soapy

show me that vertical, big fella

Yeah, I can dig on that.

Move Soriano back to the leadoff spot. hehehehe

I was looking thru his past splits just a little today looking for a similar stretch. There wasn't many, if any. It's discouraging but I'm still optimistic he'll be fine at this point. WTG, Soriano

Wow, this is actually real? I was hoping i misheard Len and Bob because when they mentioned it they weren't freaking the [expletive] out like they should have been. Can't wait until he struggles out of the pen and gets into the dog house and disappears into a black hole.

Yeah, it's really tough to decide what to do with the offense. They haven't hit well at all but that's in large part to the two regulars with the most at-bats being absolutely awful (Theriot, Ramirez) with nobody really being hot to counterbalance. Everyone else is close to their normal ranges (Kosuke is probably the next closest to underperforming while the catcher position is overperforming so far). Really the only thing that can be done is if the Cubs want to suddenly pull the plug on Theriot and call up Castro (which I'm not recommending). Otherwise there isn't much to be done because the expected problem areas have not been problems so far. Normally, at least 1-2 players are really hot every single month which really helps carry an offense through the slumps. It's rare that there isn't at least one random .900-1.000 OPS regular player so far. In the last 2 years, one good year and one bad offensive year, the Cubs averaged between 2 and 3 .900 OPS players per month each year (requiring 50 at-bats in the month). Is that a bad sign of things to come or random statistical variation? It could be either. Agreed. They have extremely limited options for upgrading offensively. They're probably going to have to just hope some of these guys come around. They can call up Castro at some point, but I probably wouldn't advocate doing it now. I understand the desire to upgrade the bullpen, but who are you going to get without drastically over-paying in late April?

Acquiring pitching is likely to be a bad trade. The offense is what needs to be addressed if you're making a trade. Having said that, the only position where it seems they could add offense right now would be (gulp) SS, unless you're talking about something colossal like trading Ramirez/Soriano/Fukudome, which I seriously doubt. Besides, two of those three are hitting.

Only if by addressing it you mean calling up arms from the minors. There's no good reason to trade any assets for the unreliable short-term fix of adding a reliever, especially when the far more glaring need is the atrocious lineup. Calling up (the correct) arms is exactly what I meant. I'm still pretty convinced with that, Lilly's return, and letting everyone settle in, the bullpen can still be adequate. ETA: I mean, Grabow isn't great (and is horribly over-paid), but he's not 2.294 WHIP and 15.9 H/9 bad.

The biggest problem for this team right now is probably the offense, but there probably isn't much that can be done at the moment to address that. Obviously another problem early on is the bullpen, which can at least in part be addressed immediately, and should be.

I feel I was misled by the thread title.

Right, there's no reason for them to keep him on the roster until Saturday. Call up Stevens or something to replace Samardzija now and then worry about who else to send down when Saturday gets here.

my guess is this was just one of Lou's post-game knee-jerk reactions that he doesn't really follow through on. i bet we see that lineup maybe one time, at most (tonight).

It's quite possible that the Cubs will need to make a move for a reliable bullpen arm, but it's way to early to panic. There are still some potentially viable options in-house. Getting the right guys up from the minors would probably be the best first step. Then let's figure out what we have and go from there.

10 games (not even)

Did he trip or something or just not run?

You have to be kidding, Silva. You can't run that out?

Byrd and Kosuke collided on a routine fly and then it sounds like he likely played a single into a triple the next hitter.

Who is going to start the DFA Kosuke thread? I'd guess but I don't want to "attack" any posters.

what happened there? just didn't talk to each other or what?

Hill and Silva, hahaha...wtf. I love it.

Baby step to 8:30....baby step to 8:30... http://static.footballguys.com/forums/uploads/profile/photo-22326.jpg

i had much higher hopes for that inning with the top of the order v. Suppan (for the third time).

he always takes a break in the 5th. i don't know if it's a smoke break or what.

heh...i was assuming you were being sarcastic, then i looked. ouch.

wtf is going on? is he injured or what?