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He was a catcher in both high school and college.

All that is well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that a NTC is just a negotiating asset, and a pitcher would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to pitch in SD. That might be for most players, but it doesn't seem to be that way for Samardzija (who is following in the footprints of someone like Brian Giles who doesn't use it as a negotiating asset either). And yes, I do believe Samardzija would be foolish to pass up a trade to SD. He could make a lot of money in his career over there. But while most people with a NTC in trade talks say that they'll consider their options if the club wants to trade them but they're happy there etc., Samardzija came right out during the trade talks last offseason and said that he wouldn't even consider waiving the NTC no matter what the Cubs did. I think he's prepared to be that foolish.

Im not, but Shark probably is, and since, he has a full NTC, thats the only guy who needs to be against it. Yeah, the NTC was the only way we could talk him out of playing football. I don't think there's a chance he would accept a trade. I don't think it was the only way. The main thing was the money. The NTC is just a bargaining chip. I think any pitcher would be a fool to turn down a potential trade to SD, especially a young one trying to build up his resume for arbitration/free agency. A couple years pitching in Petco could help Samardzija big time. He can use the NTC to negotiate something else into his deal. I'm thinking I remember hearing that the NTC was a necessity, but I could be remembering wrong. And as far as Shark waving it, doesn't he live near Chicago and wants to stay close to home? That may override the idea of getting earlier playing time in SD. Yes. Jeff grew up in NW Indiana and he has consistently said that the main reason he picked baseball was because he could play close to home and have his family come see him. He has also said consistently that he wouldn't waive the NTC for any reason and the only place he ever wants to play is Chicago.

I actually thought Fox looked pretty bad in his first 4 swings at the plate yesterday. He was getting fooled by those changeups but managed to work the count and foul weakly some pitches off before driving that fastball well. It's only Lee's 2nd game back..he doesn't need another rest. They might decide to rest Bradley one of the next 2 days though with the night game/day game and so Fox might be able to get a start in RF.

Really nice to only see 2 BB's in the last 10 innings to go along with the 17 strikeouts he has in those two starts.

Not exactly a guy who would know a real exact timetable, but from the last line of the Bruce Miles blog from earlier today, We haven't had a lot of information on the injury time, so that's at least some encouragement, even though I expect that will be pushed back 2-3 weeks.

I was just thinking..this is the type of situation Reed tends to hit his home runs..and then the next pitch it was gone :D

Z and the ump were having an animated conversation when the ump moved towards Z..as he was moving towards him Z moved his shoulder and they bumped shoulders..the big problem is going to be is that Z kind of flexed his forearm which kind of pushed the ump's shoulder away.

Z looks to be going out there for the 7th as nobody is warming up.

I'm going to say legitimate injury. It's not like the Cubs were anxious to bring Blanco up for any reason. But Miles probably could have played through that injury longer if he needed to or was hot at the plate. Scales might have a chance to quickly come back up depending on what happens with Freel.

He squared around to bunt more than once. That pretty much means sacrifice. But he squared around during the pitch..and Theriot frequently fakes the bunt so the third baseman plays in anyway, so the surprise factor isn't as much with him. I think he was trying to bunt for a hit .

It looked to me like Theriot was doing the bunt like Fukudome does. You bunt and hope for a hit, but at the worst it's a sacrifice. But it was a pretty bad bunt.

Why did they make the change? Freel slid after he made the turn at 1st presumably to stop his momentum..and when he went back to 1st he was limping and grabbing his left leg.

With only one IF backup, if Freel needs to be out more than 2 days they probably will put him on the DL and call Scales right back up.

Close play on Lee. That was his first double play of the season.

So why didnt they just bring up Fox for Miles and leave the rest be? Blancos defense isnt anything to write home about. Blanco can play SS. Scales can't. Neither can Freel, and Fontenot only barely can (and the Cubs probably don't want him thinking about another new position right now). From the way Len described it, that's exactly what it was. The Cubs needed a backup SS with Miles gone so Blanco had to be the choice.

It doesn't sound like Scales will be up anytime soon. He just got caught in the roster crunch and they decided they'd rather have the extra bat in Fox than Scales.

They have said in some places. Sore shoulder..apparently has been bothering him since March.

Yup. Not a wizard there but good to very good.

This should put them at 38 for the 40 man roster. Fox was already on there, but Waddell and Blanco need to be added.

The fact that they were the worst running team in the game but still ranked 10th indicates they are giving a lot of credit to Manning (who probably isn't as good as he was at his peak). There is no reason why they should be the worst running team in the game again this year. They have two talented first round RB's and an offensive line that has much more experience than at many points last year. All the rookies they drafted last year got significant playing time, and one of their starting guards is coming back after missing all of last year. And Manning's decision making is better than ever, which helps make up for the fact that his arm has slipped slightly from his peak.

I wonder if they're planning to make a second move. It doesn't make sense to bring two players from Iowa other than if they are really worried about Scales being out several more days with his illness and so seeing how he's feeling before deciding whether to go with the middle or corner infielder.

Really? I wouldn't. OBP is on a 1.000 point scale; Slg is on a 4.000 point scale. I'm not sure why that's relevant. They aren't measuring the same thing, so the different denominators are irrelevant. So you'd trade 100 points of OBP for 100 point of Slg? I wouldn't do that. It's obvious OBP is more important than SLG. I happen to like the 1.4 multiplier, which would say that at most normal OBP levels getting 100 points of SLG for 50 points of OBP is the right move. Looking at how each correlates to runs scored over the last few years, I don't really think a higher multiplier is prudent anymore. Plus, when you consider that Theriot's increase in SLG is coming from doubles and home runs (which SLG underrates) and actually has a decrease in singles (which SLG overrates) each point of his SLG becomes even closer to that of OBP.

Yes, it is.

Agreed. I much rather Theriot shoot those singles into RF like he did last yr, and keep a higher BA/OBP instead of hitting for more power and less contract/OBP. I'll admit, I've had a good time watching the Riot's power surge (loved those three doubles the other night), but for the better good of this team, we need the old Riot back. I strongly disagree with that. I'd much rather have a version of a Mark DeRosa at the plate than Ryan Theriot, even the Theriot of last year. And that's really what Theriot has become. Let's face it..Theriot was going to have a hard time maintaining a .387 OBP like he had last year. He might have been able to keep it around .370-.375, which still would have been fantastic. But with that putrid slugging, that means the best you could hope for OPS wise was somewhere between a .700 and .750. Now, after a slump his OBP is down at .335, but his OPS is still 43 points higher than last year! I'll trade 50 points of OBP for 100 points of slugging. And Theriot's OBP has room to go up...what he really needs to do is move up his walk rate a little more to match last year. Even if his average stays around .270-.275, if he can move his walk rate up so that his OBP is around .350 that would be a much superior player to the Theriot of 2008. And last year's Theriot had to rely on his BABIP not being unlucky to not be terrible. This years version can have that go a little wrong and still be all right. Not to mention that Theriot's swing keeps him from making additional outs in a couple of ways. First, Theriot was a big double play person last year. He hit so many ground balls that he grounded into 19 double plays last year. This year, he's on pace for 4. So Theriot might not be getting on base as much, but hitting more fly balls means his teammates stay on base more. Also, while he has been better at this so far this year, Theriot standing at first base less means that he doesn't try to steal as many bases, which minimizes the risk of his inconsistency in that department. Yes, Theriot has turned into a different player. And there are some things to be missed about the old player. But the new version is still likely to be better than the old one.