Right field ought to be an easy position to decide what to do with. The Cubs should be standing pat. Milton Bradley had a down year but was still worth most of his salary, according to Fangraphs, which values his contribution in 2009 at $5.2 million. And it doesn’t make sense to try to trade a player you know is good when he’s coming off a down year - I believe they call that “selling low.” And it especially doesn’t make any sense when you have nobody close as good as him to replace him.

But it’s apparent that that’s what the Cubs intend to do. After suspending Bradley, Jim Hendry has no leverage in trading him, and the Cubs will no doubt pay a large portion of his salary for him to play for another team. This is in spite of the fact that for all the talk about chemistry surrounding this team, Piniella said on ESPN 1000 yesterday that the most important thing for clubhouse atmosphere is winning. (Listen to the sound clip, starting from about 14:00.)

So it seems odd that the Cubs will squander resources to send Bradley to play for another team. Not that there aren’t good options for the corner outfield spots out there. Matt Holliday and Jason Bay are free agents-to-be, and Manny Ramirez may opt out of his contract.

The problem with all three players is money - they’re all going to cost a lot more than Bradley did, and when you factor in the portion of Bradley’s salary the Cubs are going to have to pick up, to sign any of them the Cubs are going to have to invest close to $30 million into right field to pick up any of those players.

So the list actually looks a lot slimmer. In fact, it looks like Kosuke Fukudome moving back to right field (where his bat doesn’t play as well but he’s a great defender) or some unholy combination of Micah Hoffpauir, Jake Fox, Sam Fuld and possibly Reed Johnson. It’s not exactly appealing, and it makes me wonder: if winning breeds chemistry, aren’t the Cubs setting themselves up for more bad chemistry here?

Center field shouldn’t be too much of a mystery for the Cubs in 2010. After disappointing numbers in right field in 2008, Kosuke Fukudome spent this season in center where he’s hit .260/.377/.423. He’s been roughly average as a defensive center fielder, and that batting line is good for the position. As a good hitter and average fielder, you’d think that Fukudome would have the position locked up.

But with Milton Bradley obviously done in Chicago, the Cubs are going to need to fill Fukudome’s old position, and Fukudome seems like the most likely candidate. If that happens, the Cubs will need to consider who to replace Fukudome with. I’m going to throw out Reed Johnson here. The Cubs have had ample opportunities to give Johnson a starting role and I think they recognize that he’s best used as a situational player - although he may be a better option than the two in-house options I’m about to talk about.

The Cubs have a pair of lefty rookies who may get a shot at the job next season. Sam Fuld has been embarrassingly lauded by Cubs fans, getting “Sammy” chants at least once at Wrigley field. He has played very well in limited major-league playing time this season, with a .288 average and .406 on-base percentage, though no power to speak of. He’s been below average in center field this season, but that’s in only 13 starts, which I agree means almost nothing - he ought to be at least average defensively. But Fuld is a 27-year-old rookie for a reason: his numbers in the batter-friendly Pacific Coast League at AAA were good but not especially impressive, suggesting nothing good about his major-league prospects.

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Left field is another easy place to predict what’s going to happen in 2010 - Alfonso Soriano will be the starter. He makes too much money and has too long of a track record of success to bench him or trade him. He’ll bat fifth or sixth, as Lou PIniella declared that the days of Soriano batting leadoff are over.

The big question with Soriano is what will his health be like next season? He’s getting older and we can expect his performance to decline, but he fell off a cliff after a hot April this year. Not coincidentally, his performance nose-dived after he hurt his knee. He had surgery on the knee a week ago, and his doctor found inflammation and cartilage degeneration. The good news is that coming back from the knee surgery should be easy enough. The question going forward is whether Soriano can stay healthy aside from that.

The good news there is that Soriano has generally been good even when he hasn’t been 100 percent, this injury aside. He was very good in his first two years as a Cub in spite of a couple of injuries which lingered a bit. The bad news is that as he keeps getting older, he’s going to keep getting hurt and have more trouble recovering from injuries.

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This is by far the easiest 2010 post. Of all the players on the Cubs, Aramis Ramirez is the one about who I have the least questions. In spite of missing time and playing through pain, he’s putting up a .321/.383/.520 line, his contract is reasonable, and I wouldn’t consider trading him, switching his position, or anything else. His wOBA this season is .389, which is basically exactly in line with his offense in each of the last six seasons, so I don’t see a decline due to age here. Yes, the injury sucked, but it was a trauma injury, not the sort of thing like, say, knee pain, that you become more susceptible to as you age. Ramirez’s doctors have apparently told him he doesn’t need surgery on the shoulder, and I see no reason to think the injury is likely to recur if they don’t think he needs surgery.

That doesn’t mean the Cubs don’t need to think about third base, though. The team went in to 2009 without a solid backup plan if Ramirez got hurt, and as it turned out, he missed significant time and the team got burned because of it. I wouldn’t blame the team’s failure this season on the lack of a backup third baseman - they managed to get back into first place after Ramirez came back, even if temporarily, and the number of wins they lost because of his absence is not enough to make up the deficit with the Cards.

So, who can back up Ramirez? Well, if the Cubs go after Chone Figgins, he’s certainly an option. I’ve detailed that I worry about signing him to play second. I have fewer worries about him playing third base, though - if Ramirez got hurt with Figgins as the team’s every day second baseman, Figgins would probably move to third, where he owns a career UZR/150 of 6.9, which makes him worth almost a full win a season over Ramirez’s -1.3 at the position. My reservations about a Figgins signing aside, if he were on the team it would probably be easier to deal with an injury to Ramirez.

Jeff Baker is another option, and of course he’s already on the team. His UZR numbers aren’t pretty, so he may not be a good option at third. But those UZR numbers are over a very, very small sample, and as a competent second baseman he probably has the necessary athleticism to move to third, assuming his arm can handle it. Still, the danger with Baker is that the Cubs could run into the same problem they did with Fontenot this year - that he starts out as a bad third baseman and while he learns the position his hitting is affected. Plus, Baker would be exposed if he had to play every day and face a lot of right-handed pitching.

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If I were writing this in early June, what to do about the shortstop position in 2010 would be an easy question to answer - Ryan Theriot was playing very well and keeping him there was an obvious move. But a baseball season is more than two months long and Theriot has slid a little since his fairly hot start, and that leaves questions about what to do with him.

Through the end of may, Theriot had a .293/.355/.459 batting line, which is very good for a shortstop. But since then, he’s hitting only .282/.325/.339. It was nice seeing him hit for a little power while it lasted, but it’s not surprising that he’s not really slugging. What is surprising is that on-base percentage. His season .335 OBP is about 50 points lower than last season’s and about 20 points lower than I would have guessed he’d be able to put up. He’s walking .43 times for every strikeout, his lowest total ever. (Last season he walked 1.26 times for every time he struck out.)

Meanwhile, he’s made up for some of that with his glove. I’m certainly not a scout, but to me he simply looks better as a shortstop this season than last season, and his UZR/150 numbers bear that out. In 2008 his UZR/150 was .7 runs above average per 150 games - basically negligible. This season it’s 5.5 runs, which isn’t amazing, but is obviously good. As a result, even with the slide in hitting this season, Theriot has been worth 2.3 wins above replacement so far this season, not too far off his mark of 3.1 last year.

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Second base is perhaps the position the Cubs could most readily upgrade at headed into next season. Mike Fontenot was given the job out of Spring Training, and rightly so - it looked like he would be far better than Aaron Miles. But he hasn’t been - he’s been atrocious as a hitter and while he plays good defense, it hasn’t been enough to make up for his bat. The Cubs shored up the position a little more when Jeff Baker came aboard - the right-hander has started 30 games at second for the Cubs and has been hitting lights out since he came aboard.

But Baker is a flawed player. He hits lefties very well, to the tune of a .916 career OPS, but he hits righties poorly, only OPSing .728 off them. Since Baker is a righty and Fontenot bats left-handed, one option for next season, it would seem, would be to platoon Baker and Fontenot at second. But Fontenot isn’t hitting lefties or righties very well, OPSing .685 off right-handed pitching this season, so he doesn’t seem like an ideal platoon player at this stage.

One could discount this season somewhat, though. Fontenot has had a rough go of it, having to spend 50 games at 3rd base and learn a new position. I don’t want to assume that’s the only reason he’s hitting poorly, but it may very well be a part of it. If he were to stay at second base all season his numbers might be more in line with his career numbers, where he OPSes close to .800 against right-handers.

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First base may be the position the Cubs are most secure at this season. For all of the bad things that have happened, Derrek Lee has been very productive. He leads the team in wins above replacement, at 3.5. He’s hitting .294/.374/.560, and after a somewhat down year in 2008 he’s raised his production back to pre-2007 levels. Yet it may be that the Cubs need to look at replacing him.

2010 is the last year of Lee’s contract, and he’ll turn 34 this weekend. And really, this season has shown us two Derrek Lees. In April he hit .189/.253/.284. It looked like his power outage from last season was set to continue, and that he was aging quickly. He managed just a single home run for the first month of the season. Since May 1, though, he’s hit .315/.398/.603 with 26 home runs. Just to give you an idea of how good those post-April numbers are, only three players in baseball - Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Joe Mauer - have produced that well over the full season.

But that April concerns me. After not hitting for power the second half of last season, Lee opened up the season demonstrating absolutely no power. It seems to be back now, but is it possible we could end up with another 80 or 90 game stretch where he can’t hit home runs? I don’t know, but that’s my concern.

Nonetheless, I think the Cubs go into 2010 with Lee as their starting first baseman. His value is higher now than it’s likely to ever be again, but he probably won’t be traded. He can veto a trade if he wants, and all indications are that he would do so. If he struggles I imagine he would give way pretty quickly to Jake Fox, whose glove wouldn’t do as much damage at first base as it would anywhere else. If he doesn’t struggle he can be a solid contributor, and his post-April season this year suggests that age hasn’t quite caught up to him yet. I think the Cubs will let Lee walk at the end of next season - not necessarily to give his job to Fox, who I’m certainly not sold on. But at 35 it will probably be time to say goodbye to him.

Still, for 2010, the Cubs will probably stand pat at first base, and that’s probably the right move - if Lee is, say, 75% as valuable next season he’ll still be about a 3-win player, and that kind of production would be hard for the Cubs to simply pull out of thin air.

There’s not much point in recapping the last few days’ games or talking about upcoming opponents — 10.5 games out in the division and six games out in the wild card, the Cubs don’t need to worry much about this season. At some point we probably do need to look at what went wrong with this season, but to do that it would be helpful to see where the team ends up, first.

But what we can do is look at what the team needs to do going into 2010. Of course a lot of the media are going to say “get rid of Milton Bradley,” as though that will solve anything. But if what Bradley says to the media makes other players on the team play worse, I want those players off the team, too.

So, over my next several posts here, I’m going to take a look at what the Cubs should do with some of their positions. I’ll start with one of the most disappointing, catcher.

Geovany Soto has been at least partially benched in favor of Koyie Hill. But Piniella has said that he wants Soto to start next season. So this benching seems to be less of a permanent thing and more of a way to just get him out of the lineup while he’s struggling.

It’s not really clear what’s wrong with Soto. Part of it is simply bad luck - he’s hitting .245 on balls in play. That’s well below his career numbers and what we could reasonably expect, and it isn’t explained by a drop in line drive percentage or an increase in ground balls. He is hitting fewer home runs on fly balls than last year, but not so much so that it explains much of his drop in production.

Encouragingly, Soto is actually walking more this season, which suggests to me that in his second full season, his skills might actually be improving a little bit. That seems odd to say, but he’s walking .65 times for every strikeout this year, after walking .51 times for every strikeout last year.

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I hate to be a pessimist, but let’s be honest: it’s all over but the crying. The Chicago Cubs are now nine games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central “race” and seven and a half games behind the Colorado Rockies in the wild card “race.” I use quotation marks because clearly the race, for the Cubs, is over.

So what’s a season ticket holder to do? Only the most masochistic of Cubs fans (yes, I suppose that is redundant) could enjoy 38 more games of this mind-numbing mediocrity and visibly apparent apathy. If you’re lucky, you can sell about half of your remaining tickets to tourists looking to experience Wrigley Field for the first time, good baseball or not. That still leaves you with about 20 games. So if you can’t imagine actually watching roughly 60 more hours of 2009 Cubs baseball, here are a few other ways to pass the time at The Friendly Confines.

10. Keep score like they did in the old days. See how many times you can pencil in “6-4-3 DP” and notate the Cubs’ stranded base runners in the margins before your brain implodes.

9. Bring an inflatable beach ball for you and your fellow fans to send around the stands. Nothing beats the rush of adrenaline and excitement when, of all the people in the stadium, the beach ball comes to YOU and your fingertips touch the–Oops, that one’s for Dodger fans.

8. Bring several dozen posters with cleverly worded phrases that incorporate the letters WGN or CSN in them and block the patrons behind you with them at every chance possible. Might I suggest:

7. During the Seventh Inning Stretch, encourage those around you to replace the lyrics “if they don’t win it’s a shame” with “if they don’t win it’s the same” in peaceful protest to another year of disappointment.

6. Play “Spot The White Sox Fan.”  You know, the South Siders who “hate” the Cubs but can’t resist the siren song of America’s greatest ball park. Here’s a hint: the fans behind them will likely be straining to see over the massive chips on their shoulders.

5. Prop bets. For example: Guess how many lyrics the Seventh Inning Stretch singer will sing incorrectly. Guess the exact time the seagulls will descend on the field. Guess how many minutes into the game the first boos will begin.

4. Bring a friend and fake a wedding proposal. If nothing else, you should get a few free beers from fans in your section happy to be a part of your “special moment.”

3. Count the number of times Alfonso Soriano’s first step towards a fly ball is in the correct direction. You’ll only need one, maybe two fingers to count on for this activity.

2. Smuggle in a small video camera and record your own version of WGN’s “Budweiser FanCam.” Remember it’s not about quality, it’s about quantity. And don’t forget to give equal face time to brunettes, blonds and redheads. Gingers need love, too.

1. Drink. Heavily.

There’s nothing really to say about last night’s loss - the Cubs sucked and they lost to a terrible team, dropping ever further out of a playoff spot they’re no longer in contention for anyway. But the team named its Arizona Fall League players yesterday, so let’s talk about some future Cubs instead of the current bunch. The Cubs prospects who will be on the roster of the Mesa Solar Sox are Josh Vitters, Wellington Castillo, Andrew Cashner, Starlin Castro, John Gaub, James Russell and Blake Parker. Here’s what they’ve all done this season:

• Josh Vitters: After tearing it up at Peoria, Vitters was promoted to High-A Daytona, where he’s struggled a little bit and has battled a hand injury. His line there is .245/.265/.371. That’s bad, but not as bad as it looks - if you adjust for his park and luck, his line becomes .287/.306/.420. That’s still not what you’d want to see out of your supposed best hitting prospect, but he’s still young enough that it’s not panic time just yet.
• Welington Castillo: Castillo came into this season as one of the Cubs’ best prospects, a 22-year-old catcher who seemed to have found his hitting stroke. But he had dismal numbers with the bat the first three months of the season. They’ve ticked upwards since then, and in the last month he’s hit .303/.338/.500, so a good performance this fall could go a long way towards easing concerns about him.
• Andrew Cashner: Cashner pitched well enough at Daytona to get himself promoted to AA this season, and his AA numbers are a mixed bag. On the one hand he’s sporting a 3.5 ERA, which is good. On the other hand he’s given up seven unearned runs to 18 earned runs - he seems to be allowing a lot of balls that his defense, for whatever reason, can’t handle. Maybe it’s on his defense, maybe it’s on him. But his 24 walks in 45 innings are not too encouraging, either.

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