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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:

Does this impact us right now in any way? Can we now make some moves that we couldn't before - or are we just a bit further along towards that goal?? It depends on what the terms of the agreement was. Ricketts still would have to get the Tribune's permission to authorize any moves. My guess is the Tribune won't authorize it, so the situation probably hasn't changed until both MLB and the courts approve the sale. There is a small chance though that Ricketts negotiated a little bit of wiggle room on the payroll that he could have during this process.

Ok, the Fuld situation first. It's basically irrelevant at this point. Fuld is leaving the team one way or the other Monday morning. There's really no way to get room for him on the roster unless you both go with only 1 backup MI (at a time that both Ramirez and Baker are injury risks) and you also send Jake Fox down to the minor leagues. Getting rid of the 12th pitcher allows you to keep one of those two but not both. An extra OF doesn't fit on this roster when the Cubs already will have 6 that can play out there. So giving him a chance to play is mostly pointless because there is no roster spot for him, and there's nothing he could do in the next 2 days to change that fact. As for Fukudome, he has stabilized his numbers in the last 9 days thanks to some of his power returning. And with Soriano, I don't think Lou will move him back just because Soriano didn't hit for a couple days. When he moved him previously, he moved him because he needed another hitter in the middle of the order. And when Soriano didn't hit the first couple of games, he moved him back in order to get his production from somewhere. This time, Lou would be moving him because of Soriano's huge slump. And if Soriano continues that slump, I think Lou would just send him closer to the bottom of the lineup until Soriano shows that he's breaking out of that slump. When he does break out of the slump, I think Lou might move him back (unless somebody else has simply dazzled in the leadoff spot which I don't expect).

Soriano has showed in other ballparks that he isn't exactly the best at battling the sun either. I don't think switching them would help.

Fuld was already in the game and is the only CF the Cubs have left. You can't really bring in Soto here.

Cutting him wouldn't be that beneficial. He's getting paid either way so cutting him would just lessen our depth some. What depth? I'm not seeing it. He's a bad player. Every time he takes an AB it's a net negative. Miles is very unlikely to be as bad as he was so far this year for the Cubs (both because of his career numbers and the fact that he has been very unlucky so far this year). If he hits like he did from 2004-2007 (there's almost no way we get his 2008 numbers) he'll definitely be better than Blanco offensively and would make it questionable which one the Cubs should keep (Miles for his below average offense and decent defense at second or Blanco's horrendous offense and great defense at second). As long as it's questionable, I'd rather keep both of them in the organization. If you cut Miles, and then Blanco gets hurt, who are you going to bring up to play SS? The Cubs don't have a lot of great options down there. Yes, Miles is a net negative. But so is every other player the Cubs would put in that spot, so the question is who is the least negative, and that might be Aaron Miles when he comes back.

Marmol got so close there to having 4 outings in a row without a walk. I would have been his longest streak of the season in that department.

That was his debut correct? Nice day for the pitchers in the minors Yes, that was his debut for Daytona. Jung gives up a bloop hit but also a strikeout and two groundouts in the first.

Carpenter is now done. 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K, 8 GO-5 FO Just a wonderful day so far for Cubs pitching prospects. Hopefully Jung can finish the night off just as good as the rest have been.