Nashville Silence?

So far, for Chicago baseball fans, it's been a relatively quiet Winter Meetings in Nashville. Both teams have made minor deals, but since neither the Chicago Cubs or Chicago White Sox are apart of the derbies for P's Johan Santana or Erik Bedard, there hasn't been much to celebrate about. Sure, the White Sox have added to their LF derby by picking up Carlos Quentin from the Arizona Diamondback for 1B prospect Chris Carter and the Cubs have parted with INF Omar Infante and P Wil Ohman to the Atlanta Brave for P Jose Ascanio, but those don't exactly inspire fans on either side of town to jump for joy.

Quentin is a former hot prospect for the Diamondbacks, but has fallen out of favor for whatever reason and was available for cheap. It stands to reason that I don't think his time in Chicago will be long and GM Kenny Williams plans on flipping him in another deal. It doesn't make sense for them to acquire him otherwise. He's not the answer to their LF problems , at least not if the White Sox want to contend for the division title. My best guess? The Sox use him, 3B Joe Crede and someone else to get themselves a LF/CF. Or maybe some more pitching.

Meanwhile, Cubs GM Jim Hendry is just sitting back and waiting on a few things. Waiting on RF Kosuke Fukudome to decide for sure whether he's coming to the US. Waiting for San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers gets back to him on a P Mark Prior deal. Waiting for Cincinnati Reds to get back to him about OF Josh Hamilton? The rumored deal last night was P Sean Marshall for Hamilton. Now, with Ohman gone, I don't know how likely it is that deal gets made, however, if that is still the option, I say do it now. Sure, Hamilton is a high-risk, high-reward player and the Cubs need 2 lefties in the bullpen, and sure the Cubs already had Hamilton this time last year and sold him to the Reds for $25,000, but I don't think CF Felix Pie is ready yet. I think that Pie still needs one more year to bring his strikeout rate down and his walk rate up. And having Hamilton will make it easier on Hendry if they lose out on Fukudome.