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From the Cubs.com article... Barrett is playing today and Sunday Jones is getting time off to clear his head-no word on how long. Floyd will start against right-handers and Pagan against left-handers for now in right field. With that said, the lineup will most likely be: Soriano Pie Lee Barrett DeRosa Theriot Pagan Izturis Lilly Here's the link on that info-has some good quotes on Barrett that I provided in another thread. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070614&content_id=2026053&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Here are some interesting quotes from a cubs.com article: That's nice to hear-the Cubs could use his bat. Looks like they aren't going to use him with Z just yet-and that's just fine as well for now. There is the managerial accountability that some people wanted, and also good to know that Lou is not blaming Barrett for the lack of good pitching at times. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070614&content_id=2026053&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Could it be that Soto was already hurting a little bit when Hill came up? Raisin reported that the reason Soto is playing 1B is because he has an injury and he cannot catch. Looking back through the game logs, Soto was at 1B on June 2nd, at catcher on the 3rd and 4th, and then stopped playing at catcher. Hill was called up on the 1st-so it's somewhat probable that Soto had the injury even then. He tried to play through it on the 3rd and 4th, and then when it got worse because of him catching they decided to move him to 1B for a while. The Cubs might not have had much of a choice on which catcher to call up. Did it specify a date on that injury Raisin?

Pie might be given a break tomorrow. He has been rested against a lot of LHP. Is this a trend? I'd like to see him get some experience rather than Pagan playing center against LHP. Since he came back up, I'm pretty sure the Cubs have only faced two left-handers. Pie played against 1, and Pagan played against the other. I don't think it's quite known yet which one of the two will get more at-bats against left-handers in the coming weeks.

I think the second player to go will be Pagan. DeRosa and Theriot (and in a pinch Ward) can play OF if needed, and that makes the 5th OF not as necessary on this team.

Wells did a pretty good job against the Cubs when they played in SD the last time. That will probably be true again, so Lilly better be on his game. Even though it's a left-hander, Floyd should get the start in RF, because 1)he's 2/6 with a home run against Wells, 2) He had 3 hits today, and 3) with Aramis out, having a lineup against a left-hander with Pagan in RF leaves the team with almost no power potential whatsoever. I hope that Fontenot/Theriot play up the middle tomorrow, as Izturis struggles with left-handers in general this season and is only 2/11 against Wells.

No-Dempster is the closer until he proves he cannot handle the role, and he hasn't come that close to doing that this year. Howry's run is very nice though. His last 8 outings: 9 2/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K Howry coming back and Marmol's emergence has really made this bullpen quite a bit better. With 4 good relievers at the back end (Dempster and Wuertz the other two), they can handle most of the close games, which should improve the Cubs record in close games.

Yup-two walks by DeRosa and Fontenot, K. Hill bunted them over, and Izturis hit a double to drive both runs in (8th inning).

You assume someone else would sign him and put him on their ML roster. Even if that happened, it would save the Cubs however much money the other team was paying him. If his agent told him, "sorry, there's nothing out there, nobody wants a reliever with an ERA of over 10 who can't throw strikes to save his life" then he'd go to AAA. He wouldn't like it, but he would. If nobody wanted him, I don't know why he would go to Triple A. He would force the Cubs to either keep him in the majors or pay him to sit on his couch.

Yeah, I heard that. Well, it is composed of two LOOGY's, a guy who was unavailable today, a long man who has had just two outings in the major leagues, and Scott Eyre. That doesn't leave too many people who can give innings in close games. My guess is that Rapada will be sent right back down on Tuesday when Ward hopefully comes back. If he does come back then, the Cubs could really use him as the DH during the Rangers and White Sox series.

i agree, but you gotta take the error into consideration because he got the ground ball he needed with 1 out in the inning...DeRo gets that and no runs score that inning Exactly-DeRosa picks that one up, and suddenly Marquis has allowed 1 hit, 0 runs, and struck out 7 through 6 innings. He also walked 2 that inning, and hit the pitcher. Derosa should have made that play, but plenty of blame goes to Marquis in that inning. Plenty of blame does go to Marquis for that inning, you're right. Still, 5 runners given up and 3 earned runs in 5 2/3 isn't an awful outing-it might not be a great outing, but it's not awful either. Plus, the fact that he was that good over the first 5 innings is a hopeful sign for his next start that maybe the game in Atlanta was an aberration and not the rule.

i agree, but you gotta take the error into consideration because he got the ground ball he needed with 1 out in the inning...DeRo gets that and no runs score that inning Exactly-DeRosa picks that one up, and suddenly Marquis has allowed 1 hit, 0 runs, and struck out 7 through 6 innings.

They said it was blowing in, but it wasn't blowing very hard today at all.

He does do it at a pretty high rate. He's put 4 balls into play on the first pitch now out of 21 total AB's.

A home run away from the cycle in the first inning already.

Well, we finally got our answer. That Pie bunt a week ago was his own, not called from the bench.

Lineups Cubs Soriano-LF Pie-CF Lee-1B Floyd-RF DeRosa-3B Fontenot-2B Hill-C Izturis-SS Marquis-P Seattle Suzuki-CF Lopez-2B Guillen-RF Ibanez-LF Sexon-1B Betancourt-SS Bloomquist-3B Burke-C Weaver-P

I'd have no problem with that-if they are going to have DeRosa play short at all. Before Fontenot came up and Murton went down, it seemed like that a good ratio would be DeRosa 6 (all at 2nd), Theriot 5 (1 at 2nd, 4 at SS) and Izturis 3 (all at SS) would be good. That would give everybody at least one day off, and Izturis only steals one start out of 7, hopefully against a pitcher he's been good against in the past. Now with Fontenot up and playing well, and a lack of options in RF to play against LHP, DeRosa should probably play 6 out of 7 (2B against right-handers and RF against left-handers), Fontenot play a variable amount (giving DeRosa days off against right-handers at times, and playing 2B against left-handers), Theriot play 6 out of 7 (all at SS), and Izturis playing 1 out of 7 giving Theriot a day off. Of course, none of this can even start to happen until Ramirez comes back.

Will Carroll doesn't seem to think so. He goes on in the same article to say:

got any numbers to support that ridiculous claim? didn't think so. honestly though, i would love to see you list all the instances where barrett's d cost the cubs a run. Well, using one formula for Runs Created, Barrett has generated 26.1 runs for us. I don't know what the "average catcher" would have generated, but taking Blanco's numbers and extrapolating them upward to equal Barrett's playing time, you come up with 11.5 RC. Doing the same with Koyie Hill you get 2.4 RC. On the other side of the coin, I can think of 3 or 4 instances where Barrett's defense or bone headed base running contributed to a CUBS loss. Some will undoubtedly argue that there are more. I can't imagine that there are enough runs given up by Barrett to negate the extra offense he brings, in spite of his current slump. Thank-you, Fred. That sums it up. Barrett may have cost the Cubs a run here or there, but I doubt he's cost anywhere near the 15 run difference between him and Blanco. I agree that Barrett probably still outdoes Blanco, but I think Blanco's extrapolated numbers skew the numbers a little bit against him. He has only had 36 AB's, and I don't think it's reasonable that he'd stay at a .481 OPS if he got more AB's and a better sample size. He's had 8 full time seasons, and his worst one was a .524, with his second worst at .602. So he'd still be horrible at the plate, but he would have to make up a few less runs on Barrett if he was at .602 rather than .481, and I don't think .602 is optimistic at all (his last 3 years have been .628, .678, and .723).

If Murton plays at all well at Triple A, they will find room for him on the major league roster. At the minimum Lou will get fed up with his options against left-handers and want Murton back up, and he'll be back up then.

His other two pinch-hitters are Cesar Izturis and Jacque Jones. So who's our catcher if Hill gets hurt? I'm not exactly sure. Fontenot maybe?

His other two pinch-hitters are Cesar Izturis and Jacque Jones.

Grounders and soft fly balls-there haven't been that many hard hit outs tonight.

The problem here is that it brings a much larger chance of Floyd's option vesting. Do you really want an overpriced, declining Cliff Floyd on this team in '08? I sure as hell don't. Floyd would have to average 3.17 AB's a game the rest of the year for even his first option to vest. I'm sure they won't play him against all the left-handers (when Aramis comes back, DeRosa will probably play some RF against LHP) and then when Murton comes back later in the year, there isn't that big of a chance that Floyd could have that many AB's to have the option kick in. I'm too tired to remember-is his vesting option PA's or AB's? You're right-I thought it was AB's for some reason, but it's PA's (425 of them or 100 starts). That still puts the average he would need at over 3 PA's a game, and remember also that Lou is going to double switch him out of a lot of games like he did earlier in the season for defensive purposes if the Cubs are winning.