course, Hendry is responsible for giving Bradley the three-year, $30 million contract in the first place.”

As usual, Mr. Miles is spot on.  Bringing Milton Bradey back in 2010 would be a bad idea on so many levels that it is hard to believe that anybody in the Cubs organization is seriously considering it.  My guess is that they’re not.

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Now that the Cubs have hired Rudy Jaramillo to be their hitting coach, Mark Potash of the Sun-Times thinks they should turn their attention to hiring Dave Duncan as their pitching coach.  Duncan is currently with the Cardinals (in case you didn’t know) and his contract ends at the end of this season.

According to Potash, Jaramillo may be the best hitting coach in the game today, but Duncan is the best pitching coach in baseball history.  High praise indeed.  But he doesn’t stop there:

“With all due respect to Rudy Jarmillo, Dave Duncan is the best pitching coach in baseball history. He should be the first pitching coach in the Hall of Fame. He has a record of developing young pitchers, resurrecting old pitchers, squeezing one golden season out of the most mediocre of arms and turning your trash into his treasure that is unmatched anywhere in baseball. Nobody’s even close.”

But here’s the rub: Duncan usually goes where Tony LaRussa goes.  LaRussa’s contract is up at the end of this season as well.  The Cardinals want him back and he has indicated that he is not interested in managing anywhere else.  Of course, there have been persistent rumors that he doesn’t want to manage in St. Louis next year either.  One rumor has the St. Louis skipper sitting out 2010 in anticipation of several potential managerial openings in 2011.  If he does sit out in 2010, Duncan will be on his own.

There’s also the possibility that Duncan will be on his own even if LaRussa re-ups in St. Louis.  Duncan is very upset with the Cardinals front office for the way they handled the trade of his son, Chris Duncan, in a deal that sent Julio Lugo from Boston to St. Louis.  It has been speculated that Duncan will not consider a return to the Cardinals even if LaRussa returns as the manager.

I’m all for hiring Dave Duncan.  If he can have the same type of success with the Cubs that he has had everywhere else he has been, then by all means, sign him up.  Give current Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild his parting gifts and thank him for playing.  But at this point, I think this idea needs to be filed under “Long Shot.”

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I haven’t really thought this through, but should the Cubs stand pat with Carlos Marmol as their closer?  Next week I plan on writing a series on what the Cubs should do this off season and I’ll have to address this issue then, but for now, Carrie Muskat of MLB.com throws out a couple of interesting stats about the Cubs closer.

• Marmol was third in the league for hit batters with 12.  However, among relievers he was clearly first.
• Marmol had the worst walk numbers  in the National League among closers.  He walked 65 in just 74.0 innings.  The next highest total was 38.0 by the Mets Francisco Rodriguez and the Nationals Mike MacDougal.  Rodriguez pitched a total of 68 innings (while compiling 35 saves) and MacDougal pitched a total of 50.0 innings.  For those of you who are mathematically challenged (including me), that’s 7.90  BB/9 for Marmol, 5.02 BB/9 for Rodriguez, and 6.84 BB/9 for MacDougal.

So what’s my point?  I don’t have one yet.  I was just thinking out loud.  Next week I’ll revisit these numbers and come up with a verdict on whether the Cubs should keep Marmol in the closers role or look elsewhere for 9th inning relief.

Beginning in the sixth inning, the bullpen took over and looked sharp.  Aaron Heilman pitched the sixth and struck out two, allowing no base runners.  Sean Marshall pitched 1.1 innings giving up a hit and striking out a batter.  Carlos Marmol pitched to two batters in the eighth striking out one and allowing no base runners.  Kevin Gregg picked up the save, striking out two and allowing one hit in his one inning of work.

The Cubs didn’t get much offense.  Kosuke Fukudome got the start in CF and batted lead-off.  He went 2-4 with a double.  Aramis Ramiz hit a homerun in the third inning to account for one of the Cubs runs.  The other two runs came courtesy of none other than Carlos Zambrano.  His double in the second inning plated two to give the Cubs the lead and the eventual victory (video).

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The news from Washington wasn’t all good.  In Thursday night’s game, Alfonso Soriano dislocated the pinky finger on his right hand while sliding into second.  He reduced the dislocation (popped it back into place) immediately and played the rest of the game, but the finger swelled up after the game and by Friday, Fonzie was unable to grip a bat.  He was given the night off Friday and is likely to miss a couple more games. 

I doubt if the injury will send Soriano to the DL, but here’s the sad thing.  The Cubs may be a better team with Fonzie out of the lineup.  His hitting has been horrible this year (he’s hitting just .234/.301/.412) and the Cubs don’t lose much, if anything, defensively when he’s not playing.  Last night, Micah Hoffpauir played left field and made a great catch diving into the stands (go here to see a video of the catch).  Sam Fuld, who is hitting .389 in limited action, will likely see more playing time in LF over the next few days.

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Theodore Roosevelt Lilly will miss his next start because of a sore left knee.  Lilly was scheduled to start today (Saturday), but is being pushed back in favor of Randy Wells today and Kevin Hart tomorrow.  Lilly may get a start in Philadelphia, or if his knee is bad enough, may be placed on the DL.

Apparently, Lilly’s knee has bothered him all this year, but it hasn’t seemed to effect his pitching much .  He is 9-6 with an ERA of 3.18. 

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According to Carrie Muskat at MLB.com, both Ryan Dempster and Geovany Soto are healing faster than expected.  Soto, who is recovering from a right oblique strain, is in Mesa, AZ working with Cubs staff and the organization is encouraged.  Earlier reports indicated that the Cubs may go out on the trade market to get another catcher, but Assistant GM Randy Bush says the team is encouraged by his progress and hopeful he’ll be back soon.

Ryan Dempster is throwing off flat ground as he recovers from a fracture of the big toe on his right foot.  Dempster is reporting that he is feeling no pain in the toe, although the toe is still a bit swelled.  Larry Rothschild indicated that Dempster could be ready to go next week in Philadelphia.