Playing even passable Major League defense is not easy. It's not something you can work on for a couple weeks and be comfortable with. Fox has been with the Cubs organization for 7 years, and everything from them(aka how they've used and promoted him) and everything from third parties suggests he is a horrible, horrible fielder. He's not going to become passable. If that's something that can be overlooked by an individual or Hendry, that's fine. But please understand that "if he could only be passable at 3B" is akin to asking Rich Harden to play 3B when he's not pitching "if he could just be passable or even mediocre with the bat for 3B".
Given everything we know about Vitters, I'm not super worried until he has a low walk rate and shows that he's not able to hit for a very high average at a given level. It'll obviously hinder him from being an elite hitter at the major league level, but if that's who he is, then that's who he is.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/5/18/878676/who-made-their-1st-round-picks Comparing WAR for 1st round picks for the last decade, the Cubs are 13th.
Vitters' IsoP jumped like 40 points today, and he in all likelihood will get one more AB. Elsewhere, Starlin Castro went 2 for 4, Tony Thomas is 1 for 4 with a HR, and Maestri and Cales both had very nice relief outings. On a less happy note, Shafer got rocked.
I remember last year you kept defending Howry pretty hard too TT. Not really, but that's not relevant. Gregg is an okay reliever, and he's very inconsistent. The previous post is to remind people that for the last two weeks he's been awesome.
I'd at least consider it with the good hitters in the Astro lineup being primarily RH hitters: Tejada, Lee, Pence, Rodriguez, even Keppinger. Berkman hits RHP much better though.
Thomas and Flaherty both have home runs in their respective games. Vitters is 0 for 2 as a DH, and Darwin Barney has a single and a walk. Searle is having control problems. 3 IP, 3 H(all 1B), 1 ER, 2/3 K/BB, 3-4 GO-FO, and a balk