While they continue to dance around possible deals for players ranging from Jake Peavy and Milton Bradley to backup catcher Paul Bako, the Cubs have yet to make a player move this week in Las Vegas. One thing they have accomplished, however, is securing the admiration of superagent Scott Boras.

According to (Boras), the Cubs have proved they are recession-proof in the way they have gone about their business despite significant roadblocks.

"You have a club where the parent has filed for bankruptcy, and the baseball team is operating very well and they're out there offering multi-million-dollar contracts to players and signing them," ...Boras said. "We're our own industry, and the Cubs are the best example. You see something in bankruptcy and you see a subsidiary that's very successful and kind of operates independent of its parent."

Their bags stuffed with lots of tiny hotel soaps and tiny bottles of hotel shampoo, the baseball people have all checked out of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, taken off from Nashville International Airport, and scattered across the country. Some, like Dave Dombrowski, are returning home triumphant. Others, like Jim Hendry, see important items left on their to-do lists.

Though he was able to snag the "young power arm" of Jose Ascanio from Atlanta, Hendry didn’t land his speed guy, his left-handed hitter, or his new outfielder during these Winter Meetings. By all accounts, he is still in contention for the Orioles’ Brian Roberts, who's speedy and hits left-handed, and the much coveted Kotsuke Fukudome, who hits left-handed and plays outfield. (The O's may be waiting to conclude a Roberts trade until they can move Miguel Tejada and Eric Bedard; Fukudome's answer might be coming soon.)

One deal Hendry and the Cubs did close in Nashville involved the acquisition of minor league pitcher Tim Lahey from Tampa, who had selected Lahey from the Twins with the first pick in Thursday morning's Rule 5 draft.

Here’s what Baseball America had to say about the pickup:

Lahey was a catcher at Princeton, then converted to the mound when the Twins drafted him. He has a short, catcher-like arm action, but he throws strikes with his 90-92 mph fastball, one that has touched 95 according to Cubs officials, and the delivery adds some deception. A 20th-round pick in 2004 by the Twins, Lahey also throws a solid-average slider and a changeup. The Cubs see room for improvement, since Lahey is still relatively new to pitching.

"He's got real good sink with a ground ball ratio of almost 3-to-1 and the makings of a pretty good slider," Cubs farm director Oneri Fleita said. "It's amazing—I think he has 178, 179 innings and has less than a hit per inning pitched. That's pretty good for a guy who just got converted. We're excited to see him.

"He's a big, strong durable guy with great makeup and we wanted to roll the dice on it. It wasn't long ago that Carlos Marmol was changed from a catcher to to a pitcher. Boy, if he's half as good as (Marmol) is, we might have gotten lucky."

Here we are, three days into the Winter Meetings, and the biggest thing to happen to the Chicago Cubs so far is a trade involving Omar Infante.

True, there's time: we have a lot of off-season yet to play, and the Cubs could still make a signficant move before Team Hendry leaves Nashville. I don't have nearly the browsing skills to keep up with all of the Cub-related rumors circulating, but the most recent one involves the possible acquisition of Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts.

As covered in the Baltimore Sun...

Although no specifics have been revealed, one baseball source said the Cubs have put a "significant" offer on the table that would include a starting pitcher for Roberts, the Orioles' lone All-Star in 2007.

One player in the proposal is believed to be right-handed pitcher Sean Gallagher, who entered last season as the Cubs' fifth-ranked prospect, according to Baseball America. Gallagher, 21, pitched primarily in Double-A during the 2007 season, going 7-2 with a 3.39 ERA in 11 starts. He made eight appearances in relief for the Cubs, allowing 14 earned runs in 14 innings.

It's likely the second player in the deal would be a position player, although the Cubs' top prospect, outfielder Felix Pie, is not being offered, according to a team source. One possibility is outfielder Matt Murton, 26, who hit .281 last year with eight home runs and 22 RBIs in 235 at-bats.

The Cubs traded left-handed reliever Will Ohman and recently acquired utility man Omar Infante to the Braves on Tuesday for aspirin-tablet-throwing, rookie reliever Jose Ascanio.

The Braves will use Ohman to fill the bullpen slot vacated by veteran lefty reliever, suburban Crestwood native, and one-time Cub Ron Mahay, who is in the process of departing Atlanta by way of free agency.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Braves General Manager Frank Wren contacted Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski in October to see if Infante was available in trade. Dombrowski, of course, wound up shipping Infante to the Cubs a couple weeks ago for Jacque Jones.

The Journal-Constitution's David O’Brien explains the Braves’ interest in Ohman thusly:

Ohman had a 4.33 ERA in 220 appearances over five seasons with the Cubs, with a road ERA more than four runs lower than at Chicago's Wrigley Field. His .233 career opponents' average includes a .196 by left-handed hitters.

The Braves believe he'll benefit getting away from Wrigley, where Ohman had a 6.63 ERA in 101 appearances. He has a 2.32 career ERA everywhere else.

"It's one thing if it's just one year," Wren said of the home/road disparity, "but when you see it consistently for the last three years ..."

Ohman had 1.45 ERA and .167 opponents' average in 29 road games last season, and an 8.66 ERA and .376 OA in 27 home games. In 2006, it was 1.73/.169 on the road, and 7.14/.252 at Wrigley.

The Cubs liked hard-throwing Ascanio, 22, who had 84 strikeouts with 24 walks in 94 innings in 2007, including 13 strikeouts in 16 innings for Atlanta after a promotion from Class AA.

"Ascanio was hard to give up," Wren said, "but the way we looked at it, if we could fill needs with two guys we need, it was something we should do."

The Braves have had concerns about Ascanio's chronic back problems, though he seemed to have it under control last season.

Last year, on the first day of the 2006 Winter Meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the Cubs denied they had completed a deal with free agent pitcher Ted Lilly and announced that scouting director Tim Wilken had been named East Coast Scout of the Year.

Today, the first day of the 2007 Winter Meetings in Nashville, may have been a little less action-packed.

While various rumor factories linked the Cubs to a number of other teams' players--including Raul Ibanez, Brian Roberts, Josh Hamilton and of course, the Japanese stars Kuroda and Fukudome--and linked a number of Cubs players--including Ryan Dempster, Mark Prior, Scott Eyre, Will Ohman, and Matt Murton--to other teams, no Cub deals were actually consummated on Monday.

This Winter Meetings stuff is fun...right up to the moment I get a headache from trying to keep up with all of trades that sportswriters make up.