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Still, if ever there was a time to at least give him a start, it would be vs a mediocre righty on a bad team. DeWitt hits left-handers better than right-handers so far in his career, Enright was better against left-handers than right-handers last year (although part of that was probably BABIP luck), and Cashner is a heavy ground ball pitcher. It's not exactly the perfect day to give DeWitt the start.

I'm not sure about a big step. Zeller coming in will definitely help and another year of experience will too. I think IU will win about 4-5 more games than they did this past season. That might keep them out of the bottom but many of the things that have plagued the last couple years will probably do the same this year. That's even more true if there is a transfer or two to accommodate the people coming in 2012. The one exception to this is if Creek comes back and just plays at a super high level again. That would really change the dynamics of the team but right now I don't see it happening. The real jump will come the year after that.

Thank goodness for a reasonable explanation. I still don't think it would have been a terrible move (probably because I feel Reed Johnson might have a little more in the tank than he might actually have) but it would be incredibly unconventional. And part of that reason is that there are a thousand variables to consider in that situation (time/score, splits of both batters, splits of pitcher, defensive change, burning a bench player, possibility of extra innings). It's one of those decisions that is really hard to determine and so going with convention and not making waves is usually called for. Hopefully Pena won't be out more than a day or two at most because while the starting lineup may not suffer that much the bench will be stretched incredibly thin without him.

Castro's not having the best couple of days defensively. That should have been turned.

Carlos Pena 3 year splits against left-handers: .194/.316/.397 Reed Johnson 3 year splits against left-handers: .321/.377/.465 And the pitcher had apparently strong left/right splits in the minor leagues. It's a pretty close call-it's definitely an offensive upgrade and it depends on how much you think the defensive downgrade for 1 inning is worth.

If he is, that makes Quade's bullpen usage in the seventh even more inexcusable. It sounded like Len was just assuming Marmol was unavailable for more than 1 inning because he was speculating who could replace Wood if he ran into more trouble.

I'm trying to decide if Quade is giving his relievers work, if he is relying on the batter-pitcher matchups, or both.

He looked really good in the first 3 innings and has been missing his spots by quite a bit so far in the 4th.

Unless they planned to move the rest of the hitters up and bat Baker 5th or 6th against left-handers it makes sense to put him leadoff. He's wasted in the 8 spot.

Seriously, Quade is really putting that "lineup position doesn't really matter" theory to the test. And I thought Dusty "Catchers hit 8th dude" Baker was bad. I'm trying to think if there is a lineup in baseball with a worst 2-3 than Barney and Byrd. I'm assuming that isn't going to be the full time 2-3 though. No, right now it appears to only be the 2-3 when a right-hander is on the mound, Fukudome isn't playing, and Barney is playing. When Fukudome is playing against right-handers he'll bat leadoff and when a left-hander is on the mound Baker will be in almost all the time. Byrd hitting 3rd is bad but it's really hard to construct the Cubs lineup. Who will be the Cubs best hitter this season? There are at least 3 obvious choices and 3 darkhorses. That's a ton for one lineup. Byrd is almost certainly not going to be one of the Cubs best but he is also less likely to tank than several others in the lineup are. Byrd probably shouldn't be hitting higher than 5th but really the top 7 guys are pretty close to interchangeable in this lineup.

The latest example-Garza has a -.32 FIP after yesterday's game. I'm pretty sure that's a flaw in the formula :-)

Mike Fontenot May 28th of last year against St. Louis.

Clayborn was taken with the 20th pick.

The only positive I see to starting Barney is that he's a plus defender (from everything I've heard). At the same time, there is no plus part of DeWitt's game. He's better offensively overall than Barney, but isn't particularly good either. Thus, since you're going with a young guy anyway, the reasoning would be to go with the guy that already features a plus skill and hope the other side comes around enough. Barney, it sounds like, is Theriot with much better defense and a slightly worse bat. That said, I'd prefer to go with DeWitt. Both are young but DeWitt has shown more offensive potential. With Aramis, Starlin and Pena around the infield, we have good to very good defense at 3 of 4 positions and can afford to put up with poor 2B defense with the hopes that DeWitt's bat comes around. There are plenty of good reasons to prefer DeWitt to Barney, but the makeup of the rest of the infield defense isn't one of them. If over the course of a season Barney's superior defense turns X additional balls in play into outs, then the run-value of that improvement is whatever it is, regardless of what anyone else on the field is doing. Well, the rest of the defense can fractionally help. If Ramirez, Casto, and Pena all had excellent range and Dewitt's main problem was a lack of range they could make that up with positioning. If Castro and Pena were both excellent at catching throws and DeWitt had issues with that then they could help in that regard. But I don't think either of those is particularly true so I don't think the rest of the Cubs defense would help DeWitt much.

If Barney adds just a little bit of power because of his weight gain at Camp Colvin he can become a .650-.700 OPS guy in the majors (or maybe even .725 depending on how much he can keep his average up) That plus his defense will make Barney/Baker a better option than DeWitt/Baker although still one that should be replaced when the Cubs get a chance.

I would agree that nobody jumps out on the board as being such good value at the other positions and so the default choice of offensive tackle is best. With that said, I'm going back and forth. If the Colts are looking to draft a LT in this spot, it's got to be Sherrod. He's a better pass blocker and while the motivation issues scare me a little I actually think he's relatively polished. If they want a guy who can play RT or maybe even guard and upgrade their run game then Carimi is the pick, but I'm worried about his pass blocking plus some knee issues in his past. But he is at a Big 10 school and the Colts love picking from Big 10 schools. Still, the lockout trumps all. With no news before the draft on if Johnson is coming back, I think the Colts play it safe and pick somebody who will adequately guard Peyton Manning's blind side in his rookie year. It's much easier to find a decent right tackle or guard through free agency So I'll disagree with you and pick Derek Sherrod. Truffle has been PM'd.

I'll give Exile some time to post his thoughts. I'll make my pick around mid-day tomorrow if I haven't heard from him.

And he didn't convert as a Cub but Coello as well now.

I disagree. Pena could be a complete bust. why is Soto going to be better? Aramis could just be on the decline and your putting your faith in Dewitt and Barney to be an offensive upgrade? I also think Soriano will continue to worsen with the bat. I'll be surprised if this offense is better than last year. I think your setting yourself up for disappointment but I tend to be a glass half empty type of guy. Pena could be a complete bust but the odds are not in favor of that. And it won't take much to do more than Lee did last year for the Cubs. Soto won't be better..in fact he'll probably be worse. But Soto only got 318 AB's from the catcher position last year and Hill got 212 . So even though Soto had a career year the Cubs still only got a .774 OPS out of the catcher position. If Soto gets more of those at-bats the average will be a lot better. I personally think catcher will be about the same. Soto will not have as good of a year but will get more at-bats and that will even out. Aramis could be on the decline. But jumping from being a .900 guy to a .750 guy is quite a decline for one year. He'll probably do like Soriano did last year and put up a number in between those two..not like his career averages but better than last year. DeWitt and Barney might not be an upgrade but it would be hard for them to be a downgrade to what Theriot did last year with the bat. It was easily Theriot's worst year and DeWitt while he was better than Theriot when he came over didn't light it up either.

This roster doesn't have a stunning lack of talent. true, there's really nothing stunning about it. it's essintialy the same lineup we ran out there last year + Pena - Lee. The lacking part is a matter of perspective or who you compare them to. I don't see a great deal of offensive talent either. Where did the offense rank last year among NL teams? I'm willing to bet it was somewhere near the bottom. Aramis will be better but how much is certainly unknown, Soriano could easily be worse. There are a lot of question marks in this lineup offensively. So lacking is certainly a valid description. The offense was ranked 10th in runs scored out of 16 NL teams. They were 11th in OBP, 9th in SLG, and 10th in OPS. So a little below average.

I'm giving Barney a couple weeks to show me that his Camp Colvin treatment gave him the ability to hit the ball with a little authority, but I wish they gave Baker a little more credit for what he can do. More to the point, if Barney/Baker are the primary 2B, then why exactly is DeWitt on the roster? I don't think the Cubs would be real comfortable going with 1 backup at 2nd, SS, and 3B for a long period of time. That's probably why DeWitt made it. As for Barney, does anybody know what the league average ground ball/fly ball ratio is? Seems to me that the Cubs starting staff is more ground ball oriented even with the presence of Garza. That should help Barney's case.

I could be wrong, but I'm not expecting him to be one of the better hitters in the lineup. He stands a pretty decent chance of being our 6th or 7th best hitter. Seriously?? I can see that. Ramirez, Pena, Soto, Byrd, Fukudome, and Soriano could all have better OPS's then Castro at the end of the season. Everybody on that list besides Ramirez and Pena was better last year. However, I know that managers like certain types of players in the 2 spot. Castro is one of those types of players who is actually pretty good. So keeping him locked at 2 keeps worse players of that type (DeWitt, Baker, Barney, Johnson) from getting many at-bats there. Plus while Castro could be worse than most of the lineup he probably won't be that much worse.

Sadly, Byrd was probably the Cubs' second best hitter last year after Soto. The real question is why isn't Soto near the top of the order. I don't think Soto is in a terrible spot. He looks to be 5th against left-handers and 6th against right-handers if nobody is getting a day off and Quade has been moving him up to 4th or 5th when people do have days off. Byrd is the only one I'd seriously question that is in front of him in either version of the lineup.

Some lineup talk today from Quade: Castro/Byrd/Ramirez will be 2-3-4 Second base is still undecided On Fukudome: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110330&content_id=17202998&notebook_id=17203160&vkey=notebook_chc&c_id=chc

It'll be interesting to see how they divvy up the AAA at-bats. My guess is that Ramirez will get quite a few at-bats at somewhere other than catcher and I'm not sure that he would necessarily be the first one called up if there was an injury.