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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.

True, but that doesn't mean a second small sample is going to follow what the first small sample did. The whole point of small samples is that they are going to fluctuate wildly, which is why partial year bench numbers are often misleading. I'm not sure 131 PA of Aaron Miles when he was hurt tells you much about what he's going to do in the future. Then you add in that he has the exact same LD percentage he had in 2008 with the Cardinals (21.0%) with a huge difference in his actual results (.343 BABIP in 2008, .236 this year). Don't get me wrong here. Miles as what he actually is (a .675 OPS guy or so with decent defense at second and poor defense at SS) is not a good option for a ballclub. But he almost certainly is a better hitter than Blanco, who is more of a .610-.615 type of guy. Whether Blanco's defense makes up for his hitting depends on how much you are going to use them at SS and how much at 2B. For the Cubs, it's mostly been at 2B, which makes Miles the slightly better option. If Theriot went down to an injury, Blanco would be the better option to replace him everyday. They are both fringe major leaguers for different reasons. Jersey does bring up one good point though. I think Miles LD percentage is going to have a hard time being in line with his BABIP because teams can cheat in and pick off line drives that would fall in for hits for other hitters (Blanco is the same way). But there's no way it should be that far off.

Castro is 7 months younger than Vitters is and spent most of the year a level higher than Vitters playing the hardest position on the field. He was one of the youngest players in Daytona and now is in AA at the age of 19. He also has good tools on both offense and defense. He has significant problems (power, consistency on defense, walks) but for him to show both the tools and be able to hit .300 with so few strikeouts at Daytona at his age is impressive.

I don't think Miles will be taking much PT from the Fontenot/Baker platoon. Now he might be in at SS tonight with Theriot's bruise on his arm. Yeah, I'd have to guess Theriot is going to get a day off. Miles at SS is pretty disappointing though. He may not hit any worse than Blanco, but he can't really play the position. I wish that thought about sending down the redundant Fuld before magically DLing Blanco, when he's the only legit backup SS on the roster. Fuld is the only legit backup CF on the roster. He's not completely redundant. I tend to agree about Blanco/Miles. At 2B, Miles's offensive advantage wins out because he's decent defensively there. At SS, Blanco has such a huge advantage defensively (from good to very good in his case to horrible for Miles) that Blanco is a better SS option. And if they weren't going to get rid of Blanco, then they were going to have to find another person to go besides Fuld+ the pitcher that will be leaving. Are we sure Miles is better than Blanco offensively? Almost completely certain. It sometimes doesn't show over small numbers of at-bats (and remember that according to BABIP and LD percentage Miles has been incredibly unlucky this season) but unless Miles has suddenly gotten a whole lot worse than he has been over the last 5 years or Blanco has gotten a whole lot better, Miles is the better overall hitter by a decent margin. Miles career numbers: .284/.324/.359 Blanco's career numbers: .248/.292/.317

Is it falling? Yes, I would say it's falling a little bit. The struggles so far in Daytona aren't that concerning. The hand injury coming back though really causes some questions about him. But I would say that if Vitters is no longer the consensus #1 product it's more because the two people below him are raising their value than it is the value for Vitters falling, although both are true to an extent.

I don't think Miles will be taking much PT from the Fontenot/Baker platoon. Now he might be in at SS tonight with Theriot's bruise on his arm. Yeah, I'd have to guess Theriot is going to get a day off. Miles at SS is pretty disappointing though. He may not hit any worse than Blanco, but he can't really play the position. I wish that thought about sending down the redundant Fuld before magically DLing Blanco, when he's the only legit backup SS on the roster. Fuld is the only legit backup CF on the roster. He's not completely redundant. I tend to agree about Blanco/Miles. At 2B, Miles's offensive advantage wins out because he's decent defensively there. At SS, Blanco has such a huge advantage defensively (from good to very good in his case to horrible for Miles) that Blanco is a better SS option. And if they weren't going to get rid of Blanco, then they were going to have to find another person to go besides Fuld+ the pitcher that will be leaving.

I don't think Miles will be taking much PT from the Fontenot/Baker platoon. Now he might be in at SS tonight with Theriot's bruise on his arm.

Assuming Lou won't part with Heilman, we run into a bad situation in which Stevens probably goes back to Iowa. That's what I'd think, anyway. Either way, I'd imagine Gorz would stay up, right? I would assume Gorz would go down. It will only be 11-16 days until September 1st and Gorz would be unavailable for the first 3-4 of those. It will probably depend on how the bullpen has been used the previous few days though and how much the Cubs need fresh arms. Either way I don't think it's a bad situation because the timeframe will be so short before the Cubs will get everybody back from Iowa.

It should actually be clearing out in the next 30 minutes or so. The question becomes how bad the OF is. 6-8 inches of rain in a matter of hours could potentially overwhelm even the best of drainage systems. Officially, Cincinnati has only received about 1.10" of rainfall today. I don't know how they missed it all then. It was one of the worst storms I have ever seen up here (usually that bad of rain is not accompanied with that violent of a storm as well), and it was equally as bad or worse in Louisville. I know SE Indiana also got hit especially hard so I'm shocked that Cincy would have received that little of a rainfall total.