CubColtPacer

Hendry is running this team. I'll believe he lands a pitcher when I see it. Pretty sure the Cubs are supposedly switching to 12 pitchers sometime this week, as early as today. Plus, elsewhere on the board it was just reported that Hendry was just on the radio saying that they were going to bring in another pitcher before tonight's game.

It seems like the 2007 White Sox have jumped into the 2006 Cubs team level. I wouldn't call the 05 Cubs an embarrassment, they were just decidedly mediocre.

Howry and Eyre are probably both pretty close to unavailable for this one-only in emergencies. So that will leave Marmol, Wuertz, Ohman, and whoever the new pitcher is for the bullpen tonight.

Well, the news that Fontenot is practicing at SS is a little bit of a welcome surprise.

LOL, I was beat badly so I'll just edit and comment here. No worries about Pie-Lou just said that he was given a couple days off when he was young to clear his head and relax and it really helped him out, and he wanted to do the same for Pie. Otherwise, the lineup is as good as it can be against a left-hander right now.

Yea, it was reported on THe Score that Jock is in uniform tonight. Also, we're guessing that maybe Lou is going to start Fontenot at Short tonight and let DeRosa play second, thus the "surprise" Well, Paul Sullivan reported that DeRosa would start in RF tonight, so no surprise tonight. However, he did say that Fontenot might play at SS in some future games with DeRosa playing 2nd.

At this point, that makes sense. If they can't get the other player in to town before the game, then they at least have Jones available tonight. Hopefully a deal gets done in the morning.

Technically, he has been batting 8th the last few games, but I understand your point. He will probably bat 7th now that the team is back in an NL park unless someone other than Theriot or Izturis is starting at SS.

I'm surprised that there is no noise on this part of the transaction yet. They said they were going to 12 pitchers today-whoever that pitcher is, he has to be on his way to Chicago, and I'm surprised that hasn't been reported yet, even if the report doesn't include who is going to leave to make room on the roster.

Nah, the Bengals don't sign bad eggs, they make them bad while they are there. If they are bad eggs already, they head to the Raiders.

I'll go out on a limb and say that DeRosa will get a start at SS sometime this week, and maybe tonight. I didn't believe that would happen before, but something about Lou's comments make me think he's going to try it.

I think Muskat got Lou's comment wrong. Here is another story using the same quote from Lou: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-070624cubsbits,1,6772354.story?coll=cs-home-headlines I think this quote about a "surprise" is much more about DeRosa than the 2B situation-especially since Lou had this to say about Fontenot:

It seems much more likely that the surprise is that DeRosa will play in RF or at SS tonight. The last thing the Cubs need is another second baseman-they already have DeRosa, who already is a little above average second baseman, Fontenot, who Lou says deserves to play also, along with Patterson in AAA.

Nope, there is nothing yet. There is going to be a roster move today, that's been pretty confirmed, so the fact that they haven't done it yet does at least suggest that management hopes there will be a trade to clear space before the game. It will just have to be seen if they get one done or not.

I'd like to see the trend continue. I'm not sure how they should handle the Hill situation (being he is out of options), but I'd like to see Patterson, Cedeno, Soto and Murton brought up. If they could form a good supporting cast for Ramirez, Lee and Soriano, along with Pie, Fontenot, Theriot and DeRosa, might as well get them playing together sooner rather than later. Send Jones, Eyre, Izturis packing and figure out what to do with Koyie Hill, and it would be a done deal. Of course, that pushes the pitching staff back to 11, but I think that's where they should be anyway. You have to figure the Cubs will need to go cheap with new ownership coming in. That's what a lot of new owners do. If they could get Zambrano signed for what it costed for Barrett, Eyre, Jones and Izturis, they wouldn't necessarily be upping salary that much for 2008. You would have to find another player to get rid of-the Cubs are at 11 pitchers right now, and dropping Eyre, Jones, Izturis and Hill for Patterson, Cedeno, Soto, and Murton would only leave them at 10 pitchers. Also there would be 5 middle infielders on that roster.

Isn't that the guy who gave him a backloaded 3/16 deal? If you don't make fun of him for a week, I'll pick up the slack. The whole Jacque signing is contingent on this trade. If Hendry manages to get a decent player and/or relief from the contract, then the signing goes in the books as a decent one, possibly even a pretty good one. If he can't and Jacque continues to be a liability on this team and the Cubs keep paying his contract, the signing can quickly become a bad one, even with him being a pretty decent bargain last year.

Who are the Brewers scheduled to face when the Cubs are facing Pitt and Wash? Unfortunately, they also face the Pirates and the Nationals. All the Cubs can do is beat up on those two teams though, and if the Brewers do the same at least the Cubs should be quite a bit closer in the WC race at that point.

Colvin, too Kind of off to a rough start in AA huh. Still don't understand why they promoted him so soon without even coming close to dominating high A. He might not have been dominating, but he had the 13th best OPS in his entire league while playing an excellent CF, so I would say that was close to dominating, especially when you consider that he was closer to 7th as he was to 14th. It's probably a little aggresive, but the things he needs to work on it will probably be better to work on in AA than High A. I imagine he'll struggle in AA for the while-in fact, he'll probably just start to figure it out at the end of this season and the beginning of next season at AA, but that's just fine. It's going to be hard to work on things that you're not good at (improving plate discipline, K/BB) while facing better pitching and tougher competition. He should have stayed at high-A for a while longer. I happen to disagree on that, but that's fine. I just think it's hard to convince a player to be more patient when he's having good success being aggressive. If he continues to struggle in AA, and the coaches tell him to be more patient, I think it will be a lot easier for him to incorporate that into his game, and come out on the other side a better ballplayer for it. Which is right probably depends on Colvin's mindset and mental side that none of us know for sure. Is he easily coachable? Can he bounce back from failure and work through it, or will failure start to make him swing at everything? Those things are hard to tell without knowing him well, so I am not sure that my opinion is the correct one without knowing all the facts.

How in the world is that close to dominating? The guy with the best numbers is dominating. The guys ranked 2nd and 3rd are dominating. The guy with the 14th best OPS is not dominating. Maybe we just have different definitions of dominating then. I'll rephrase-he was one of the best players in his league this year, especially considering the position that he plays.

And add to that defense that seems to be getting better. He looks to be much more comfortable in the field now that his hamstring isn't bothering him as much, and his arm is a great weapon both in throwing runners out and holding runners from taking extra bases (especially runners coming around 3rd-my guess is that at least 4-5 runners have been stranded on third in the past couple months after being held on a single to left field not wanting to test Soriano).

Guzman has been to throw again in Mesa. I haven't heard any word on when he might go out for a rehab assignment.

Colvin, too Kind of off to a rough start in AA huh. Still don't understand why they promoted him so soon without even coming close to dominating high A. He might not have been dominating, but he had the 13th best OPS in his entire league while playing an excellent CF, so I would say that was close to dominating, especially when you consider that he was closer to 7th as he was to 14th. It's probably a little aggresive, but the things he needs to work on it will probably be better to work on in AA than High A. I imagine he'll struggle in AA for the while-in fact, he'll probably just start to figure it out at the end of this season and the beginning of next season at AA, but that's just fine.

That was an awesome tape. The only thing that I would have liked to seen otherwise was what happened when they finally explained it and realized what happened. I wish the tape would have continued to show that, because it would have been really funny to see their change in attitude from the end of the previous half inning.

Unless they hear the appeal on Thursday, Lee will not miss the Brewers series (which is not likely at all).

I think the Cubs have a chance without any major acquisitions, but I'm not sure it's a solid one (1 in 4 like Truffle pointed out might be reasonable). They are playing much better because of a few reasons 1) Marshall and Z becoming good in the rotation, while only Marquis has been really struggling lately, 2) Howry and Marmol have both stepped up in the bullpen, 3) Pie in center, Fontenot at 2nd now (allows DeRosa to move around without having both Theriot and Izturis in the lineup) The Cubs could improve those odds internally by making 1 or more of the following moves, from the most important to the least important: 1) Move either DeRosa or Fontenot at SS. Backup plan is bring up Cedeno to play SS. 2) After Murton has a couple more (hopefully productive) weeks at AAA, bring him back up and try the Murton/Floyd thing again (and this time Murton will hopefully hit, and if he hits he'll get more and more playing time). 3) Bring up Soto to work with Bowen at C. Any of those would improve the Cubs chances, and of course a major move would help their chances even more. They aren't out of it yet though, in the division or in the WC. Those