Obsession can be a powerful thing.

– John Hinckley was obsessed with Jodie Foster and shot Ronald Reagan to “impress” her.

– Jay Mariotti is obsessed with the sound of his own voice (and of course, double glazed doughnuts) to the detriment of our eardrums (and his turkey gobbler neck).

– Jim Hendry is obsessed with Michael Barrett?

Barrett’s a nice player. He doesn’t suck. But he’s not that great. He blew out his hip last year and limped his way to the worst season of his career (oh, except for the one where Felipe Alou made him play third base—and when Michael killed my fantasy team in the process). But for the most part he’s been a solid defensive catcher and a line drive hitter who couldn’t draw a walk with a crayon and an easel.

But now he’s the solution at catcher for the Cubs?

Look, when we said Damian Miller had to go we meant it…but for this?

Hendry has been trying to trade for Barrett for more than a year, and his infatuation with him goes back even farther. It didn’t hurt Barrett’s case that bench coach Dick Pole worked with him in Montreal and loves him. OK, I’m not sure if he loves him, but they’re pals.

It seemed pretty obvious that Hendry was moving in on Barrett at the winter meetings, but on Monday the ESPN crawl of shame read “Athletics trade player to be named later to Montreal for Michael Barrett.” That seemed to be the end of it. The A’s need a catcher not named Adam Melhuse and they got one.

Until last night, when the crawl of shame read “Athletics trade catcher Michael Barrett to the Cubs for player to be named later.”

As far as I can tell, Miller is going to be the player to be named later if the Cubs and Barrett reach a two-year contract agreement for considerably less than the $2.6 million he made last season. If they can’t reach an agreement, the Cubs will non-tender Barrett on Saturday and send the A’s a scrub minor leaguer.

This has led to all kinds of speculation that Barrett would be the perfect back up catcher, since he can play third and first and the outfield. That speculation also says that the Cubs can wait to see who loses the race to cash the biggest check from the Orioles (either Javy Lopez or Pudge Rodriguez) and then use the depressed market to sign them for cheap.

Don’t get your hopes up.

All indications are that the Cubs are going to re-sign the perpetually useless Paul Bako to be Barrett’s caddy.

There’s been some disagreement here and in other places about whether Miller can actually be the player to be named later, since he and Barrett both played in the National League last year. Apparently, since Barrett was traded from the American League to the National League (from the A’s to Cubs) that restriction is lifted. So indeed, Miller can be the player to be named later.

There are a few reasons why Barrett’s better than Miller.

– He’s younger.
– He’s got a much better complexion.
– He is not a Green Bay Packers’ fan.
– He’s not a scab, so when you fire up your favorite baseball video game this spring you won’t have to “create” the Cubs’ catcher, he’s licensed and everything!
– Defensively, Miller proved to be good at one thing, smothering pitches in the dirt–occasionally. Look, I know it has to be tough on the body to catch pelotas hurled at great speeds by, well let’s face it, just about everybody the Cubs employ to hurl pelotas. After six months of that you’re just a big bruise. But Miller’s catching and his hitting took a nose dive during the season. The Expos pitchers supposedly much preferred Barrett to the Expos other catcher Brian Schneider, and he threw out roughly the same percentage of base stealers in 2003 that Miller did.
– Plus, he’s had three solid and two terrible offensive seasons. If, as I’m going to do, you can write off the bad years to a) having a bum hip and b) being moved to third base in another brilliant move by Felipe Alou, he’s not a bad pick up.

Just consider me a little underwhelmed.

—

Rumors abound that the White Sox are now big players in the A-Rod trade. Newsday, which like the NY Post just makes crap up, is reporting that as part of the big deal to get A-Rod freed from his Texas prison, the White Sox will trade Magglio Ordonez to Boston for Nomar Garciaparra and Scott Williamson, and maybe even Byung Hyun Kim. I’ll believe this when I see it happen.

– The White Sox are trying cut payroll, and how do they accomplish that by trading Ordonez ($9 million) for Nomar ($10.5 million), Williamson ($1.6 million) and Kim ($3.25 million)?

– If they trade for Nomar they’re going to turn and ship him to the Dodgers for Odalis Perez and Guillermo Mota. Only a Chicago team would trade for a guy their fans would love (Nomar) and then flip him within six hours out of town.

If I’m Kenny Williams (and oh, I’m glad I’m not), I demand that if the trade for Nomar goes through, and even if the Sox are merely a weigh station, that they bring him and Mia in anyway, have the press conference, have him put on the Sox jersey and the hat and take a few photos. Then, when he goes into the Hall of Fame in 2017, Kenny will at least have the photo.

But never fear Sox fans, the studly (former Cub) Ross Gload is hitting a cool .321 in the Mexican Pacific League and he’s playing the outfield, so he’ll step right in and replace Maggs with no problem.

Wait, what’s the exchange rate on a .321 average in the Mexican Pacific League? Does that mean he’d be hitting .214 for the Sox?

That sounds about right.

As for us Cubs fans? The next (and last) big signing of the winter will be a guy who can’t spell Jeremy right.

Sigh.