BeerHere

Putting Grabow in should end this game pretty quickly

Don't want to go too long today. Z only going 1 was going to kill the pen anyway. Dempster going 8 yesterday was a blessing.

WTF??????

Lower back

Clutch

Of course shark comes in and promptly walks the first batter he faces.

How bad are Doug Davis and the Giants offense if Marcos freaking Mateo is shutting them down over 4 innings? I like Mateo ERA under 4 now. Decent K's. I like him too but he needs to miss more bats.

Very nice job by Mateo.

dammit

Calm down...I was kidding. Pay Hughes also said that both he and Keith saw Z stretching out his lower back in the first inning.

They said on the radio that he left due to lower back stiffness. My guess: he was pissed that Barney didn't make the play and wanted to go pout.

TheScore talked about Hendry mentioning today that David reached 10 years of service a couple days ago - thereby implying that the Cubs did him a favor by keeping him past his anniversary so he gets full pension benefits. Apparently a player with 10 years of service time gets a six-figure pension when they reach age 62.

Please let Grabow be next.

I'm sure this isn't the first, but this is the only time that I remember the Cubs releasing someone right after a terrible outing.

Confirmed http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-cubs-release-lefty-doug-davis-20110629,0,317269.story

Good riddance

Heater, no glove

Does anyone have information on Cashner's rehab? Has he at least begun throwing?

I have never really understood why everyone refers to Pierre as a "base stealing threat". He gets caught A LOT and defensively, if he gets on base you should be hoping that he tries to steal. You have a 50/50 shot at wiping away a hit/walk etc.

Royals picked Moustakas right before the Cubs took Vitters. Oh....what could have been.

He had better be bringing back a substantial prospect. Seconded Likewise for Soto

In general I'd agree with you, but I'd tend to exclude relief pitchers from that equation. Especially one that seems like a TJS waiting to happen (Marmol). Personally I think that his value is extremely high right now. If I could turn Marmol into two very good prospects at the deadline I'd do it. The Cubs never seem to trade guys at their peek though.

Doesn't Ramirez have a buyout ($2M) if the mutual option isn't picked up by the Cubs?

And therein lies the problem. Who trades good young/cheap players for other good young/cheap players? No one does. So unless the Cubs start hitting the lottery with guys at the AAA level who haven't broken through yet, that means they are giving up on several seasons while their returns from those deals toil Daytona and Tennessee. Put another way, you start trading off several guys from that Soto, Marmol, Marshall, etc. group, and you're giving up until 2014 or so, which is unacceptable, unnecessary, and most likely unwise. TT -- what was your take on the 2011 draft consisting of mostly high schoolers? I could be wrong, but my interpretation of that is "take the kid with the highest ceiling possible" with the expectations that none of them are major league ready for at least 3-4 years. To me, that sounds like an organization that is willing to build through free agency for the next few years until the system is ready to start supplying a ready-stream of talent to fill needs or to be used in trades to fill needs. The purely FA route hasn't worked thus far. If there are players on the roster (Soto, Marmol) that can help fill needs why not do it? Again, I don't know what the definition of "decent return" is, but I think it is foolish to at least consider it. Truthfully I don't understand why anyone would say any player on this team is untouchable with the notable exception of Castro.

Honestly I don't know what would be a "decent return" for Soto but that is sort of my point. If you automatically say he's off the market you'll never know. The people that are saying that he is untouchable are ignoring the fact that there may be teams that are willing to overpay for a guy to fill a position of deep need. PURE SPECULATION: If the Royals offered just Montgomery, would you do it? How about Moustakas? Again I'm not saying that I would do it either, but it at least has to be considered. Soto cannot be untouchable on a team that has a pile of needs.