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I don't think so. When I hear the GREAT and FEARED players of this league, Chase Utley is rarely mentioned. Utley is a DAMN good player, but like Derek Jeter, he's slightly overpaid, due to the "GRIT" factor. I said, slightly overpaid, he's more of a $10-12 mill per, and not $13 mill +. I'm talking about the Chase Utley that right now looks like he could have a better career than Jeff Kent and Ryne Sandberg. Which one are you talking about? http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/scomp.cgi?I=utleych01:Chase+Utley&st=career How about the one, who career's numbers are in line with Bill Hall ($4.8 mill this yr), Victor Martinez ($4.25 mill this yr), David Wright ($5 mill this yr) and Jose Reyes ($4 mill this yr) and Grady Sizemore ($3mill this yr)? Thes guys are in his same group (25-30 yrs old). And while they don't play the same position, it doesn't change the facts his numbers are no different then said players. So, while Utley is a damn good player, I don't view him as highly as some. None of those players have hit free agency yet, and their teams have decided to wait for free agency and risk paying them even more than they would make if they signed them to a big contract right now, like the Phillies did with Utley. Arbitration contracts and free agency contracts simply do not compare well, because there are definite limits on how quickly a players salary can rise in the arbitration process. When Wright, Reyes, and Sizemore especially get to free agency, they'll make 15-18 million dollars a year, maybe even more than that. Bill Hall won't get the same type of money, but he's not nearly the same type of player as Utley. Martinez's contract will probably be highly based on what he does in the next year or two.

Just to count again, 5 of Samardzija's flyouts were actually popups to the infielders. He seems to have a knack at doing that. If fact, looking through his innings, it was a very strange outing as far as how he got his outs. 1st: 2 groundouts, 1 strikeout 2nd: 2 groundouts, 1 popout 3rd: 1 groundout, 1 popout, 1 lineout 4th: 1 groundout, 2 popouts 5th: 1 popout, 2 fly outs 6th: 2 fly outs, 1 strikeout 7th: 3 strikeouts Very, very strange. Had the sinker working early but very little strikeouts. Then moved to 4 out of 5 hitters popping up. Then 4 straight fly outs, then 4 straight strikeouts. No matter how he's doing it, it's nice to see him continue the good run he had at Tennessee near the end of last year.

I know it may not be fasionable, but I still would prefer to not give into the Pirates early season strength (and that killing lefties). I would almost like to see Lieber start, let him go 5 innings, atleast. Have Marshall pitched 2 innings, and then finish the game with Howry and/or Wood. So that's the major problem with playing two LONG Extra inning games, you leave yourself thin for a couple of games. Trying to throw Lieber out there for that long without getting him properly stretched back out at his age is just begging for him to get hurt, at least IMO. The guy wasn't even available to pitch at all last night. How is he going to suddenly be able to go 5 or 6 innings just 1 day later? It really is too bad that Marquis couldn't start tonight though. Philadelphia is a terrible matchup for Marquis (except for Jimmy Rollins-for some reason Marquis absolutely owns him), and Pittsburgh of course has this strange split as well that impacts Hill.

Some plans Lou has for today's game. First on Marmol: Also, Piniella is considering several options in the OF tonight. Any one of Pie/Johnson/Fukudome could start in CF tonight. If it's Fukudome in center, that means that Daryle Ward will get the start in right. Fontenot has a decent chance at getting his first start at second as well, and it was hinted that Theriot may start, but not nearly for certain.

Bruce said that if Marquis felt better tomorrow he would start. If he is still feeling ill, he'll be pushed back until Friday.

If the game continues, Dumatrait won't be in long. He pitched 17 pitches on Sunday (on 1 day's rest after throwing 40 pitches), 26 on Monday, and 20 so far tonight. If he has a rubber arm, maybe one more inning.

Hart, Wuertz, Lieber, Marshall Lieber's not available tonight, and Hart is only in emergencies. If the game keeps going, it will be Marshall's game for quite a while when he comes in either next inning or the one after that. Why aren't Lieber or Hart available? Lieber went 3 innings on Monday (and he's not used to being in the bullpen and so takes an extra day to recover from that) and Hart also threw 32 pitches on Monday.

Hart, Wuertz, Lieber, Marshall Lieber's not available tonight, and Hart is only in emergencies. If the game keeps going, it will be Marshall's game for quite a while when he comes in either next inning or the one after that.

Marquis was sent back to the hotel..he was feeling a little under the weather, so really Blanco is our only even somewhat capable hitter left.

Cubs.com had a note the other day that Cedeno would likely start tonight because of his numbers against Duke.

Comparing Utley and Hudson as players and then trying to say that Hudson is not the same player as Utley, so he shouldn't get the same contract is somewhat flawed. First, Utley was not a free agent when he signed his deal. The Phillies bought out all 3 of his arbitration years and like all arbitration contracts, they received a significant discount for doing so. Utley as a free agent could probably make 17-18 a year, not 13. Second, Hudson is looking for the same yearly salary, not the same exact contract. No team is going to sign him to a 7 year, 85 million dollar deal. It's not unreasonable for him to think he could get 3 years, 39 million from somebody though or even 4 years, 52 million. My guess is that he'll end up settling for something like 4 for 45, but unless he has a bad year this year his contract should be close to Utley's yearly aveage. Oops, just saw that he wanted the 15 million for the final 3 years, not the 13 million average. That seems steep, but still isn't crazy for him to have that as his starting point. A big problem that Hudson has is that he has very little name recognition, and that can really hurt when you start looking for that big payday because teams typically want to overpay and make their splashes on guys who the fans will be really excited about.

And the Cubs should do this for Bartman now, do it when they play the Mets and have Alou be the catcher. The Cubs asked him to do it last year. Bartman understandably refused. Or am I dreaming? Now I'm doubting myself on this, so don't completely belive me here. I'm really not sure now that I think about it if it was simply proposed as an idea or if they actually asked him.

Cesar Izturis has now played for 4 teams, and the Cubs are the only one of the 4 who didn't bat him in the leadoff spot at any time during his stay there. The other 3 have batted him in the leadoff spot for 1071 AB's, which is actually more than any other spot in the lineup. Simply amazing.

Yes, we did. 6 runs in a little under 6 innings. Before that, he had mystified us twice. This should hopefully be Cedeno's first start. Not only because of the normal reasons, but he's one of the 4 Cubs who's hit Gorzelanny well. But nobody on the Cubs has more than 12 at-bats against him, so there really isn't much data. Oh, btw, the Cubs aren't prepared to have Wood go 3 days in a row yet, so he is unavailable for this game. Marmol is the closer if the Cubs need one.

What IMO leads further credence to the injury theory is that he didn't play at all yesterday. I fully expected Lou to bring Pie in when the Cubs took the lead as a defensive replacement. When he didn't, that was one of the reasons that I speculated why that would be.

no kidding. he wasn't doing terrible either. He was hitting better than lee up until today. Or ramirez. Or Soriano. Soriano's the only regular that has been worse than Pie has so far. Pie has a .200/.250/.200 line on the season so far. That's pretty terrible. At the same time, that doesn't mean I support him getting replaced, so hopefully this is just a couple day thing to try to get the offense kickstarted while Soriano and Ramirez are ice cold, and Pie will be back in there soon. Okay, you're right. I forgot he went o-fer the last game he played. Before that he was batting like .300 Regardless - averages, which are already moderately pointless, are even more so for the first month of the season. Hell, lee went from barely above .100 to batting in the mid three's today. Oh, that's definitely true, which is why I don't want to do anything with him. Just because he's been terrible for the first 4 games (3 singles, and 1 of them should really be an error on Fielder rather than a single), doesn't mean much of anything. As you pointed out, Lee is a good example of that. He was batting .222 going into today and is now at .364. I don't think Lou is looking ahead well though. Johnson is going to get plenty of chances for PT next week when the Cubs potentially face 4 left-handers on the 6 game road trip. Tomorrow should be Pie's chance before he sits most of the week. It's too bad that it won't be, and I doubt that you'll see Pie penciled into the starting lineup until Thursday.

no kidding. he wasn't doing terrible either. He was hitting better than lee up until today. Or ramirez. Or Soriano. Soriano's the only regular that has been worse than Pie has so far. Pie has a .200/.250/.200 line on the season so far. That's pretty terrible. At the same time, that doesn't mean I support him getting replaced, so hopefully this is just a couple day thing to try to get the offense kickstarted while Soriano and Ramirez are ice cold, and Pie will be back in there soon.

Definitely agreed on the too many flyouts, but I am a little more encouraged to see that out of the 9 flyouts, 4 of them were actually popups to the infielders. Add to that no extra base hits and I'm pretty happy with the first outing. But I definitely agree with you that I'm worried about his sustained success with few ground balls and few strikeouts. There are very few pitchers that can be successful from year to year doing that.

It's at the end of one of the stories on Cubs.com that both Johnson and Blanco would start tomorrow. One of the posters heard Lou say it and mentioned it at the end of today's game thread as well.

I wonder if Lou will think Theriot or Blanco is his 8th place hitter. My guess is Blanco and the Cubs will go like this: Soriano Johnson Lee Ramirez Fukduome DeRosa Theriot Blanco Zambrano

Why? He's given up 7 baserunners in 5 innings, and has had only 1 hit that went for extra bases. That sounds about in the 2-3 run range normally.

Today's lineup: Soriano Johnson Lee Ramirez Fukudome DeRosa Soto Theriot Marquis Pie gets the day off today. My guess is that it will be Soto's turn to get the day off tomorrow (Lou said it would be either tomorrow or Monday).

Not Mark De Rosa? DeRosa does show that it does happen at least occasionally. Here is his minor league line with over 2000 AB's: .274/.345/.374. UBlink already posted his major league numbers through age 29 earlier on this page, and it wasn't pretty. I don't know if Theriot's body type gives him the same potential as DeRosa, but it's not completely hopeless. More middle infielders figure it out for the first time at age 28-30 than any other position, probably because they are so needed that they get the most chances. I think Theriot could improve even now, but I doubt he could get to DeRosa's level. Maybe to what Eckstein does would be a better projection at what Theriot's improvement could get to.

His last 2 appearances Marshall threw 2 innings, and then he threw to 2 batters in his last appearance of the spring. It's probable that his arm needs to be stretched back out.

Out of all the NL teams, Houston is probably 2nd on the list of teams I don't want Marquis to ever have to face (after the Phillies). Lance Berkman might as well take first base as soon as he gets up to the batters box with what he's done against him. I don't think Marquis will completely flame out, but I think the Cubs offense will have to score at least 5 to win this game. I'm not sure they have a high percentage of doing that.