So, what should the Cubs do with the young guys in the bullpen who've had early struggles? well for one thing, part of the problem is that a lot of these guys - samardzija, caridad, berg, russell - just weren't that good in the minors. they might be struggling in the major leagues because they're lousy pitchers who just won't cut it in the long run. but back to your question, ideally you have a better mix of veteran arms and young guys, just like you do in a big league offense. you don't want too much of the burden falling to guys who don't have much track record in the bigs and whose confidence can easily be damaged as a result of a few bad outings. the cubs do have three veterans (marshall, grabow, marmol) but one of them they use as a swing guy, one of them they use as a LOOGY and he's not good, and the other is a closer. so a lot of the burden is just falling on guys who really aren't good. samardzija is probably the only one of the four guys who has stuff that could make him a good 8th inning guy, and he's a long way from getting there. That...and Lou. I know that's my broken record tonight, but Lou is absolutely the worst person to have in charge of a bullpen that has a ton of questions like this one and is gonna require a lot of creative managing and guys being rotated in and out.