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Pena has increased his OPS by 110 points in the last 2 days.

Against a left-hander? Not that strange. Probably the most interesting thing is the Cubs are not starting Reed Johnson today, who has been the Cubs best hitter through limited at-bats and has hit Lilly very well in even more limited at-bats. Maybe Quade wanted to keep Pena in there to show his faith in him though after that closed door meeting a few days ago.

I'm much more optimistic about Pena than I was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago Pena was striking out a ton, hitting the ball on the ground, rarely driving it to the deep outfield, and hitting very few line drives. Now his LD percentage is up to 20 which is a very good percentage (and only has a BABIP of .234 to show for it), his strikeouts are back to his historical levels, he's hitting more fly balls which is key to his success, and his fly balls are reaching the deep parts of the outfield pretty consistently. So unless there is something physically that has zapped his power when he makes good contact with the ball, Pena seems a great bet to bounce back. There's nothing in his numbers (unlike Ramirez last year) that is different from previous years other than the fact that he's had several balls caught at the warning track this year that went over the fence in previous years.

It was the technical on Jones that they took away. Pierce's technical stood.

Such a difficult player to figure out. I still think he has the babip normalize a bit and ends up with good results. If he keeps the power up and the strikeouts down, he should be fine in the long run. Wasn't Vitters' babip low last year as well in Tennessee? Should expect a normalized babip from Vitters? Based on reports of his combination of great eye-hand coordination and free swinging, it seems he often puts poor pitches in play and would be a candidate for a consistently low babip. Vitters had bad BABIPs after both his midseason promotions to both Daytona and Tennessee. But at both of those stops he had less extra base hits and more strikeouts (at Tennessee last year he had substantially more strikeouts). Both of those tend to indicate a hitter who is swinging at pitches at the end of the strike zone or worse-when he connects, it results in outs or singles but frequently he doesn't connect. This year neither of those things are true which is the reason his incredibly low BABIP doesn't make nearly as much sense. And his BABIP so far at Tennessee is worse than either of those other stops.

Has this offense been as bad as it has looked so far? Here are some of their NL ranks: runs scored: 12th HR: 13th BA: 2nd OBP: 5th SLG: 6th OPS: 6th K's: 2nd (fewest) BB: 14th So this team hasn't walked much or hit many home runs, but they have hit for average so well that their OBP, SLG, and OPS are all well above league average. Part of that is how little they strike out which allows them to carry a large average without having too crazy of a BABIP overall (.320). So why are they still 12th in runs? They haven't hit well in the clutch so far-at all: Total (NL rank 6th): .273/.326/.409 Nobody on (NL rank 2nd): .305/.346/.451 Runners on (NL rank 15th): .236/.304/.346 Scoring position (NL rank 15th): .214/.302/.311 Scoring Position 2 out (NL rank 12th): .224/.333/.328 Bases Loaded (NL rank 12th): .211/.227/.368 Is there anything that could be causing this? Lineup construction/streaky players/any other reason or is it just random variation? And if it is random variation, should we be expecting the Cubs offense to be actually good going forward? I think most people would expect their average to go down but their number of home runs to go slightly up. Their walks should stay well below average and I have no idea what their strikeouts will do by the end of the year.

I'd be just fine with Baker in the 3 spot. Destroys left-handers and has hit very well against Kershaw (albeit only 11 AB's). Soriano would be another fine choice. It wouldn't be awful if Byrd or Soto was there either.

Fangraphs article on Pena's struggles: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/whats-wrong-with-carlos-pena/ Has Wrigley really been a home run-haven for left-handed batters though? I always kind of figured it was the opposite-it certainly seems a lot harder to get balls onto Sheffield than Waveland for example.

Vitters adds a home run. His ISOP is now .229 and his strikeout percentage is 7.2. I have to think that if he's hitting pitcher's strikes his ISOP couldn't be that high and if he's just swinging wildly his strikeout percentage couldn't be that low. His overall numbers are still middling though because he hasn't hit enough singles.

Whenever he gets moved into the middle of the order, he stops hitting homers and starts sucking. At least that's my perception. I wonder if the stats back it up. I'd bet he has a much higher home run rate with no men on base, as opposed to when there are men on base. Of course, no one here believes in "clutch" so if it's true, its probably pure coincidence. Giving that he's spent most of his career hitting first in the lineup that shouldn't be too hard to understand at all. And his career numbers hitting 5th or 6th are fine. I was referring to his home run RATE. Not total home runs. Rate has nothing to do with where you're hitting. So I looked it up. He's hit 204 HR's in 3704 AB's (1 per 18.15 AB's) with no men on base. He's hit 117 HR's in 2288 AB's (1 in 19.6 AB's) with men on base. His career numbers .281/.520/.845 with bases occupied, .269/.490/.815 with bases empty. Maybe not that big of a gap, but clearly there's a gap. Of course, you might argue that he spent the prime of his career batting leadoff. But even if you're cleanup you come up with the bases empty and you hit with men on base batting leadoff, especially in the AL on teams like the Yankees. I would argue that Soriano is unclutch. On the other hand, you could argue that Soriano tends to hit his home runs in close games if they be solo shots or homers with runners on base. For example, Soriano has hit 33 home runs in the last year+. How many do you think were in non-close games (which I'm defining as when Soriano steps to the plate, the Cubs are either up by more than 3 runs or down by more than 3 runs. That's when you see pitchers start to pitch a little less carefully or the relievers not be quite as good who are sent into the game)? Answer is in spoiler tags:

Whenever he gets moved into the middle of the order, he stops hitting homers and starts sucking. At least that's my perception. I wonder if the stats back it up. I'd bet he has a much higher home run rate with no men on base, as opposed to when there are men on base. Of course, no one here believes in "clutch" so if it's true, its probably pure coincidence. The last 3 years: 2008 Nobody on: 284 AB's, 18 HR, .885 OPS Runners on: 169 AB's, 11 HR, .860 OPS 2009 Nobody on: 311 AB's, 10 HR, .685 OPS Runners on: 166 AB's, 10 HR, .802 OPS 2010 Nobody on: 269 AB's, 10 HR, .720 OPS Runners on: 227 AB's, 14 HR, .934 OPS And so far this year (excluding tonight): 2011 Nobody on: 38 AB's, 5 HR, 1.087 OPS Runners on: 47 AB's, 2 HR, .524 OPS So perception is not reality in this case. As for the middle of the order, he only had 76 AB's total for the 3-5 spot from 2008-2010 so very little to go off of.

Yes, compensatory picks start in round 3. Carolina received the only 3rd rounder this year for losing Peppers.

Soriano's line now on the season: .250/.274/.590 That is a crazy good ISOP. And that's with a BABIP of .220 so far.

His .260 OBP is a big reason why. So, so nice to see Soto driving one deep. It would be big if he can really get going.

Wow, I actually got a Colts 3rd round pick right. I was just looking over the scouting report for Nevis and it just screamed Colt. I was still shocked that they actually picked him though-but I guess they already got their non-division I-A player in the second round.

The Bears were going to take Paea in the first if Carimi was gone, so at the very least they loved him. Paea was the guy I really wanted for the Colts in the second round (although I was fine with the guy they took). From what I have read about him, he should be good for the Bears as well.

It was in the 3rd off Enright. The run in the 7th was a Reed Johnson sacrifice fly also off Enright.

He's not. He made 3 million last year. He makes 6.5 million next year. If the Cubs want both Pujols and Ramirez, they'll probably have to trade Byrd and go with both Jackson and Colvin in the OF. That depends on how they would backload the contract for Pujols though.

Who's going to play RF in that scenario?

Rothschild was under appreciated by the masses. With that said, they're obviously not as horrid as they've shown so far. Seemed like they also walked a lot of guys when Rothschild was around. CUBS are on a pace to walk 444 batters this year, compared to........... 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 BB 419 395 500 638 597 476 I think you might have pulled the wrong walks number Fred. Those look like the walks the Cubs took not the walks allowed.

i'm wondering why he fell though The Giants and Chiefs were both supposed to take offensive linemen and neither did. That sent all the offensive linemen down a few picks from where they were supposed to go. In addition, Carimi was always going to be a guy that was going to interest less teams since he's seen as only a RT.

Castonzo was the player I wanted for the Colts all along but I didn't think he'd make it there. Of course, I don't have a very good track record at these things so it concerns me that the Colts and me think alike for once :D, but I'm still really happy with this pick!

I doubt they think he's much of anything. 21st round college player who didn't play well in Boise, didn't show all that much power in his first Peoria stint, and didn't do anything when he was promoted to Daytona. Now he's just a few days from being 25 years old. Sure, they could promote him again and see how he does but I doubt there's any rush.

And one more Fleita quote that's quite hilarious:

From Bruce's blog today quoting Fleita on Whitenack: