Rob

I think he's made up with them, at least to an extent. But mainly, I want to wait it out and see if we can somehow pry Reyes away from the Mets and put him at 2B. I know Minaya is hard to deal with, but that's who I'm looking at as the biggest possible acquisition we could make this season. Minaya is out as GM. They hired Sandy Alderson, who is pretty damn sharp. I always worry when trading against smart GMs, even though Hendry has a very good track record.

It occurs to me that in my lifetime I don't think I've ever seen the Cubs have a manager I'd consider "good." Lou surprised me and got all the way up into "he's better than most." Mike has me legitimately excited though. He's pressed the right buttons so far at least.

I'm good for about one of those a year. Kinda mad I wasted it before the season even started...

Hard to say they got more insane when the move should keep Lenny Dykstra away from the clubhouse. Hahahaha omg so great Green font?

I was willing to go into this season with a platoon of Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker at 2B. I was hoping for some continued offensive progression from DeWitt and hoping Baker would provide his usual lefty mashing while facing as few righties as possible. Instead, it appears DeWitt has regressed offensively and defensively (and I was already a bit worried with his defense) to the point that he wont be a starter. The thought of Baker ever facing righties or Darwin Barney getting 300 PA worries the bejeezus out of me... especially in a division race that's poised to be so incredibly tight. Aaron Hill and Kelly Johnson might be available at the deadline... but I don't know that it would be a good idea to wait that long. I'm ready to see what it would take to acquire Michael Young.

It's funny you say that Rob. The sentence you're referring to from my post originally said something like "typical messageboard poster", but I changed it to "casual fan" to tone it down a notch. Regardless, it's semantics, and if there is any meaningful distinction, the point I'm making applies to both groups. I really think you have a very warped view of what the anti-saber crowd is. The anti-saber crowd has been and always will be those who want nothing but "traditional" baseball. Sac bunts, the hit and run, team chemistry, batting average, grittiness, playing the game the right way, RBIs, etc... these are the tenets of the anti-saber crowd. The vast majority of them are still opposing the merit of OBP as more important than batting average or RBI. To find this sort of person, one needs only to look as far as the local sports bar, listen to talk radio, or as depressing as this is to say... watch or listen to any broadcast games (God bless Len Kasper for being one of a kind, but Bob is still old school.) You seem to have it in your head that the argument has evolved to the point that rallying against the use of stats people don't really understand is considered anti-saber. It isn't. If you feel you've been accused of that, you either interpreted it incorrectly or the accuser is/was a moron. That book you were so intent on defending? It isn't telling people that since WARP was using an obviously incorrect baseline for replacement level fielding that it was artificially boosting the value of guys like Adam Dunn while deflating it for guys like Adam Everett, hence leading the common fan to adopt something more of a mentality that disregarded speed and defense as ways to add significant value. It's telling people that it doesn't matter who our fancy computers think are good players because we can't predict with any degree of certainly what's going to happen in any given at bat. It's just a whole book that serves as a testament to the fact that they don't understand small sample sizes aren't bound to fall in line with big-picture projections. Yes, people need to understand stats better. No, that's not anti-saber of me to say so. Anti-saber is saying people don't need to understand the stats better because they don't matter.

dave, you seem to be confusing "average internet baseball message board poster" with "casual fan." Casual fans exposure to advanced metrics is limited to hearing Joe Miller try to pronounce OPS as "awps" on Sunday Night Baseball.

He doesn't seem like the type, but if Hendry criticizes ownership on his way out the door this quote will be hilarious.

Hard to say they got more insane when the move should keep Lenny Dykstra away from the clubhouse.

Sometimes the "anti Saber crowd" (which by the way is a complete mischaracterization) understands the advanced stats even better than most, and feel compelled to point out the limitations and shortcomings of said advanced stats when they see said advanced stats being either over-used or mis-used, with said limitations and shortcomings ignored. Now before I get mauled for posting that, I realize that the "true" sabermetricians don't do this. It's the more casual fans that throw around WARPs and VORPs and UZRs left and right with only a limited understanding of how those numbers are computed that are guilty of this. It's a mischaracterization only because you're confusing the "responsible use of stats" crowd with the anti-saber crowd who think the game was best understood by their high school coaches who taught them decades ago.

Trying to tie together two topics here, but the fact that Quade went with Cashner over Silva makes me hopeful that he's smart enough to correctly handle Reed Johnson (ie, as the outfield Jeff Baker. Should avoid letting them face righties at all costs). If he is indeed smart enough to correctly utilize Reed Johnson, it may well prove Reed to be a more valuable player than Max Ramirez. I've always been a big fan of speciality guys on the bench... whether they be lefty mashers, guys who pound high fastballs, top-notch defenders, etc... the trick is finding the specialty players that fill a void on your team. In the case of Reed Johnson, we could really use a lefty mashing OF to cover the deficiencies of Colvin and Fukudome in that regard. If Quade was a moron who couldn't be trusted to push the right buttons, I'd take Max Ramirez in a heartbeat. But picking the right guy for 5th SP gives me hope that he picked the right guy for 5th OF as well.

He actually did pretty well as a starter (8 starts) towards the end of the season, posting a 3.33 ERA with a 1.356 WHIP and going at least 6 innings in all but the first one. His numbers are skewed due to giving up 6 ER over 2.1 innings in his first outing of the year (from the BP). He also doesn't strike anybody out. Oh, and he walks too many people. Basically all of his successful starts last year were lucky.

releasing silva would help here. it'd be great if there wasn't the risk that silva pitched well in a couple long relief outings and boom, cashner gets yanked out of the rotation. but i have faith that quade is going to show patience. he seems to make solid decisions and not give a [expletive] if morons like kapman don't agree with him. Even if Cashner crashes and burns, Coleman, Jackson, and Carpenter should all be ahead of Silva. Even if Silva could be an OK 5th starter, we have younger and better. It isn't too far down the road that Z and Demp leave town, and we shoulld be auditioning our guys for the future. I'll probably agree on Carpenter, but Coleman is god awful and absolutely should not be in front of Silva. And reports have Jackson's velocity around 87 this spring and speculation is that he's injured.

This is the best part of all. Now release Koyie Hill and let's start the damn season. Well, the BEST part of all would be getting something for the sack of crap, but I can live with a release. Carlos Silva is probably not the best option for our 5th starter. As a team needing to make up some degree of ground for any hope at the playoffs, we need the upside play at #5. But let's not get out of hand here. Carlos Silva pitched well for us last year, to the tune of of 3.75 FIP and 3.90 xFIP. That's not to say he's particularly likely to repeat that, but he's certainly not without the potential to give us a decent number of league average innings. If there's a way to keep him around in the bullpen as a swingman without him being a negative clubhouse presence or the Cubs FO yanking one of our more deserving starters out of their spots to make room for him, I'd certainly like to see him stick around. If those criteria cannot be met, I'll be sad we had to cut a valuable asset... not relieved to be rid of that "sack of crap."

This is already being discussed elsewhere.

I'll believe it when the Cubs confirm, and not a moment before.

Quade really took his time naming Wells the #4 starter. I don't anticipate knowing who is the #5 starter until June 1st.

Given his particular skillset, I wouldn't be shocked if a contending team took him and tried to stash him on the bench. You think Mike Scioscia wouldn't love to have him around as a late inning defensive replacement and pinch runner? For a non-contender, it should be a no-brainer.

Defensively, he's the best of the three. Offensively, he's Ryan Theriot lite.

They're gonna want to have Cashner throwing on back-to-back days before the season starts. I'd be shocked if he starts Sunday. I know I'm missing something here, but I'm not following you for some reason. Do you mean they'll want him pitching back to back days so he'll be coming out of the pen and Silva basically won the job today? If so, then it'll be really interesting to see IF Cashner actually does start Sunday then. Because then anyway, it'd at least appear as if it'd be likely to see him move to AAA and continue starting possibly. If he's going to be in the bullpen to start the season, they're gonna want to have him able to pitch on consecutive days. So yeah, if he makes his start Sunday, that's a pretty good sign he'll be starting either in the majors or in Iowa. But I sincerely doubt we'd let an arm like his get reps in Des Moines when he could be helping in the big league pen.

They're gonna want to have Cashner throwing on back-to-back days before the season starts. I'd be shocked if he starts Sunday.

Signed with the Nats already. Thank god.

He did? Yeah, he did. If you provide enough value with your defense and baserunning, you really don't have to hit particularly well. Pierre was excellent in the field for us (god bless Wrigley being small enough his arm never mattered), and while he didn't add much with his SB totals, he was excellent in the other aspects of the running game. Any way you want to cut it, 2.9 WAR. We gave up too much for him, but he was a valuable player for us.

The gist of the article is the black hole the Cubs have had in CF for decades. Might be a nice problem to have 2 great young CFs. Of course, we haven't really had a black hole in CF. Maybe we haven't had superstar production, but we've only really had 3 bad years in the last decade. 2010 - Marlon Byrd was great. 2009 - Kosuke Fukudome was good offensively, not so much on defense. 2008 - Jim Edmonds was great, Reed Johnson was good. 2007 - Jacque Jones was solid on both sides of the ball. 2006 - Juan Pierre hit just enough and played good defense. 2005 - Corey Patterson was awful. 2004 - Corey Patterson was good. 2003 - Corey Patterson was great, Kenny Lofton was great. 2002 - Corey Patterson sucked. 2001 - Gary Matthews Jr. sucked, Michael Tucker was good.

How dare you speak about Starlin Castro in such a way. Love him for real life value. But as far as fantasy is concerned, I'd be happy if he helped with batting average and didn't hurt anywhere else.