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Yup, because despite the fact that Kosuke has similar numbers against lefties and righties, Lou cannot PH a lefty vs. a lefty or a righty vs. a righty. It's not about Kosuke's numbers in that situation. It's about Burnett's splits from last year: against LH hitters: .171/.238/.276 against RH hitters: .328/.432/.537 This year his numbers are a little more even (only about a 100 point OPS difference) but he's still been very tough against left-handers. And his motion suggests that he would be very tough for any left-hander to hit.

If they call somebody up, it will be Fox and they'll go to 11 pitchers. Bruce hinted that the Cubs might be somewhat close to ending the Patton experiment the other day on his blog. But it's still somewhat likely that they call up nobody and use Hoffpauir as the DH (or do as they did last year and let their regulars DH while bench players trade off playing the field).

I don't think it's the slump that is of concern. It's the fact that he's physically doing the same things that caused him to fail miserably last year. The whole stepping towards first base thing is ridiculous. I don't know about you guys, but I was taught in little league that you put your foot back down TOWARDS THE PITCHER. I realize this could be a difference in teaching between Japan and the US, but I just don't see why Kosuke can't shake it. If someone told me right now to take a step in a certain direction, it would certainly not be a difficult task. I mean, isn't anyone actually telling Kosuke this stuff? Does he not notice or what? Changing how he steps that drastically could potentially change his entire swing. It could take years to rebuild the swing...I'd rather work with what he has even if it is unconventional. I haven't really seen an approach change from him. The copter has been there even during his hot streaks...that's just a natural result of his timing being off on that particular swing. The only thing i noticed different last night was that he swung at some terrible pitches in the dirt that he normally doesn't touch. But then again, by the midpoint of the game it looked like most of the Cubs couldn't see that pitch very well (Theriot and Soto especially also looked very much unlike them with the swings they were having). The night before that, Fukudome was seeing the ball very well and laying off some close pitches.

Scales is at third. If Lou is really trying to keep Fontenot at 2nd to concentrate on his hitting, that's good news for Scales and to a lesser extent Freel and bad news for Miles.

Lee is in between Bradley and Hoffpauir.

Since Ramirez has been out (11 games): Fontenot (9 starts) Scales (7 starts) Miles (5 starts..1 was at SS) Freel (2 starts) Miles started more earlier in the season when he was the only backup at 3 different positions. Right now, it's an exaggeration though to say that Lou is looking for ways to get him in the lineup. He has clearly been behind both Fontenot and Scales lately, with both the number of games played and the spot in the lineup when they do play.

I guess God hates you. Wow Im shocked you have a smartass comment. Completely unexpected It would be like me being surprised that you're wallowing in melodramatic misery yet again. Stop it both of you. Post about the game, not about each other.

Mixed results for Rich Hill tonight against the Nationals: 5 2/3 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 1 HR

Brady's season was arguably the greatest in league history. It's probably only 2nd or 3rd best. But that's a nitpick. I would agree that there's still a big difference between Cassel's level and Brady's level. Although if Cassell had experience, those first 3 games would have probably had a lot higher numbers and inflated his season stats. But still I think Cassell is a system QB while Brady might have been a system QB in the past but would now be a fantastic QB for any team. Brady's a fantastic QB. But his numbers don't really stack up to the top 5 QB's of all time. So he has to rely simply on team success. And it's really hard to consider that Brady is the best QB of all time when the Patriots were a better defensive team than offensive during most of their SB runs. Brady will likely go down in the top 10 of QB's all-time. If he hadn't gotten hurt, maybe he would have put up more eyepopping seasons and been top 5 all-time. I'm not sure how much higher he could get though. He got to sit on the bench for his first couple years (so he avoided the terrible rookie year that some QB's have while they are still learning the league) and yet his numbers still aren't likely to stack up by the end of his career.

The only person that you mentioned that had a single at-bat at regular A ball the year they were called up was Alex Rodriguez, and he only got a handful of at-bats in the majors that season. The other players were at least at high A at the start of the season and some of them were in AA. Essentially, Vitters would follow their career path if he came up sometime during the middle of next year. That would be awfully young like all of those other prospects. Bringing him up this year is crazy-you'd have to promote him super aggressively straight to AA for 2-3 months, and then promote him again in August or September if he's destroying the ball. There's very little reward in a plan like that and a ton of risk. It's simply too big of a jump trying to think of a prospect jumping 4 levels like that. The best timetable for Vitters is the middle of next year and that's incredibly unlikely. The beginning to middle of 2011 is a more realistic fast timetable for him.

You might be able to get Mora, but probably only later in the season. Baltimore understandably wants to play him and see if they can get a better return at the deadline. They're probably considering getting compensation for Huff after the season, so any traded pieces would have to be worth more than that. I doubt the Cubs will want to give anywhere near that much. As for Wigginton, he's signed through 2010, and the Orioles manager loves him. I doubt he's going anywhere for a while. And the reason none of these trades are happening? Because the Orioles don't need any more AAAA pitchers. They already have too many of them as it is. Plus, they don't care about winning this year. So if they're going to make a trade involving one of those guys, it's going to be for prospects, not major league ready guys with low ceilings.

So is hitting the ball hard right at the defense. In result, yes they go down the same as a lazy out. But most hitters would say there isn't really a difference between a hard hit ball to a gap and a hard hit ball for an out. There isn't much placement of a ball besides the general idea of which field to hit it to. If you make solid contact, you simply have to take your chances of where it goes.

Yeah, these are the games that actually frustrate me. It's one thing if the team just stinks, but it's another if they're actually driving the ball and nothing is landing for a hit or dying at the wall. Driving the ball obviously isnt working for them, and they refuse to attempt small ball. There basically playing like the White Sox, with a few sluggers who show up when they want to and a bunch of mediocre players around them. Not exactly easy to play small ball when you're not getting any runners on base. The Cubs 1 run was partly accomplished through small ball (the hit and run with Theriot at the plate kept the team out of the inning ending DP in the 6th) but normally the team really isn't built for it. They're not a huge home run bunch either, but they are gap hitters and their line drives did not find any gaps tonight.

The offense was a lot better tonight than the first 2 games of the series. They just got really unlucky today.

I think this is probably a give Ascanio two innings tonight because we're sending him down tomorrow, but maybe he can convince the staff to get rid of someone else instead.

Vitters goes deep with his 8th of the season.

Marquez Smith continues his hot hitting with his 3rd home run while with Tennessee. That puts his line with the Smokies at .338/.348/.585.

I don't see the need to assume that would be it for the offseason, but it's not like Hendry has been brilliant in the offseason anyway. His best attribute is probably in the trading game. Giving him money to burn doesn't really guarantee anything. No, it doesn't, but it does give him the flexibility to upgrade the position that actually needs upgrading. And Hendry has really been one of the better GM's in the league at signing guys to big deals (9-10 million+ per year). He has a good track record of that...it's the middle deals (2-7 million) that have mostly hurt him over the years. Plus, the Cubs are going to need a cheap player or two to slot in around the diamond over the next couple years if they plan to maintain their roster, and taking away from that pool for yet another high priced player is extremely risky. He's paying a whole heck of a lot across the board in the OF without getting all that great of production out there. I don't see that as being among the best at big ticket purchases. The Cubs are in the top 10 in baseball in all 3 OF positions for total production. Even with throwing the numbers of the backups in, they are averaging around an 855 OPS from the OF. That is really, really good for an entire OF. One of them is struggling and not earning his contract right now while the other 2 are. Then you throw in that it's an average to slightly above average OF defensively.

I don't see the need to assume that would be it for the offseason, but it's not like Hendry has been brilliant in the offseason anyway. His best attribute is probably in the trading game. Giving him money to burn doesn't really guarantee anything. No, it doesn't, but it does give him the flexibility to upgrade the position that actually needs upgrading. And Hendry has really been one of the better GM's in the league at signing guys to big deals (9-10 million+ per year). He has a good track record of that...it's the middle deals (2-7 million) that have mostly hurt him over the years. Plus, the Cubs are going to need a cheap player or two to slot in around the diamond over the next couple years if they plan to maintain their roster, and taking away from that pool for yet another high priced player is extremely risky.

There is another team in the city he could play for. Why? So the Cubs could still blow games with this bullpen and no bench? The difference between Marshall and Peavy isn't worth the upgrades needed to improve the bullpen and bench (now regulars since they can't stay healthy). Even though the farm is improving, they don't have enough to improve every sector of the team. You don't trade for bench and bullpen guys in May. You don't give up important prospects for them either. Upgrading the bench/pen has nothing to do with a Peavy trade unless it's a matter of money. I crave Peavy more as a safeguard for injuries to Zambrano or Harden than as a replacement for Sean Marshall. If you can make the Peavy trade without giving up Marshall, you upgrade the pen and rotation all in one move. Not to mention that for upgrading you need prospects and the Peavy trade might diminish that. But I do agree that the money thing would be a bigger factor..and since we don't even know if there's room in the budget for Peavy this year, there almost certainly wouldn't be room for him and other upgrades. Here's the question for the Peavy supporters. If the Cubs were to get Peavy, are you satisfied with him as the entire 2009 offseason no matter what happens the rest of this year? The Cubs would lose Harden and Gregg after the season and likely have no free agent signings besides bench players. Personally, I'm not willing to pay a great deal for a guy who after this season would have a 4 year, 70 million dollar commitment. It's a fair deal that Peavy has, but the Cubs would be reticent to sign any free agent pitcher to that deal with the money they have tied up in Z, Dempster, and Lilly. When you add in that Peavy is not a free agent and that you'd also have to give up some good prospects to get him, it makes even less sense. And then you factor in that you're sitting down a good pitcher for the playoffs (one of Dempster/Lilly/Harden) and you're either taking a pretty good pitcher out of the rotation or trading him (Marshall). Essentially, the Cubs would be going for broke in 2009. 2010 and beyond would have worse versions of the ballclub every year with Peavy than without. That isn't really Peavy's fault, but he just doesn't fit with the players and contracts the Cubs have right now unless Ricketts really wants to take the team into Yankees territory on salaries.

Roberts just signed an extension 3 months ago. He isn't going anywhere. And the Orioles aren't going to use money on pitching. They are following the MacPhail strategy he had with the Cubs to buy bats and build from within through pitching prospects. They don't want to rush any of their prized prospects which is why they have so many stopgaps in the rotation/bullpen this year.

Aramis might not even be here in 2011, he has yet another opt out clause after 2010. I don't think he wants to leave and I don't think the Cubs want him to leave. I would imagine the Cubs do what they did last time and give him a slight raise. I hope not. If Aramis would take a 2 or 3 year deal after that season, then I'd probably do it (unless the money was outrageous). But I'm not giving a 4-5 year big money deal to a 32 year old 3rd baseman who would still have potential shoulder issues and who seems to have a history that would suggest breaking down as he ages.

Let's take these 1 at a time. I'd always love better advance scouting. But does advance scouting really play a huge role in the internet world? By the time the playoffs roll around, everyone has seen everyone in person most likely and definitely on video. There were no surprises that the Dodgers rolled out last year, and I'm not sure how better advance scouting would have helped the cause. This one is always an interesting one and goes down to series management. Do you focus on winning 1 game or 3? If you do the former, you have a better chance of not getting embarrassed but you have a smaller chance of winning the series. If the latter, you could win the series or you might get swept. Sacrificing 1 inning of Z for the right to not have to use Jason Marquis in the 07 playoffs was the right move especially when you consider that they were putting a pitcher on the mound who had been dominant most of the season. But it was a series oriented move, and it gave a higher chance of getting swept. It's the move a smart manager has to make, but he's going to get laughed at and criticized if it doesn't work out, and unfortunately in that postseason it didn't work. I sort of agree with you on this..sort of. I do think Soriano has certain pitchers he really struggles against, and in an ideal world we'd love to drop him in the order against people he struggles with. Making that big of a change that late rarely works though because players love to stay in their roles. The Cubs actually took a very large number of walks in 07. 14 in 3 games. Last year it was only 6 in 3 games. That partly was due to the pitchers they faced. But I don't mind more emphasis on plate discipline. I will concede that especially last year they might have been trying a bit too hard to make something happen and that helped feed into the problem.

What you keep ignoring and not responding to is that the Cubs have "gone cold" for 101 years. And that was due to bad management for most of that time. I don't think anybody would argue that. The Cubs were not anywhere close to the playoffs for most of that time. You can't win the Series if your team isn't good enough to make it into the playoffs in the first place. But are you saying that all the Cubs playoff teams over the last 100 years are built the same way? That the formula hasn't changed at all? I don't see what bringing up what the Cubs of 60 years ago did has anything to with today. Different ownership, different coaches, different players, different philosophy. It's simply not relevant to the issue.

I wouldn't make that deal. Fontenot and DeRosa have been pretty much the same player this year. Fontenot's not going to hit .207 all year long, and with his walk and power rates he should improve as the season goes along and some singles start to fall in. If you trade him for DeRosa, you're committed to trying to find a new second baseman after 2009 with limited funds available. Considering that we're not even sure yet if DeRosa would be an upgrade over Fontenot this year, it would be a bad gamble IMO.