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The contracts won't really be a hindrance after, probably, 2011. In 2012, we only have $54 million committed and will likely have a payroll of $130+ million (luxury tax won't kick in that season until $170 million, though, so we could be higher than we are now). That's assuming the Cubs stop giving out big contracts. Soriano's contract is going to be a hindrance regardless of what everybody else's situation is. However, just because Ramirez and Lee may be gone by then, they might by then have resigned Lilly to another deal. It's possible Hendry will have committed to a 30-something Theriot before he reaches full free agency. You also will have Soto in his later arbitration years, plus a need to fill both CF and RF by then. If Ramirez and Lee are both gone they will likely have spent big on at least one of those positions, and then there's the bullpen, where Hendry has showed over and over he's more than happy to hand out 3 year multi million dollar deals. The fact that the Cubs "only" have $54 million commited (really a ridiculous amount of just about any team) doesn't mean payroll issues cease to be an issue in 2011. What he's saying is that the Cubs will have the flexibility to make moves to rebuild the team. Yes, Soriano's contract will be a hindrance. The only other contract that looks somewhat likely to be a hindrance is Bradley's though, and that is only for two more years. Sure Hendry could make bad moves to replace the players that will be leaving or re-sign people to bad deals. That is always an option. But the current contracts will not be a huge factor in precluding the Cubs from competing in 2012 and beyond. It's the moves that Hendry does over the next 2 1/2 years that will determine that. To say that the current contracts are going to hurt the Cubs significantly in the long-term (3-5 years) is not right because most of the contracts don't run that long, and most of the contracts that do run that long are assigned to players who will earn most of that money (with the big exception of Soriano). And Hendry hasn't given out a big multi-year deal to a reliever in the past 3 offseasons and actually refused the last potential one. The Cubs have 0 relievers right now on multi-year deals. That's not exactly a sign of a GM who loves to give out contracts like that.

Let's raise our expectations a tad, shall we? I'm calling 2 of 3 from the Phils I don't think it's unreasonable to expect just one from this series. The Phillies have won 8 in a row, 12 out of their last 13, and are playing in their home ballpark. I'd expect them to take two out of three against any team in the league right now. If the Cubs can take two I'd be very happy, but I don't think only taking one says anything poorly about the team in this case. Getting swept however would be a disappointment and would be giving back the unexpected extra win the team picked up against the Nationals.

Its not what I expect from Gregg - I would just like to have a dominating closer. Fewer walks and fewer flyballs would be a good start. He reminds me too much of Bob Howry. The Cubs don't have a guy like that now. Gregg is who they have, and he is getting the job done. Try to project out a little bit. Gregg is a 3 run jack in the playoffs just waiting to happen. He'll get owned by the better hitters in the NL, in a playoff situation, with a ton of pressure brought to bear. People are rightfully worried about his abilities. Gregg has shown most of the year that it's not really the quality of hitters that is a big deal to him. He's gone through lots of quality hitters just fine in his dominant stretch. When he blows up (like he has a couple of times this year) just about anybody can hit him hard. Gregg doesn't look like he has great stuff, but the results and the good strikeout numbers say otherwise. And he's not a control pitcher (like Howry was for so many years) to where he hits precise spots to be successful, so he has to have good stuff to get the results he does.

Who's left? Samardzija is all I can think of. Is Stevens still here? He is since he's the guy who will likely go down tomorrow for Hart (although with the bullpen tired from the last two nights, they might send down Fuld instead). Those are the two remaining. Samardzija needs to not pitch tonight since he's the only guy who can really go multiple innings tomorrow if need be with Hart on the mound. With Gregg likely unavailable either way tomorrow, might as well pitch him for the 9th.

This bullpen has put together the most dominating 2 months out of a bullpen that I think I have ever seen out of a Cubs team. They have simply been brilliant since late May. Tonight hasn't been their best night though. Hopefully Gregg can somehow get out of this one.

It probably wasn't Theriot on that play..the contact play looked on there. Theriot broke immediately.

Oops..posted in the wrong thread before. Carpenter is now through 5. A little control problems (3 walks and a HBP) but still pretty dominant: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K It's been a weird game in Daytona. Carpenter has hit 1, and the opposing pitcher (who isn't terrible with his control) has hit 5 batters including Chirinos all 3 times he has come to the plate so far.

That post was made before Vance's post. And please bring it up privately to a moderator if you feel somebody else should be banned please.

Basically, these are players who did not enter themselves into the regular draft, and then found out they were ineligble for playing in college next year for one reason or another and so decided to turn pro. In Jarmon's case, he tested positive for a supplement and was ineligible for his senior year, which is why he came out now, but it wasn't in time for the regular draft.

Two, apparently. And there's also the possibility of moving Chad Fox to the 60-day DL. Ahhh, Chad Fox. I almost blocked him out of memory. Forget the 60 day, he could just be dropped. No one else is going to claim him. No one. But since we have two slots open already, it's a moot point. Moving him to the 60 day is much preferable to dropping him. As long as Fox stays on the DL, that means the Cubs have a playoff roster exemption with him. Basically, it means the Cubs can replace him with anybody on the 40 man roster when it comes time for the playoff roster. So if a pitcher or hitter comes up as a September callup and has a big month, that means the Cubs have the flexibility to add them to the playoff roster as a replacement for the "injured" Chad Fox. Without any DL'd players, any player who was not on the 25 man roster on August 31st would be ineligible for the playoffs. Fox is serving an important role with this team as long as he doesn't come back.

Thanks UM. It's certainly not easy. The relievers especially feel wrong, although there's one or two numbers in the starters that are surprising as well. If you just asked what were the best 2 bullpens out of those 5 teams, I doubt you would get those two as answers together more than 2-3% of the time.

I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I know some people like trying it so I thought I'd throw one of these up here. The Cubs have had a lot of good pitchers come through Chicago the past few years. The question is..going by ERA, rank the 5 Cubs starting rotations of possible playoff teams (2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009) and the 5 Cubs bullpens of those same years. If you would like some more info to help you out, I'm including in spoilers the average ERA for each year in the National League. Answers to come later. I would definitely be impressed with anybody who could get either list of 5 right without looking.

Either that or Lilly wanted to throw a side session in between starts (which would have been the All-Star game if he had pitched) and since he would have only thrown that side session yesterday he can't pitch tonight. Nobody else is on correct rest so that forces the Cubs to pitch Harden.

Cashner is done. 4 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 83 pitches-55 strikes, 5 GO-2 AO Shafer is also done. 5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 9 GO-2 AO Searle has pitched 5 shutout innings so far. Castro is 3 for 3 and Vitters is 2 for 3 with a double.

A very long first inning for Cashner. 30 pitches, 4 baserunners, 2 runs given up. The positives? Even though he had a walk in the inning, 21 of the 30 pitches were strikes, he struck out 2 batters, and the three hits were 2 ground balls and a fly ball that fell in front of the LF. I'd look for him to probably settle down but likely have a short night due to the huge pitch count early.

Lou uses Soto to pinch hit all the time. All the time is a bit of an exaggeration. Geo has not started 25 games this season and he's pinch hit in 8 of those. He's been hurt for several of those games and not available to pinch-hit, but there have been a few examples this season where Lou has kept Soto on the bench far longer than a normal pinch-hit bat. At other times, he's been perfectly fine with pinch-hitting him.

Hart has to wait the whole 10 days to come back up to the majors. Plus he's scheduled to pitch I think today in the minors so he wouldn't be on proper rest if he went Friday.

Wasn't Hart recently optioned out? If so, I believe Marshall may be in the rotation. Hart was only optioned out because otherwise it would have been 10-12 days between starts for him (and plus to get an extra reliever up for the next few games). They were going to get him a start in the minor leagues and then activate him in time for his first start after the break.

The extra catcher will apparently have to wait with Coste out of the picture. Bruce Miles is reporting on his blog (originally on the Iowa Cubs web site) that Fuld was called up to take the roster spot vacated by Soto. http://blogs.dailyherald.com/blog/18

How is Bradley's contract ($9M and $12M the next two years) an albatross but Z's ($17.875M, $17.875M and $18M) and Dempster's ($12.5M, $13.5M and a $14M player option) contracts? I think he's assuming that this year's production so far will continue. Z and Dempster won't be albatrosses if that happens because they're both above average starting pitchers (with Z well above). They could possibly slightly overpaid, but not albatrosses. Bradley has both not been worth his contract and not even worth playing time so far this year. Using Fangraphs's worth estimator in dollars, Z has already been worth 7.7 million this year with his play so far, Dempster 6.2 million, and Bradley has been worth negative 1.8 million. I'm not one who happens to believe that Bradley's struggles will continue over the entire contract unless his injuries get a lot worse though, but if they did (or his injuries kept him out most of the season one of the next two years) his contract could be an albatross while the other two contracts are not likely to be.

I like Harden, but that's crazy talk. With as many holes as this team has, the Cubs can no longer afford to take that risk. What holes can they actually fill? Soriano isn't going anywhere. There's your LF. It's about a 100% guarantee that one of Fukudome/Johnson will be in CF next year. 99% chance that it's both again. Bradley will be in RF again. Ramirez at third, Lee at first. Theriot will either be at short or second, with one of the spots needing to be filled via FA because they can't go with Fontenot again. Catcher is set. Starting pitchers: Z, Lilly, Dempster for sure. Probably one of Wells/Marshall, and then you need a fifth. I doubt they go with both Marshall and Wells in the rotation (and one of them will probably be traded). They'll add some bullpen arms, but not many. We may have a lot of holes, but contracts make it so we don't have much leeway to do anything. And it's not like we have a good farm system. As you said, probably either second base or the bullpen. They don't have very much money to spend this offseason. And it might be in the Cubs best interest to pocket the money and wait to become major players after 2010. The farm system still isn't great position player wise, but it's starting to have lots of quality pitching. The Cubs will have several options next year if they want to go that route. Samardzija, Marshall, or quite possibly Coleman at the start of the year (Coleman will never be a great pitcher but could already be close to major league ready) with possibly either Jackson or even Cashner later in the year, although the Cubs might not want to rush those two with their upsides.

I wouldn't re-sign him. The Cubs need to pick up another cheap position or two to make up for the contracts they have on the roster. That starting pitcher slot is an ideal place to go the inexpensive route with several possible options in the minors by mid-season next year. You may have some growing pains, but I'd rather have that and save the small amount of money for talent elsewhere.

Astros just claimed him. For the most part, theres no point going out and aquiring a guy who may or may not be better than Chris Robinson. The odds that he's significantly better offensively than Robinson are probably between 95 and 98 percent. There's no comparison between the two. I'm talking at least 100 points of OPS and possibly a decent bit more.

Bruce said on his blog that a trade appeared imminent and the name he had heard as a possibility was Chris Coste. That doesn't seem to be a bad match as the Phillies don't seem to have much use for him right now.

Cashner tired out in the 5th but still got unlucky: 4 2/3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 85 pitches, 50 strikes Cashner was going to get out of his outing with no runs scored, but a throwing error on the second baseman let the 1st run score with 2 outs. Then he was replaced and Lambert let the two other runners score. So the runs column is really deceiving this time.