Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports that Ryan Dempster and the Cubs are close to a 4-year deal.

The Cubs, moving to address one of their offseason priorities, are close to re-signing free-agent right-hander Ryan Dempster to a four-year contract, according to major-league sources.

The deal will be worth slightly more than $50 million, sources said.

The return of Dempster would not necessarily make the Cubs less likely to trade for Padres right-hander Jake Peavy, sign free-agent lefty Randy Johnson or pursue any other player.

I suppose if I was the GM I would re-sign him too. The alternatives aren’t that great. But I have never been a big fan of Dempster. He’s never put together solid back-to-back to seasons, as a starter or a reliever. I think he gets in his own head too. That was evident when he was a closer and in the postseason against the Dodgers. And I’ll top it all off by saying that ’08 was his career year and he likely won’t get close to those numbers again. I expect walk totals to rise and K’s to drop.

I would rather have seen Harden, Zambrano, Lilly, Marshall and Marquis/Hill/Samardzija then re-sign Dempster. I would have taken that $50 million and thrown that and more at A.J. Burnett, though I understand people think he is an injury risk.