Hendry: Prior not accepting reduced terms 'unfortunate'

For the Cubs, it was all about trying to get an option year from Mark Prior.

General manager Jim Hendry said Thursday the decision not to tender Prior a contract late Wednesday was based on not being able to work out a reduced contract for 2008, plus a club option for 2009.

"At the end of the day, it really wasn't a difficult decision as much as it was an unfortunate decision," Hendry said. "I felt in the best interests of the Chicago Cubs, the only way it would have been workable for us would have been if Mark and John Boggs, his representative, would have been agreeable to a lesser number on the base in 2008, and certainly my request centered on having a club option on 2009.

"That doesn't necessarily mean the player certainly has to accept that, or the agent. In that case, that wasn't received real well."

Former ace Prior now is a free agent who can sign with any team, including the Cubs, although that seems a longshot. The Cubs paid Prior $3.575 million this year to rehab his surgically repaired right shoulder. It's not known when Prior will be able to pitch in 2008.

"We felt the best chance of Mark coming back maybe to high-level form certainly would have been in '09," Hendry said.

Prior will have six full years of major-league service after the 2008 season, and that was perhaps the main factor leading to the parting of ways.

"It's just the timing of it," Hendry said. "If Mark was a four-plus player and not going into free agency, we would probably look at it differently."

Moving ahead: One day after agreeing to a four-year contract with Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome, the Cubs will move to finish their off-season.

They're still interested in Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts (his name was mentioned through hearsay in the Mitchell Report on steroid use), but Jim Hendry stressed nothing was close on any front.

"Fukudome gives us the opportunity now to know that we can line up tomorrow on the field and be a better ballclub than when we left in October," Hendry said. "We feel good about that. Now we will, on a daily basis, try to look at ways that can make us even better.

"To automatically assume that we're going to make one more deal here or we're going to get this guy or that guy, that is impossible to predict, especially if it's going to be via trade. We have not talked in any recent times to any free-agent position players."

Cotts re-signs: The Cubs re-signed left-handed reliever Neal Cotts to a one-year, $800,000 deal.

The 27-year-old Cotts opened the season with the Cubs, going 0-1 with a 4.86 ERA before being optioned to Class AAA Iowa on May 20. He spent the rest of the year at Iowa.

"We never gave up on Neal Cotts," Jim Hendry said. "It wasn't a matter of his arm strength. He's a very competitive and caring guy as far as wanting to do well. If anything, he probably was a victim of his own maybe trying too hard to make it work. He didn't throw real well when he first went down to Iowa.

"The last couple weeks, it was real encouraging how he threw. Probably in hindsight, I should have brought him up in September. (Will) Ohman started to throw better. And we felt like (Carmen) Pignatiello did well enough to get the first call-up. Neal threw well enough to get himself in the mix to come to camp and try to win a job in '08."