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It looks like they wanted a new long reliever with Samardzija moving into the rotation. IMO, they sent Stevens down because they wanted a fresh arm, and they wanted a long man so that made their decision to call up a starter at Iowa instead of a reliever there. Caridad was the freshest (as he was supposed to pitch tonight) so he was the one called up. It's a bit interesting to see him be put on the 40 man roster at this point of the season. I wonder if that means that they think he has a future with the club and would have been put on next year regardless, or if they just think that he's a random pitcher who they don't really care about and if they have to trade him for little or deroster him after the season that they aren't really concerned about it.

Nope, they have to be on the 25 man roster at midnight the last day of August (or the major league DL) to be eligible. The only other way people can make it on the roster is as part of an exemption for a DL'd player (the Cubs could sneak somebody else onto the playoff roster that doesn't come back up until September as a replacement for the loss of Chad Fox). Isn't that how K-Rod got onto the Angels playoff team back in '02 despite only being a September call-up? Yes. For the Cubs, Kevin Hart made the postseason roster that way a couple of years ago, and I believe a player or two made it the same way last year.

Still surprised Lou did that, but it does make some sense compared to his prior moves. He probably has been wanting to do that for a little while now, but he needed Bradley in the middle. Now that Soto fills that spot, that frees up Bradley to move and Theriot can move to Hill's vacated spot in the lineup. Plus now he avoids the left-handers being at both the 8 and 1 spots in the lineup. I'd be fine with the other normal lineup as well, but I also like this one.

Nope, they have to be on the 25 man roster at midnight the last day of August (or the major league DL) to be eligible. The only other way people can make it on the roster is as part of an exemption for a DL'd player (the Cubs could sneak somebody else onto the playoff roster that doesn't come back up until September as a replacement for the loss of Chad Fox).

From Bruce's blog: Good move IMO. Bring Hoffpauir back up a couple days before September 1st to make sure he's eligible for the playoff roster and hopefully he's hitting by then. http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/2398

There's no way I don't pitch Rich Harden game 1 if he keeps pitching like he has his last 5 starts. If Harden is healthy and rested he's the best pitcher we have, and one of the best in baseball. I'd probably pitch him game 2. I don't want him in Game 1 because I don't want him pitching in Game 5 unless there's extra rest built in. Extra rest is built in to at least 3 of 4 if not all series. Yeah, so you don't need a 5th starter, but not really so your game 1 starter can have 5 days rest, right? The game 1 starter would have 5 days rest before game 5. There is an off day both times the teams have to travel (after game 2 and after game 4) except for the one AL series where there are 3 off days instead of 2.

Theriot was supposed to come back tonight, so I really doubt it.

I'd rather see a manager micromanage ala Larussa and burn a lefty for Fontenot (9) and Fukudome (1). Plus, batting Theriot in front of the pitcher allows him to be more aggressive on the bases w/out costing them much and takes the bat out of the pitcher's hands more. I think micromanaging by the other team would hurt the Cubs more often than it helped the Cubs in that case. It would cause the other team to run out of relievers sooner, but that's the only detriment, and it hurts the Cubs chances of scoring in that particular inning considerably. I think the loss of an inning would be more harmful than getting a benefit for extra inning games.

And where would he play? It's an away game, so he'd never get in the game. You'd pinch-hit for him in the first inning, and that would push the first at-bat by the real starting pitcher back by an inning. But it also makes you use an extra pinch-hitter when you only have so many and of course causes some lineup issues. Neither of those are huge detriments, but they seem to add up to more than the benefit of moving the pitcher back 3 spots especially with a 5 man bench.

I'm be happy with a split. I'm going to start raising my expectations with this team. We've got the whole line up back now, no more excuses. Colorado is a decent team, but winning 3 of 4 shouldn't be out of the question. All this means is my disapointment will be 10x worse. I don't think 3 of 4 is out of the question either. But Colorado is a likely playoff team who has been red hot (before their last 2 games against another great team on the road). This is a team who is 39-17 over their last 56 games. I certainly don't think the Cubs need to have any excuses for splitting. Of course, I'm always the person who thinks the expectations should line up. If you expect the Cubs to win 3, that means that if you were a Colorado fan that you would expect them to only win 1 out of 4 games, and I don't think that's likely true. I think both sides expect a split and hope for more. I would be satisfied with a split, pretty disappointed with 1, and felt like the team stole one if they get 3.

I understand the thought of why you would want Soriano to move back to the top BBB (best hitters getting the most at-bats). If so, why would you want to move Lee down to 5 when he's consistently had an OPS around 1.000 for the last 3+ months? The lineup balance is the same either way..if you swapped Lee and Bradley, Bradley would be separating Lee and Soto instead of separating Ramirez and Lee (or Lee and Ramirez if you prefer the current version)

He pitched pretty well in June but had a high ERA thanks to 2 really bad outings and a high HR rate. His ERA had the lowest month of the season (besides the 5 innings in April) in July (4.31) but he allowed 52 baserunners in 31 1/3 innings and the only reason his ERA was so low was that he had 7 unearned runs in the month. He then got shelled in his first August start. I really don't think he's been pitching well at all, and as you said a guy who has struggled to put up a 5 ERA in San Diego is likely to have significant trouble pitching in the AL East. He has good stuff but his control is so poor both inside and outside the strike zone. His peripherals would suggest he's been unlucky, both in his strand rate and his BABIP. But I think his strand rate is partially due to his inconsistency on the mound (he tends to lose both his control and his command in the strike zone at times which is going to bring lots of runners in, and then other innings he doesn't strand anybody and racks up the strikeouts which help his peripherals). He's probably been a bit unlucky but not nearly as much as the peripherals would indicate.

Not a single baserunner or even a ball hit to the OF through 4 for Carpenter. 5 K's through 4.

So in a prospects-for-veteran post-deadline deal, you'd tend to see lower level prospects traded, right? You'd never see the top blue-chip prospects that are already on somebody's 40 man roster, because they would be claimed immediately? Or is there some other loophole that would allow this to happen? If I'm remembering right, it's possible to use a PTBNL as the loophole for this to happen as long as the player is not in the majors. The club would trade for a PTBNL who would be announced after the season was over when he wouldn't have to go through waivers. This doesn't happen often with 40 man guys because there usually are so few majors trades that happen where a big prospect that wouldn't clear waivers would be involved.

I'm almost completely sure that if they aren't on the 40 man, they don't have to go through the waiver process.

We were just talking about this in the top 10 prospects thread but I'll repeat it here (following up what the others have said). Yeah, I saw the top 10 thread right after I asked here. Oops. And that all makes sense about his age. Guess I didn't factor that in. It'll be interesting to see how he progresses next season. I know there are issues with his throws, but how is his defense otherwise in terms of range, hands, etc.? I haven't actually seen him play so others would have more knowledge on this than me. But from what I've heard, he's had issues with his hands and handling routine ground balls. But that has been more of an issue of consistency and concentration more than a problem with his hands. From what I've heard about his tools, his range would be at least good if not very good for SS.

We were just talking about this in the top 10 prospects thread but I'll repeat it here (following up what the others have said). It's a combination of things with Castro. First, his age. For him to already be in Daytona (and now Tennessee) without being completely dominated at the age of 19 is very impressive. Then, his position of SS adds a lot to his value. He has the tools to play a good SS even though he needs quite a bit of work on consistency. The fact that he strikes out a low percentage of the time means that he's more likely to keep up a good batting average even with such a terrible walk rate. Then add in the fact that he had a terrible April (which is to be expected jumping past two levels) and has played so well since then is another point in his favor. His flaws are evident (walks, power, consistency on defense). But he has the combination of tools, the fact that he's way underage for these leagues, his position, and the good strikeout rate and average. That's enough to be excited about.

If they made a claim and the Cubs let them have it then they would have to take that player. That's the risk in making a waiver claim which is why so many players pass through. Other 40 man players have to also pass through waivers before they can be traded. If that player is in the minors though, teams can trade a PTBNL and complete the deal in the offseason when the waiver restriction isn't there.

Are you thinking Vitters is going to get promoted to AA Tim even after his struggles at Daytona and now the injury? I would be a little surprised by that.

The Cubs were going to use up options every single year on Samardzija regardless since he got a major league contract. He will get 4 of them though so he will still have 1 left for next year. Other than that I definitely agree with your post. I can definitely see the temptation to hold off on a guy's possible future development if he is a key player on the major league team. But if he's mediocre or worse in the majors anyway, why are they not more concerned about his potential vs. the little he's giving them right now? It doesn't make sense.

Considering this is his second year of year round baseball. And he's never spent a full year in the minors despite coming out of college being extremely raw. I'd say it's safe to say he was rushed. This is his 3rd full year. He spent all of 2007 in the minors and then half the year in 2008 before coming up to the majors. I do definitely believe he still has been rushed a little bit though considering how raw he was coming out. He was just starting to really get it together in AA/AAA his last 10 starts he was there when he got up to the majors. That was ok for last year in the playoff push, but they should have kept him down all year this year to work on those other pitches.

If you haven't noticed when Miles is on the 25man roster he magically seems to play a lot. I don't think you'll have to worry about that too much anymore. Miles was getting benched before he hit the DL. And now the Cubs have Baker to fill the platoon role Miles was trying to fill at 2nd and Fox to backup Ramirez at 3rd. So unless Theriot gets hurt more seriously, Miles will probably only see 1-2 starts for the rest of the month.

It looks like the only way Samardzija will go down now is if the Cubs decide that they'd rather have Gorzelanny as a long reliever than Samardzija. I suspect that's why they kept him in the first place (which is silly because Stevens can pitch almost as long in a game as Samardzija can at this point).

I figured this would be the likely lineup if Theriot was out. I don't think it's the fact that he's playing SS. It's just that for 3 years straight Lou has shown that the 2 spot is one of the least important in his lineup. It tends to go to a non-power hitter that is better than the non-power hitter in the 8 spot. If Soto had been in the lineup tonight, Miles would have been batting 8th (and probably Fontenot 2nd). With Hill in the 8th spot, Lou would rather have Fontenot's power in the 7th spot which leaves Miles for 2nd. I don't agree with it at all (IMO, the 2nd spot is a lot more important than the 6th/7th spots) but Lou has consistently shown that he cares more about the 6th and many times 7th spots. You could be right, but Lou has had the tendency to go CF-SS-1B-3B-RF-LF-2B-C-P ever since Soriano was moved to the 6 spot That's only been a pattern after the All-star break (specifically, the 2nd game after the break and past that). It's been a pretty good predictive pattern for 15-16 games now which will change on Friday as soon as Soto gets back. That makes sense when you never change catchers and most of your hitters are sort of the same (Ramirez and Fox are expected to do the same sorts of things, as are Johnson and Fukudome, as are Bradley and Hoffpauir, as are Fontenot and Baker). The only time where that hasn't been the case is at SS, which is where the two egregious examples have happened recently (Blanco 2nd and now Miles 2nd in the order). Plus Johnson hitting leadoff against a right-hander to push Fukudome into the middle of the order, which was the same sort of issue as I said before (not enough power in the middle that night with Soto gone and to Lou the middle of the order being right is more important than the top or the bottom) Lou hasn't stuck all the time to that even lately though. When Lee missed a game Fox replaced him and hit 4th.

I figured this would be the likely lineup if Theriot was out. I don't think it's the fact that he's playing SS. It's just that for 3 years straight Lou has shown that the 2 spot is one of the least important in his lineup. It tends to go to a non-power hitter that is better than the non-power hitter in the 8 spot. If Soto had been in the lineup tonight, Miles would have been batting 8th (and probably Fontenot 2nd). With Hill in the 8th spot, Lou would rather have Fontenot's power in the 7th spot which leaves Miles for 2nd. I don't agree with it at all (IMO, the 2nd spot is a lot more important than the 6th/7th spots) but Lou has consistently shown that he cares more about the 6th and many times 7th spots.