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Yep, it's a decent use of the resources he has. It makes me wonder, aside from Marquis and Z, what pitchers do we have with decent speed? The next one would be Marmol. After that, it's a tough question. Dempster maybe? or Wood? They're all pretty terrible at that point, although there's probably one random reliever that's a much better baserunner than we realize.

One thing I've liked the last couple days is Lou using Marquis to pinch-run for Ward. That's a needed thing to do, but there's no real reason why you need to waste a bat just to pinch-run. When you only have 4 bench players to substitute in (Blanco only comes up if the Cubs have run out of players in extra innings), you need to find other ways of doing things so to not run out of players quite as much. Marquis as the pinch-runner is a very good use of his available resources.

The batter/pitcher matchups on both sides look really, really ugly.

That sounds like a pretty bad trade for the Cubs - plus Greene isn't leaving the West Coast, right? It's the opposite, actually. Greene wants to be on the East Coast to be very close to his family.

He did? Yes. He had 4 at-bats, and got hit twice, which as we know is more of a skill of Johnson's than random luck. It's essentially his way of drawing walks. 1 of his other 2 at-bats he was asked to put down a sacrifice bunt, which he did. So he struck out once, got on base twice, and laid down a bunt when asked the other time. His defense wasn't really tested yesterday, so not much to say either way on his defense.

Yeah, that woulda been me. Just for curiousity's sake, which one? By the suites, or by the main gate? I wish I would have said hello, but I wasn't sure and my business group was moving rather quickly. The business thing unfortunately prevented me from meeting all the rest of the board people as well.

Well besides Johnson continuing to start against rightys, Id agree. I cant believe Felix didnt get to start the last 2 games, and with Johnson on the mound tomorrow Im sure he will sit then too. Lou is screwing over Felix right now, and its indefensible. I would agree with that. I decided to leave Johnson alone because he did his job yesterday, but I wasn't happy about that when I heard the lineups.

Roast, about 20 minutes after the end of the game, were you either near the suites or by the main gate? I saw somebody that I thought kind of looked like you near the suites, and then when I got near the main gate there was about 15 or 20 crowd control people standing there in a group watching us late stragglers leave the ballpark.

Got back from the game...a few notes: Soriano looks so much better than a week or two ago. He's able to stop his bat on the terrible pitches now for check swings, and he can then actually do something with the hangers. Definitely the biggest positive to come out of the day today. Theriot had an up and down day, but definitely more up than down. 3 times on base, and some absolutely sparkling defense today on balls that any SS would have trouble consistently making. Also one of the two times he wasn't on base, he had a very sharp line drive (from watching the play again on TV, it doesn't do it justice of how quick the ball was on the first baseman). Of course the CS drags it down and is very frustrating, although I do agree with someone that Lee doesn't take strike 2 right down the middle of the plate unless it was said from the bench. Howry looked good today. That's 4 straight innings without an earned run (the only run he gave up in those innings was the St. Louis game when Soriano let those two easy fly balls drop, and Lee also made an error). I think he may have turned a corner. I was the only fan around me who was really upset that Marmol was coming in. I don't understand why Chad Fox is on this team. He can't go multiple innings, he can't go multiple days, and if they refuse to use him in a 5 run game, when will they again? That was the only really upsetting part of the day.

Anybody find it kind of strange that the deal is contingent on a physical? The Marlins trainers are with him every day, and he's been playing. If this really is for 3 years of arbitration and 3 years of free agency, then I don't know what Hanley is thinking. He should have figured out some sort of way to get a 4 year deal. If the extension starts now, then it's a pretty fair deal overall.

That brings up an interesting question. Do you bring Guzman back as a reliever, at least for 2008-2009? He was having serious trouble getting past 85-90 pitches before he got hurt, and he needs to make the team next year. I'd bring him out of the bullpen because that gives him the best shot to establish himself in the major leagues for a while, and then if he's still healthy re-evaluate before 2010. If he can finish his rehab after June 28 (90 days remaining in the season), Gooz preserves his final option year for next season. One part of my brain knew that, and the other part must have wrote the post :D I still believe he should come back as a reliever though. His injury history is long enough that the team is going to be very hesitant to have him starting in the major leagues, and he can actually contribute a lot at the back of the bullpen, especially next year when the Cubs potentially lose a couple people in that bullpen.

That brings up an interesting question. Do you bring Guzman back as a reliever, at least for 2008-2009? He was having serious trouble getting past 85-90 pitches before he got hurt, and he needs to make the team next year. I'd bring him out of the bullpen because that gives him the best shot to establish himself in the major leagues for a while, and then if he's still healthy re-evaluate before 2010.

Specifically, what do you take issue with? You can't be disputing that Snider was seen as far more polished and "major league ready" than Vitters, who was more of a "project" right? I mean, I'm not saying he was a (Braves) Cody Johnson type project, but I remember the Guerrero comps, the raw tag, etc. Just a couple quick snippets from different reports on Vitters: I have seen exactly one scouting report that even gives a hint of Vladimir, with this quote: The scouting reports pretty much agree with each other though. Polished line drive hitter, short pretty swing, bat is very advanced, defense needs work. He's certainly not raw offensively, not at least in the minds of all those who wrote the reports. In fact, many said his bat is still certainly good enough to hit at a corner outfield spot if he cannot stay at third.

Exactly. Remember that Bonds got absolutely no interest from anybody in the offseason of 2006, even when he had to go to the Winter meetings himself to try to drum up interest. The Giants were desperate enough to re-sign him, and now that they allowed him to break the record, they have no interest in having the circus any longer. Who's going to step up and want him now that didn't want him last year? Now, if a major league team should want him is another question, and one that has some great points on both sides. It seems pretty obvious though that this lack of interest is just an extension of last year, not collusion.

Except Dunn replaces Pie in this scenario (with some defensive changes thrown in), because he isn't going to be replacing Soriano or Fukudome.

That's pretty poor reasoning. really? why? they've lost every tinkered-with game. if i remember correctly, they shuffled the rotation to allow marquis (and not hill) to start against the brewers. they lost. hill was then nine days removed from his last start when he threw against the cardinals. they lost that game. and lieber, who took hill's spot in the rotation, got battered today. they lost. you really don't see how this rotation shuffle hurt the cubs? I could be wrong on this, but I seem to remember that Marquis was going to start anyway in that series and Lou pushing back Hill moved Dempster or Z up a day. Not 100% on that, but I think I remember seeing that. It moved Z into the Brewers series. Some were arguing that Marquis should have been the one skipped, but that would be a different argument than the one proposed above. That is suggesting that the tinkering itself was a big problem, regardless of who got switched.

Murton has 24 hits between the majors and minors so far this year, and not a single extra base hit. That is really hard to do, especially for a guy who's hitting .356 in AAA.

The ironic thing about the John Lieber game up a home run to _____________ is that giving up the homers to Bako and Hairston is more pathetic than any of them. Even Augie Ojeda?

I know over the weekend Ward had a hamstring issue. He's been available for pinch-hitting, but that's it.

unless you want to win the WS And then when MLB promptly suspends him or the federal case progresses...you just have a media circus, hurt the chances you did have of going to the WS, and made your newly signed free agent upset. Sure, if it goes right, your chances of winning the whole thing go up by quite a bit, but there's quite a few ways it can go wrong, and those ways could potentially set this team back by a year or two. It's an exceptionally big gamble to make.

The Cubs are still pretty profitable even without Wrigley. Their TV rights are the biggest asset to an owner. Of course any owner would want to buy the Cubs with Wrigley if they possibly can. I'm sure they are privately pushing for the field to be included in the deal. But if the Tribune/Zell refuses to sell them together unless they absolutely have to, then there will still be people lining up to buy the Cubs by themselves.

The question is...what constitutes cooling off? DeRosa is a better bet than Theriot or Cedeno to be productive, so they both better be good bets to be hot in order to stay in the lineup over him. For example. Cedeno is 1 for his last 9. If you started him and he went 0 for 4, making him 1 for his last 13, would that signal the end of his hot streak?

Yes, a trade can be made instead of a demotion. The last one I can remember for the Cubs is when they traded Izturis for a PTBNL and brought up Fox to the major league club at the same time last July. I don't really see any Cub on the current roster getting traded in early May, though.

From an interview with Hendry today:

I'll wait until after Lieber's second start to see how he's adjusted to the rotation. I'm worried about the matchup with all the left-handed power of the Reds.