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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.

Actually that wasn't a terrible move. Keeping Wells in forced Cox to play his hand with the pinch hitter, essentially burning Gregor Blanco without him batting. Lou then put in Marshall with a run of lefties coming up and Marshall go the job done. If you're going to complain about that move, complain because of Lou's love of using Marshall as a LOOGY rather than him pulling Wells. Why? Marshall, for his career, isn't so bad against RH hitters that he can't get a righty out. I'd much rather let a good hitter hit for Wells than worry about who Marshall was going to face to start the 7th. Wells came up with two outs and nobody on. It wasn't exactly a great run-scoring situation. At that point with the lead, making them both burn an extra pinch-hitter and saving the pinch-hitters for your team is more helpful than sending a pinch-hitter to the plate to try to start a 2 out rally. It at least is a close decision.

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SPELL OUT THE GOOD REASON? He is a wasted roster spot. If you can find somebody dumb enough to take on his completely unwarranted contract, go right ahead and trade him. I'd have no problem with that, obviously. But I highly doubt somebody is going to take any significant portion of his contract. The Cubs have other people who are more useful, like guys who can do something with the bat or guys who can actually backup at SS and provide defense, so you keep those guys and dump Miles. The player who would replace him is not any better than him though. Blanco is likely to be 100 points worse with the bat which is going to offset his better defense. It really depends how the Cubs are going to use these guys. Is it only going to be as a backup SS and sitting on the bench most of the time? Or is the player going to play at 2B and play more often? In the first case, Blanco is the better option. In the second, Miles and Blanco are almost exactly the same, and the Cubs probably have a better chance of sneaking Blanco back to the minors than Miles. If Theriot got hurt, the Cubs could always bring Blanco right back up. The biggest advantage I can see to cutting Miles is the Cubs wouldn't be tempted to bring him back for 2010 when they can actually find a better overall player for that spot. But Andres Blanco is no better of a player than Miles. Edit: There is the thought of the playoffs though, and with a deeper bench Blanco would be a better addition to a playoff roster than Miles (because neither player would have to pinch-hit and Blanco could be used for defense). Maybe that's the tipping factor, I don't know.

Because Freel was actually on the 25 man roster and the Cubs only had 10 days to either trade him or release him after he was DFA'd. Miles is on the DL. When he's close to coming back (it sounds like he's probably still 2-3 weeks away) the Cubs will have to make a decision then on if they want Miles or Blanco more.

Bruce Miles on his latest blog weighs in on this: So it sounds like no large salaries will be added this year. Here's the link to where you can read his blog: http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/2247

The latest blog from Bruce Miles includes this phrase: