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Didn't they release him? And yeah this isn't that big of a deal. He's not batting all that well this year anyway. He has done well against left-handers again this year which is what he was signed to do. It's too bad they've stuck him out there against too many right-handers which has deflated his numbers. If the Cubs can get Soto back soon though, the lineup against left-handers should still be strong enough without Reed there. It will be interesting to see how the Cubs will choose to structure the lineup against a left-hander now.

I don't think I'd trade Fukudome for Dunn straight up even if one of the other Cubs OF's could play CF well. The fact that Fukudome has two more years on his deal while Dunn only has 1 would be the only reason I would consider it. It's probable though that Fukudome would be a better player than Dunn if he was in RF and the flexibility to play CF just adds even more to his value. I think a projection would have to be pretty bearish on Fukudome's future offensive production to make Dunn an upgrade.

Baltimore's asking for way too much. Bruce said they wanted two of Cashner/Castro/Jackson/Carpenter to start the deal. I don't blame them for asking for the moon (they don't have to trade Sherill, and with the number of teams asking for him somebody may cave) but there's no reason anybody should pay that price, especially not the Cubs. Grabow's very inconsistent. I don't think he'd be much of a help and wouldn't trade what the Pirates are asking for him.

A July promotion is hardly rushing him. What? What does the month have to do with anything? I'm talking about his age and experience level. He wasn't dominating low A, and was promoted after one hot weekend following a month of struggling. And he's struggled for a good month in Daytona (when they haven't been rained out). I didn't get the timing then, and I don't get it now. Oh, and he was promoted in June, no? It was either the end of June/start of July. It doesn't really matter..my point wasn't the month, but rather that a midseason promotion is not rushing Vitters at all. What's wrong with giving him a look at a higher level? The thing he needs to work on (figuring out what strikes in the strike zone he should hit and laying off pitcher's strikes) is better worked on in Daytona where the pitchers are better at hitting their spots. If his strikeout rate had gone way up, I would be concerned that he just isn't ready for the level. That hasn't happened though, and he'll make adjustments and figure out which pitches he can drive against better pitching and which pitches he can't. Now we'll have a better idea of his development if he can come back to Daytona at the start of next year having made the adjustments he needs to make over the winter.

A July promotion is hardly rushing him. At this point, he will likely start next year in Daytona again, but now he has all offseason to work knowing full well about what his new level of competition entails. I'm happy at least with the fact that he's still not striking out very much against more advanced pitchers. Oh, btw, I have very little trust on LD percentage at that level, but they do have him at a 15.3% LD percentage. His BABIP so far in Daytona is only .253. And he's hitting a lot of ground balls, so that also should have caused a slightly higher BABIP than if he were hitting a lot of fly balls. He's almost certainly been a little unlucky so far.

Agreed. Let him catch until he gives you overwhelming reasons why he shouldn't. He already has. I missed the last innings last night. Was he that bad? Yes. He dropped multiple balls and generally seems very awkward back there and we already know guys can almost run at will on him. That's not the kind of player you want in such a vital position for 9 innings. Especially not against Houston who has already attempted over 100 stolen bases this year. I wouldn't be averse to giving Fox a start to rest Hill against a team who is a little more cautious on the bases. That might be against Florida..where if you can keep Bonifacio off the bases (.296 OBP this year) you mostly just have Hanley to worry about. Against the Astros, Bourn, Matsui, and Pence would all run pretty well against Fox (Pence has a terrible ratio so far this year but runs a good amount anyway). That's too many potential basestealers to let Fox play most of a game there.

Agreed. Let him catch until he gives you overwhelming reasons why he shouldn't. He already has. I missed the last innings last night. Was he that bad? Just for an example, the very first batter he had to throw the batter out at first after a strikeout that he dropped. The pitch was in the strike zone and was actually a called strike 3.

The good news is that all of the Cubs best relievers should be ready for tomorrow with Dempster on a pitch count. Marshall's the only one of the top 4 that has pitched two days in a row and he has only thrown 14 pitches combined in those two outings. Samardzija's 24 pitches might actually be the catalyst for him being sent down. They might choose now to keep Berg up since his arm is fresh while Samardzija might be unavailable tomorrow night (since he pitched yesterday as well and has never pitched 3 days in a row in the major leagues and probably never in his life).

Oh God. Yeah, like Koyie Hill is so awesome at throwing runners out as it is. Koyie Hill has now thrown out 41% of basestealers this season. That's probably one of the best percentages in the league for any catcher who's played more than a handful of games.

What Erik said..the risk of injury would be too great to the pitcher coming in if he isn't properly warm.

Few steps in front of the warning track..not all that close.

opening day payrolls are not a great way to measure how efficiently a GM uses the resources available to him. If he trades a guy away but eats the salary, or if he cuts a guy, that doesn't count toward opening day payroll, but it certainly counts in the money wasted department. The Cubs have eaten a significant amount of money in two of those seasons. 2005 and 2009. The other 4 seasons they released no more than a couple million worth of players at most. I'm not sure about the Cardinals and their money management during that time.

It was no guarantee he was only going to face 1 batter. Also there is a difference between warming up, and coming in the game. With that said, Id expect Marmol to close tonight, with Gregg not even being in the bullpen. I doubt that. They might prefer not to use Gregg tonight but he'll be back there if they need him. A month ago, he threw 4 straight days. 11 pitches, then 33, then 16, and then 12 more. Tonight would be 4 straight days. But this time he's only thrown 22, then 4, then 4. Much lighter workload than a month ago when they threw him out there for the fourth day anyway.

While I'm not a fan of using just batting average to show it, I have to agree with the thought that Bradley's numbers (before yesterday's homerun) didn't show any indication of turning anything around from June to July. Yes, his OPS was 40 points better and his OBP was around 70 points better. His production had certainly improved from June to July. However, that increase lied in a completely unsustainable walk rate and one that was mostly based upon luck. Normally, when a player improves his walk rate it is a function of 1 of 2 things. 1) The player changes his approach to be more patient. or 2) The player has become a bigger power threat and teams pitch around them. Bradley, however, both in observation and statistics already had a very patient approach. His ISOD was over .1, which is as close to as high as you can reasonably expect from all but the biggest power hitters. However, the increase in his OPS from July was caused by an ISOD of around .2 even with poor power production. When you are only a decent threat for power and pitchers are throwing that many pitches outside the zone, it's luck. The most patient approach in the world can't sustain walking that much. So while Bradley had better production in July, his projection for August would be no higher than his production in June because his walk rate would very likely fall right back to a normal number. That means he hadn't really done anything to turn it around so far in July that would actually cause a change in his future projections. However, his home run yesterday also increased his ISOP from last month, which is something that is much more sustainable for Bradley. That's where his improvement is going to have to come if he's going to have a more normal .850-.900 OPS (along with a higher batting average that will raise his OBP and SLG).

Marmol's numbers in July: 12 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 6 BB, 17 K Nice to see him come back. Still a high walk rate but Marmol is always going to have a high walk rate..as long as it wasn't a batter an inning like it was the first 3 months combined he'll be really good.

Nope. Not until Ryan is ready at the very least and probably not after that (and that's assuming Ryan is ever ready which is questionable in itself). Hart will remain in the rotation and Dempster will essentially just replace Lilly when he comes off the DL next week.

Berg is already on the 40 man roster so he has already used his option for this year. If Parker had been put on the 40 man roster, he would have used his first option when he was sent down in two weeks. If they wait until September or later to add him, he'll still have all 3 options next year.

Depends on what you mean by "better" More impressive achievement is how they were discussing. But I can't think of a definition that would make me think Kerry pitched a better game that day than Buehrle did yesterday If Wise drops the ball in the 9th inning and the batter gets a double/triple, does that change anything in your thinking? Or what if Orie fields the ball for Wood? Wood shouldn't be punished because his fielder didn't make the play and Buehrle's fielder did, especially when Buehrle made his fielders make a lot more plays than Wood did.

There have been many comments (both here and on Bruce's blog lately for example) that they are happy that Theriot is going to right most of the time again and isn't focused on both pulling the ball and driving the ball. Should we lump those two together though? Has Theriot really turned into the player that went to right first and center second? Here are his July hits: July 1st: Theriot singled to right center, Theriot singled to left center July 2nd: Theriot singled to left, Theriot singled to left July 3rd: Theriot singled to left, Theriot singled to second base July 5th: Theriot singled to right center, Theriot singled to left center July 6th: Theriot singled to SS July 7th: Theriot doubled to right July 8th: Theriot singled to left, Theriot singled to center July 10th: Theriot singled to center, Theriot singled to right July 11th: Theriot singled to left, Theriot singled to SS July 12th: Theriot doubled to left, Theriot doubled to right, Theriot singled to right July 16th: Theriot doubled to deep left July 18th: Theriot tripled to deep right center July 19th: Theriot singled to left July 20th: Theriot singled to center July 21st: Theriot singled to right July 22nd: Theriot bunt single to 3rd, Theriot singled to left, Theriot singled to SS 27 hits in the month broken down this way: 7 singles to left 3 singles to SS 3 singles to center 3 singles to right 2 singles to left center 2 singles to right center 2 doubles to right 1 single to 2nd 1 bunt single to 3rd 1 triple to deep right center 1 double to deep left 1 double to left Has Theriot become more like the 2008 version? Of course. He has a better walk rate and a better strikeout rate this month. 3 of his extra base hits were line drives down the line. He's only had 2 balls that fell in for hits that were driven past the OF's. It's obvious that the uppercut part of the swing is gone. He is nothing like last year's version though in the fact that he still prefers to pull the ball. He is using all fields with a definite preference for going to left. But without the uppercut, he's been able to get good results with the line drives. This is how the power surge has done a lot of good for Theriot. He is much harder to defend now that he is consistently using all fields. And his ISOP from this month is still about 30 points higher than last year because he is willing to drive the ball occasionally. So Theriot is not focusing on driving the ball anymore. But he is still pulling the ball quite a bit and going to right field IMO hasn't been the primary cause of the change this month like many people are intimating.

I'm not up on all the rules, but I think I remember reading somewhere that MLB clubs are allowed to have their position players play in 10 minor league games before they need to be activated. I would imagine Miles is close to that number. I also think David Patton will be activated after he max's out his number of minor league appearances (I really thought they would try to hide him on the DL until September). I thought the rule was something like 10 games until the player can demand to be called up. So, if you have an agreement in place you can go longer. But maybe I'm wrong. I think pitchers can stay longer. If it is 10 games they could pitch Patton every 5 days and call him up in Sept. regarding Miles, how much ML service time does he have? Couldn't the Cubs option him to AAA (assuming he cleared waivers LOL)? I don't believe he has enough big league time to ask for his release. Miles has just enough service time to where he could ask for his release.

Jay Jackson would take issue with that. Cashner is a better prospect than Vitters. I wouldn't say so yet, but I think he's closer to Vitters than he is to anyone behind him. I definitely think there's an argument to be made there..I'd just like to see a few more longer outings from Cashner before I feel good enough about his starting abilities to push him to the level of Vitters.

Ramirez is also in that lineup batting 4th. Fox should have gotten in the game somewhere last night. Moyer, other than being left-handed, is exactly the type of pitcher that Fox would have a lot of trouble with, so I'm not surprised they wouldn't want to play him today.

Am I the only person that thinks our farm has taken some big steps forward this year, and could actually be average by league standards next year? No, you are most definitely not. The article is right-for one reason or another, the drafts of 2003-2006 were really bad. That has left a void in the high minors right now which causes the bad rankings and lack of possible trades (not much MLB ready talent). 2007-2008 was much better (2009 doesn't really have any sample yet) which is going to flip the rankings around once again as they are getting to the high levels of the minors. The international signings have also helped and we haven't even felt the full impact of that yet. Rhee and Lee have been noticed while Ha and Jung haven't been yet because while high schoolers drafted high typically get a grace year in the prospect rankings before they start sliding international prospects especially from Asia have to prove themselves first since so little is known about them. This year many of our interesting prospects have taken big steps forward, especially at pitching and SS.

I had a feeling Lou might go for the combination of defense from Johnson and gamble on the fact that Johnson has absolutely destroyed Blanton in a tiny sample of at-bats: 5 for 10, 2 2B's, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 K, .500/.545/1.000

So a couple years of not giving out new deals means' he's done? He still gave a $10m contract to Samardzija who's being used out of the pen, he traded for a "proven closer" just before the end of his arbitration years and could very easily feel the need to extend. He let Kerry Wood walk due to injuries and the fear of future injuries. But there's plenty of examples of him handing out big money deals to free agent relievers to justify including them into the potential future payroll. The Samardzija comment is irrelevant to the discussion. They didn't give him 10 million dollars to be a reliever just like they didn't give Ryan Harvey over a million to never make it past AA. They so far have somewhat whiffed on his starting development so they are trying to get value from him where they can. Gregg is the one reliever that I'm worried that he'll extend due to Marmol's struggles this year so that the Cubs will have a good closing candidate. I do think it's reasonable to consider that a possibility, especially if Gregg has a good second half and is willing to sign for something like 7 or 8 per. But I'm not worried about him signing relievers from other teams to multi-year deals. It doesn't fit into how the Cubs have treated relievers the last couple years (which has continued to get more and more home grown as time goes on) and it doesn't fit that he's stockpiled the minors with good relief candidates. I don't think Hendry will see the bullpen as a problem when he has so many options in Iowa and Tennessee and already has a young mostly home grown bullpen in the major leagues. I'm hoping he'll take that same look at the starting rotation. IMO, the Cubs should not sign anybody for the starting rotation in the next 3 1/2 years. That includes not re-signing either Harden or Lilly. If they do that, the Cubs will have plenty of money for both the offense and 1 bullpen arm. But I have no idea how Hendry is going to treat his pitching depth down in the minors. It's something he hasn't had in several years if ever.