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He should, I think he will. I doubt it. With the way Theriot has been hitting the ball over the last week and his speed, my guess is that Lou is very happy that he is leading off next inning in front of the big bats.

Over the last 3 years, Ward has a combined .489 OPS against left-handers. He really cannot hit them.

Maybe caught a little bit of a break in the Pirates game as well when they had a runner on 3rd in the 9th inning, put a perfect bunt down, and the runner didn't run. Every team though gets breaks like that on individual plays.

Cedeno should be getting PT, but he shouldn't be the starter over Theriot right now. MPrior laid out the argument perfectly. You don't name a guy a starter, and then pull the rug out from him after he's played well for a couple weeks just because your backup has played a little better over the 4-5 days that he's been in there. Lou would lose the respect of his team then and there. Who would feel safe anymore? Before, you had clear expectations. If you were the starter, then simply produce. If you produced, you would stay in there. If you start taking starting roles out of guys hands who are producing, then every member of your team is going to be constantly looking over their shoulder. They have no way to assure their job security. IMO, that's going to do a lot more damage to your teams production then the advantages of having Cedeno in there. This is not an open competition for the job. The time for that is past. Theriot has the job (rightly or wrongly) and he gets the job until he proves he does not deserve it. I now believe that Cedeno will end up the year as the starter at SS. I believe he's the better player over the course of the season with his new approach. I also believe that the Cubs would do more harm than good if they reversed their decision to have Theriot start right now when he's so productive. In fact, the Cubs hurt Cedeno by naming him the starter right now. In that scenario, the pressure on Cedeno would be immense, and any slump he went into would be big trouble for him with the media calling for his head everyday. It's better for Ronny to come in after Theriot has slumped, have lower expectations placed on him, and slowly settle into the starter role that he'll hopefully inhabit for quite a while.

I still think the NFL should have stripped the Pats of the 7th pick, instead of their own pick, when the punishment was handed down. Stripping the Pats of the Top 10 pick would have hurt more then stripping them of the 30ish pick. Of course it would have hurt more, but the NFL obviously didn't want them to lose a top 15 pick. That's why if the Pats hadn't made the playoffs, they would have lost their 2nd and 3rd rounders rather than their 1st. Of course, if Walsh has any kind of evidence, it could get a lot worse for them.

I really thought that the Walsh story would simply fade away after all this time, but now we have a new development. Walsh reaches agreement with NFL to provide any tapes he has and to interview with the NFL on May 13th: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3363455

That was a good AB, it was a borderline pitch low and outside. A good pitch that he just didn't pull the trigger on. He had 11 runners possible to drive in yesterday, and he knocked in 4 of them (the fifth RBI was himself). A 36% conversion rate is as good as can reasonably be asked for from any player in RBI situations. I'm curious if there's a stat available that lists players RBI conversion %. That'd be much more useful than raw RBI to determine how effective a player is at run production. It may seem like there are a lot of runners left on base, but that's merely because the Cubs are putting a lot of guys on base. More opportunities leads to more runs. If I'm understanding you right, isn't that one of the stats that Fred does? How many baserunners you knock in as a percentage of how many baserunners there were on when you were up.

Yup. He only has 29 AB's total this year, so obviously the data is prone to all sorts of noise, but he's 400 points better against right-handers than left-handers so far this year. In his career in the majors, he's 135 points better in OPS against right-handers.

BTW, Ronny backed off of his statement: And the reaction from the team: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20080422&content_id=2568089&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

If they made the decision to start the season to send down Murton, I think they'd have to see something to reverse that. So far, his .680 combined OPS between AAA and the majors is probably not enough to change their minds. Of course, if he gets some starts over the next 5 days, that could change, but I don't see it. Not from the liberal way Lou uses his bench late in games, and with both corner OF positions blocked with players who aren't going to be coming out of games in the 7th inning, Murton would be strictly a pinch hitter (in games he doesn't start) and nothing more. I don't think Lou is willing to make 2 of his 4 non-backup catcher bench players to be that way, and so Ward's spot on the bench pushes Murton off. Murton's exclusion is a lot less of a big deal right now with Cedeno and Johnson both hitting well if Lou will push Fontenot to the 25th man spot. I think Lou's overuse of Fontenot is the bigger issue right now.

Thankfully the Cubs don't have to make this decision today. 4 out of the next 5 days are against left-handers. You start them both against those left-handers, and then you see where their production is at the end of that. I would agree that it's bad precedent to bench Theriot just because of Cedeno's starts though. Should Dempster be worried about losing his job right now because Lieber has a 1.64 ERA in the bullpen and Gallagher is throwing really well in AAA? No, because Dempster is producing well. A starter should not have to constantly worry about their job even if they go out and give you very good production. The Cubs are already too reactionary to switching starters. There is no need to make that even worse. You are basically telling Theriot "Well, we trust you to be the starter. But if the guy behind you does well, you'll be benched no matter how well you're playing". IMO, that's a much worse policy to have than to hold over a player that they better play well or else they'll be benched quickly, which is a policy that many people have complained about. In this case, there's still plenty of ways that the Cubs can give him at-bats until the time they'll need him to start more, if it be an injury or Theriot starting to slump. Right now, I wouldn't mind if Cedeno became the supersub after Soriano comes back (he'll get starts when either 2nd, SS, 3B, LF, or RF has a day off, either by him moving to that position or him playing 2nd and DeRosa moving there).

It's not like his replacements have done much better. The replacements for Soriano in the lineup by day (including Fontenot replacing Soriano in the first inning when he got hurt): Fontenot/Fontenot/Fontenot/Patterson/Cedeno/Cedeno? (could be either Cedeno or Murton)/Fontenot/Johnson Those are the players who either played LF directly, or played 2B because DeRosa moved to LF to cover for Soriano. And their performances: Fontenot (leadoff) 1 for 5, 1 2B, 2 K Fontenot (leadoff) 1 for 5, 2 K Fontenot (leadoff) 0 for 5 Patterson (leadoff) 0 for 4, 2 K Cedeno (8th) 2 for 4, 1 BB, 1 K Cedeno (8th) 2 for 5, 1 2B, 1 K (if you believe Murton replaced him then it was 1 for 6) Fontenot (2nd) 0 for 3, 1 BB, 1 K Johnson (leadoff) 1 for 4, 1 BB, 1 K Total numbers with Cedeno's 2nd day: 7 for 35, 2 2B, 3 BB, 10 K, a .200/.263/.257 line Total numbers with Murton's day added: 6 for 36, 1 2B, 3 BB, 9 K, a .167/.231/.194 line Soriano's numbers for the season: .175/.230/.298 Soriano was about the same as the people that replaced him, and 5 of the 8 days so far his replacement has batted leadoff, and another day his replacement batted 2nd. There is no evidence to support that Soriano getting hurt has led to the hot streak of the offense. Oh, by the way. Soriano was striking out every 5.18 at-bats so far this season. His replacements are striking out every 3.5 at-bats. The Cubs strikeouts so far have actually gotten worse because Soriano has not been in the lineup.

i just wanted to clear up my position is all. dusty and hendry are definitely to blame for the ballclubs that they either assembled or managed while dusty was here. Yep, and I wonder had Hendry seen more of Fukudome if he would have pursued him. The Cubs had been scouting Fukudome for years. It's not like he just fell into their laps. Yeah but he was a masher there. Had they thought he wouldn't mash here would they have wanted him? They said very little about his power when they signed him. They talked over and over again about how his high OBP and good defense would help them.

i just wanted to clear up my position is all. dusty and hendry are definitely to blame for the ballclubs that they either assembled or managed while dusty was here. Yep, and I wonder had Hendry seen more of Fukudome if he would have pursued him. The Cubs had been scouting Fukudome for years. It's not like he just fell into their laps.

The Cubs were probably saving Ward for a time when the Mets didn't have a left-hander ready to pitch since Ward cannot hit them.

Who's Jared Allen? DE He must be a huge stud if they are willing to give that much. He had 15.5 sacks last year despite being double and triple teamed a lot. I'm not sure if he's worth that much, but he's a fantastic player. When the Colts played the Chiefs last year, he was simply unblockable. He'd either break in and pressure the QB, or he'd jump up and knock the pass down.

Interesting placement of Pie. Trying to get him more pitches in front of Lee, Rammy, and Fuku? I think it's because Blanco is going to be the 8th hitter pretty much whenever he plays, and Lou doesn't see Cedeno as a top of the order hitter. That leaves 2nd as the only available spot for Pie.

It wasn't mentioned because it isn't true. Theriot has been better so far this year. Theriot: .338/.408/.485 Cedeno: .333/.407/.417 You are right though that it is a very good problem to have. It's nice to know that right now they're both good bets to be productive if started on any given day, and hopefully it continues for at least one of them (I honestly don't care which one).

We finally got a better report from Lou on what they're working on in a story filed before today's game: And this is the result that Lou wants: So I'm definitely less worried about them trying to shorten his swing majorly (and possibly taking away power) with those comments. And Lou said Pie would likely start tomorrow before the game, so I doubt the homerun hurt much in that department. :D

Post game addendumn to my earlier post, if Pie doesn't get the start against Figueroa tomorrow I am going to be upset. Fontenot is starting to revert back to the hitter he was most of last year. So move DeRosa back into the infield and let Johnson play LF. From what Bruce said in the game thread before the game today, that was the plan even before the HR. So it looks like Pie will get a start tomorrow before Reed starts against the left-hander Wednesday, and then hopefully Pie will get a start Thursday before Reed handles the 3 left-handers over the weekend.

Von Joshua? Probably not. I believe his name is Dave Keller.

I don't want him to fail. I just want him to not be successful. Unbelievable. I thought we were past the point of wanting to withhold success from our players. Post-Neifi, if you will. I hope Reed Johnson plays like this all season and throughout the playoffs (assuming we get there), that doesn't mean I don't fully expect him to hit reality in the next month or so. I don't think Reed's reality is as far down as people are implying though. He's a .750 OPS type of CF, which would make him average (average with the bat, average defensively). That's what he did in 2003-2005. Then in 06 he had his career year with an 867 OPS, and then in 07 he was playing hurt. To have a good chance at average isn't a bad thing for this Cubs team, because it means there's one less hole. At the same time, I don't feel that playing him everyday is the most efficient way to get the best production out of him though (because of his splits), and Pie needs at-bats if he is going to adjust. It would be the best thing for both of them individually and the Cubs if Pie gets at least half of the at-bats against right-handers. The question then becomes what is the breaking point for how much Pie needs to play beyond that in order to develop properly, and how much can the Cubs afford to let him play beyond that minimum of half the at-bats.

I'm not sure if the lineup is posted in that link a few posts up. Since I can't get to it, I'll assume others cannot as well. Johnson Theriot Lee Ramirez Murton DeRosa Soto Cedeno Dempster And the Pirates go like this: McLouth Sanchez Bay LaRoche Nady Doumit Bautista Bixler Duke

Gammons said that Lou is not happy with Pie and his .160 AVG or something to that extent, and went on to say that Crisp is the best defensive center fielder in baseball and that he could be a solution for the Cubs leadoff problem. Overall Gammons acted like it would be a good deal for the Cubs as a second option with Roberts being the first. Ok, that makes me feel better. It sounds like Gammons is speculating here, and I think there are several reasons why his speculation is way off: 1) Crisp hasn't started the season that well 2) He's day to day with a hamstring injury. Lou's already frustrated enough with Soriano's leg injuries. He isn't going to want to acquire somebody with a balky hamstring and an injury history. 3) Lou is working with Pie considerably, and from all his quotes seems to indicate that he knows that Pie would continue to destroy the ball if sent down (with all his quotes about how he just wants to translate the great production every time he's at AAA), thus making it useless to send him down. They're certainly not going to do anything with Pie until this week of hands on coaching is over and he's given another chance in the field.

I would hope they would at least call Murton up after today's game to start against Gorzelanny and Duke over the weekend, especially since he has very good numbers against both of them.