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I think it would be a lot to give up, but if they did it's probably because the NL is pretty wide open this year. If the Brewers got C.C., does that make them a favorite for a playoff spot? Absolutely, even if the Cubs continue to play well and take the division out of play. They have to beat the Cardinals and Marlins out for the wildcard. The Brewers would have to be quite the favorites to win that 3 way battle. Once in the playoffs, currently you have the Cubs, who the Brewers have played pretty well so far this year. You have the inconsistent Phillies and the struggling Diamondbacks. The Brewers would have 2 aces at the top of their rotation and a decent offense. I don't think you make that type of move unless it makes you the favorite to win it, and I don't think the Brewers would be the clear favorite even with C.C. so I don't think they should do it. But I can certainly see why they might.

I wonder why they decided to tell Z that he was going on the disabled list on Saturday considering they told Eric Patterson Friday afternoon. Then again, the article doesn't specifically say he was told Saturday, but it does imply it.

I'd probably go with the same lineup, but add Derosa at 2B and behind Soto in the order. I was thinking the same thing last night. I was planning to go look at the numbers before I posted, and then forgot. It probably will be exactly what you said. The only possible change I see is switching Patterson and Theriot, but I think Lou will keep those two in the same spot, and I think that's wise for today.

Didn't think there was any way I'd say this before the season started, but Rich Hill. He's almost 6 years older than Gallagher. He's slightly closer to arbitration. He is also less likely to help the club in 2008 than Gallagher is at this point. Those 3 things together IMO make up for the fact that Hill's upside is still higher than Gallagher's. It's just completely up in the air right now if Hill can hit that upside consistently, and I'd rather keep the guy who's a much better bet to be consistently good in the next few years, even if he may not be great. Gallagher would be the last of the 3 young starters that I would trade. I'd trade Marshall first, then Hill, then Gallagher (if you threw in Ceda and Veal, the list would probably go Ceda, Marshall, Veal, Hill, Gallagher).

no he's the one that will likely finish second and have no shot at being the backup. At this point of the season Uggla is an MVP candidate. Not the leader but up there. So after the leading vote getter at each position (aside from outfield), it is up to the manager to fill out the rest of the spots? The players get to pick some of the players through voting of their own, the manager fills out the spots to get the squad up to 31 (and to make sure that each team has at least one representative) and then the fans get to pick the 32nd player from a list of 5.

I thought Indiana was done recruiting for the year. I guess not. California 6-5 guard Malik Story joins the Hoosiers. He's supposed to be one of the best shooters in the country and was originally committed to USC before decommiting earlier this spring. Maybe IU can get to 10 wins after all playing the 5 guard lineup. I know they will be able to shoot decently, and they will do a pretty decent job guarding anybody 6 foot 7 or shorter. I just have no idea how they are going to do anything inside.

Lou has already said that Patterson is going to get a start in this game after what he did today.

From Sullivan: Interesting to see how that impacts the roster moves. You have Marshall and Ward ready to come up in the next 3-4 days. If Reed goes to the DL, what's the other roster move? It will be interesting to see if they feel that Patterson needs to be up, or do they keep Hoffpauir and feel comfortable with Fukudome and Cedeno as the two backups in CF to a slightly injured Jim Edmonds.

Guillen wants Carlos to miss two starts, both of which would be against...the White Sox. It's just coincidence, I'm sure (or am I...), but it's pretty ironic... Both starts weren't going to be against the White Sox. The first start was scheduled against the Orioles. I don't think we're going to have to worry about Z going to the White Sox anytime soon though:

Think the Cardinals will very likely win this game, but I have a feeling the Red Sox give them a scare while doing so. 10-6 maybe?

It's just a slump that is not unusual for pitchers like Marmol, or very unusual for Marmol during his career. The Cubs will just have to live without him for a week or two, use him in some easier spots, and try to slowly get that command back. This might end up being a very good thing for Marmol overall though. The work will probably be lighter for him until the slump is over. Couple that with Lou's already decreased usage for him, and Marmol's innings pace will continue to drop. It already is down to a 95.04 inning pace for the season after being over 100 for a while. Hopefully this period will drive that inning pace down to 87-90.

With the kind of stuff he just showed? Pretty low I'd say. That looked like 2006 Marmol there when he was starting for the Cubs. Every pitch was nasty, but he didn't know where it was going. Marmol's had periods like this every year of his career (maybe not compressed so well into 2 outings, but definitely huge control problems at times). He was just never "the guy" before, and so they were much less noticable.

I would, but I doubt Lou will, especially since he's due up 2nd this inning. It's not a big deal either way though with 2 innings left and the fact that the Cubs have another off day coming up on Monday, so keeping the bullpen fresh isn't a big concern today.

That's what the Cubs are paying him. The Padres have some of the rest of his contract, and the Cardinals are paying the rest.

Marquis came into today with an ERA+ of 105, which is pretty consistent with his last few seasons. What more do people want from him? And honestly, both the Dye and Wise HR pitches weren't terrible. As a ground ball pitcher, it's not like he got the ball up to them. Agreed. I thought he had 1 inning where he was missing his spots, and that was the 5th. He was lucky to only give 1 in that inning. The 2 HR's, especially the Wise one, were bad results off a pretty good pitch. Overall it's been a decent outing. He probably should have given up 3, maybe 4 today. 5 has been a bit unlucky, but thankfully the offense has put up 10. It's just like his outing from last year against the White Sox. 8 baserunners over 6 innings, which is decent, but 5 of them have come around to score.

Edmonds current line with the Cubs: .315/.354/.603 Wow.

This reminds me a lot of last year with Marquis against the White Sox. Marquis only allowed 8 baserunners in 6 innings that day, but 5 of them scored. He also helped himself offensively that day last year. The Cubs ended up winning 11-6, with Lee's grand slam putting the game away.

not even close. Cedeno is way better. defensively. Exactly. Fontenot was projected to hit better before the season, and after that at-bat his numbers are better than Cedeno this season as well (by around 35 points or so). It depends on if you want the defensive versatility of Cedeno or the slightly better bat that Fontenot offers.

I was about to put a post in earlier today about how I was worried that Marquis and the home run today, but then I held back. It does look like he had pretty good stuff though in the first inning, so if he can keep the ball in the ballpark from now on he should still have a decent day. And really nice to see Patterson really drill one.

I'm almost sure it is. He's played 11 straight games, and this is a good day to give him a day off. He's not going to get many with Soriano out, so Lou needs to find a way to get him rest with pitchers like this who are tough on right-handers.

I'm surprised that Fontenot isn't where Patterson is in the lineup, and Hoffpauir isn't in LF batting 6th, but otherwise I can certainly see Lou making this lineup. Contreras's splits the last 1 1/2 years have been huge. 2007 vs right: .270/.329/.398 vs left: .333/.386/.496 2008 vs right: .222/.253/.268 vs left: .254/.320/.382

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill. How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore. The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down. Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case. They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem. Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process. However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from. That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC. "i was great but then my major league coaches ruined me and now i am bad." - rich hill, in the universe in which you can state your true feelings about your employers and higher-ups and they won't hold it against you it's pretty unreasonable to say that, since hill himself has not blamed rothschild, it means it can't be larry's fault. I'm not saying that Hill had to come out and blame Rothschild. But Hill clearly is mystified that his mechanics have changed whatsoever from last year. If you think you know what caused it, you don't throw up your hands and say "For some unexplained reason, my arm path was different from last year". He would be quite an actor to put on this act if he thought he knew what was wrong. And remember, Hill would have no problem saying that it was the new mechanics because from all Hill's actions to date, he would probably blame himself for not picking up the new mechanics instead of Larry if that was the case. Hill would likely say something like "They tried to work with me on my mechanics in spring training, and I just have been slipping too much between the old way and the new way. I need to be more consistent with my mechanics and throw strikes". A statement like that would make me much more likely to blame Larry even if I can see Hill clearly isn't. But it's hard for me to blame the coaching staff when Hill nor anybody else in the organization or media has mentioned that as a possible cause of the control problems, no matter who the blame falls on. And that's especially true when Hill comes out and continues to reiterate quite strongly that he has absolutely no idea where it came from.

AH! Its Rothschild's fault. I just knew it couldn't be the beloved wunderkind Hill. How about maybe the previous year and a half were more of an aberration and the league figured him out? One good pitch, one average pitch and he wasn't able to be aggressive anymore. The league didn't figure him out, he was walking everyone because Rothschild changed his mechanics. MLB hitters were hitting .191 with a .683 OPS off him when he was sent down. Lots of assumptions going on here. Did Hill's arm slot change because Rothschild changed his mechanics? Or did Rothschild see his arm slot changed at the beginning of ST, so he tried to change his mechanics to get his arm back in the right slot? I'm certainly not going to give LR a free pass on it, but I'm not going to put the blame squarely on his shoulders quite yet either, because I don't know which is the true case. They said they changed it so Hill would be quicker to the plate, it wasn't a response to a new problem. Agreed, and I think it would be hard to argue that Rothschild didn't at least delay this process. However, I have to look at what Hill has been saying first. So far, he has repeatedly said three things. 1) The problems have been there since the very first time he showed up at Spring Training, 2) It's mechanical, and 3) He doesn't know where it came from. That certainly doesn't sound like he would come even close to believing that the tinkering from the coaching staff was the problem (considering they tinkered with him after he showed up at Spring Training, and he certainly would remember those changes). I have a hard time attributing the blame to the coaching staff when he clearly doesn't, especially since the basis for blaming the coaching staff is based on a 1-2 sentence blurb in a newspaper that was very vague IIRC.

On one of the easiest positions on the field to provide cheaply, and Murton isn't dirt cheap for too much longer. I just don't think Beane would assign a lot of value to him, especially since Murton isn't really the type of player that Beane could spin in a year or two as he became more expensive.

I'm not sure about that. Beane values defense right now more than just about any other club out there. I'd bet Oakland has very mixed feelings on Murton. Sure, they'll jump on him if they feel he is undervalued, but I doubt they have that high of a value on him.