(( Planet Cubs ))

Even though he's totaled only 31 major league innings of his own, I feel like I understand the Cubs' interest in Jeff Gray a lot more than I do their feelings toward Justin Berg.

In those 31 innings, Gray totaled 23 strikeouts and allowed just five walks. His strikeouts per nine innings rate could be higher, but that's solid control.

And it's a skill he's demonstrated throughout his career. The highest walk rates he's ever posted came in 2007 and 2008, in Triple A both times, and were barely above 3.00. And when Gray went back down to Triple A in 2009, he only walked six batters in 41 innings.

The kid's got good stuff, too. His average fastball velocity clocks in around 94mph, and he's also got a slider, curve, and change in his repertoire.

From the limited sample available, Gray's numbers make it seem like he stands a decent chance of contributing to the major league club's bullpen once his groin strain heals up. Apparently that might take a while, though? Oh well.

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Because I will be leaving for Arizona this weekend, I made arrangements with the Cubs ticket office to pick up my tickets ahead of the big FedEx shipment they are sending out this week (for those of you who are season ticket holders, you should have received an email with a FedEx tracking number, or will get such an email within the next couple of days, letting you know when they'll be delivered).

As you can see above, the tickets look pretty much the same as they did last year, with different photos. Also as last year, my two tickets came in one book, with the tickets for each game back-to-back as shown. Just thought all of you would like to see them. Click on the photo to open a larger version in a new browser window. (And yes, I took off all my personally identifiable info and the barcodes.)

Since a considerable amount of angst was spilled over the Xavier Nady "can't play the outfield regularly" report yesterday, before I recap today's 8-7 Cubs win over the Padres, here's the straight story from Carrie Muskat's blog:

Nady will be able to play outfield on Opening Day but is not expected to be able to throw at full speed until June 1. There's been no talk about having Nady open the year on the disabled list.

"My understanding from talking to the trainer and our medical people is he can play a couple days a week early in the season and hopefully by the first of June, if need be, we can put him out there on a more consistent basis than that," Piniella said. "We'll have to wait and see. I don't see the DL scenario at all. We haven't even discussed that."

So seriously, where's the issue here? Nady's supposed to be a platoon right fielder as it is. If he can play two days a week substituting for Kosuke Fukudome (and likely be replaced defensively by Sam Fuld in the 8th or 9th inning), where's the big problem? I don't see it, and the attacks on Jim Hendry for this signing were, IMO, uncalled for. It's my belief that Hendry wouldn't have signed Nady if his medical reports didn't check out.

Also before the game recap, let me say that I thought ex-WGN announcer Andy Masur did a nice job on the PBP of today's game -- makes you understand how truly awful Judd Sirott is and how the Cubs miss him as the replacement for Pat Hughes.

Now, about Carlos Silva. He managed to throw three scoreless innings, but got hit pretty hard doing so. He allowed two doubles and two singles, issued a walk, struck out no one, and about half of his outs were outfield fly balls or line drives, against a Padres lineup with a handful of regulars. Does this one start mean he'll be any good? No, not any more than the last start meant he should be summarily DFA'd. Let's see what happens in his next outing. (Thanks to BCB'er mikegncb34 for the headline idea!)

Starlin Castro, who got the start at SS in this all-substitute team, was the hitting star today, scoring three runs and hitting his first homer of the spring. Sam Fuld doubled and made a nice leaping grab of a Scott Hairston drive against the CF wall in Peoria. The rest of the pitching staff did well, allowing the Padres only one hit, a couple of walks, and an unearned run, until Jeff Stevens got hit in the 8th and Lou had to yank him. Esmailin Caridad put out that fire, but then let the Padres make it close in the 9th. That's not good, although, to be fair, all of the six runs San Diego scored in those last two innings were unearned, due to several errors by kids who will spend most of the year at the lower minor league levels.

From the Muskat blog link above, here's the pitching (and managing) lineup for this weekend's split-squad games (half the team is headed to Las Vegas to play the White Sox):

Alan Trammell will manage the Cubs in Las Vegas. Lou Piniella is staying back with the other half of the team in Arizona for games Friday against Milwaukee and Saturday against Cincinnati. Jeff Samardzija will face the Brewers while Tom Gorzelanny will start Friday in Vegas against the White Sox. Ryan Dempster makes his second start Saturday in Vegas while Sean Marshall faces the Reds. Piniella said he hopes the team can make some definite plans with the pitching by March 21-22.

That's a good opportunity to get all the candidates for the rotation some innings. I'll be posting multiple game threads tomorrow, when there will be a day game vs. the Brewers at Maryvale and a night game vs. the White Sox in Las Vegas. On Saturday, the games will be at 2:05 (vs. Reds at Mesa) and 3:05 CST (vs. Sox), so just the regular afternoon set of threads then.

I dunno about you, but by my judgment, Justin Berg is largely an unknown quantity.

He's pitched exactly 12 innings at the major league level in his career. To be sure, they were 12 very good innings; 10 hits, one walk, one run allowed. But talk about small sample size.

If you want to expand your view, you have to look at Berg's minor league performance, which isn't pretty. He hovers around five strikeouts per nine innings, and in years past has tended to be on the high side of about four walks per nine.

Translation: not powerful stuff, and not very good control.

Of the 131 pitches he threw in the majors last year, 83% were fastballs, at an average of 91.5 miles an hour, and the rest were sliders. From what I've read, the fastball has some sink on it, so that's good. Seems like if the kid throws strikes, he can get some outs on ground balls, rather than Ks.

For some reason, the Cubs like him enough to consider him a decent candidate for the 'pen. And sure, 12 innings pitched in the majors is certainly 12 more than I ever have. But at the end of the day, he's probably a 4.50 ERA kind of guy, eating innings in games that aren't close.

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C'mon, Carlos. Make this trade worth something.

Today's Cubs and baseball notes:

• Interesting note from Carlos Zambrano regarding the grand slam Pablo Sandoval hit off him yesterday:

  "It's spring training. You know how many home runs Barry Bonds hit off me? One -- in spring training."

  The Cubs won't play the Giants in the regular season until August. Let's hope the number of HR Sandoval hits off Z remains at "one -- in spring training".

• Here's a column on Nomar Garciaparra's retirement that brings out the old SI cover photo as "evidence" that Nomar may have juiced, leading to all his injuries. But the article also reveals something I had not heard before that might have been the real cause:

  Last season Garciaparra told the San Francisco Chronicle that his connective tissue isn’t flexible enough to accommodate repeated muscular contractions, a condition that can be genetic. Garciaparra said his father and sister have the same ailment.

  Could that have helped to cause the horrific groin injury that ruined Nomar's 2005 season with the Cubs?

• The Giants' Barry Zito is sponsoring a spring training tour for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Nice gesture.
• And the Dodgers are off to Taiwan to play an exhibition series with an All-Star team from that country.

Finally, before you go past the jump for today's game info, write your own caption for the photo at the top of this post.

Carlos Silva will try it again today for the Cubs. Jon Garland, who started his career in the Cubs organization, will pitch for the Padres.

Today's game is on XEPE, a Padres radio station, so we may hear former WGN announcer Andy Masur. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

This is from 2003. 

 I'm on an extended business trip, so I'm putting up some of my fav older posts while I'm gone. Please keep comments coming as I'm gonna depend on you for what's REALLY going on, and I'll do my best to answer.

Since the MLB.com Free Agent Frenzy contest on which we based ours ended on March 1, I have decided to declare our contest, posted last November 16, over, even though one free agent from the list has not yet signed. Here are the 15 free agents in the contest and the teams they signed with:

Jason Bay, Mets
Erik Bedard, Mariners
Russell Branyan, Indians
Aroldis Chapman, Reds
Johnny Damon, Tigers
Mark DeRosa, Giants
Jermaine Dye, unsigned
Chone Figgins, Mariners
Vladimir Guerrero, Rangers
Rich Harden, Rangers
Matt Holliday, Cardinals
John Lackey, Red Sox
Hideki Matsui, Angels
Miguel Tejada, Orioles
Jose Valverde, Tigers

After the jump, the winner.

Scoring in the contest went this way: everyone put a "confidence" level for each free agent. For example, if you were 100% sure DeRosa was going to sign with the Giants, you'd give that pick 15 points and you would have gotten 15 for it, and so on down to your least confident pick, which got one point.

This year, unlike previous years, many entrants (myself included) got scores of... zero. Last year's winners (a tie) got 80 points. This year... well, here are the top three.

lswaidz       37
ScottT        22
DeRoMyHero    17

lswaidz, email me and I'll arrange to send you your prize, a copy of "The Cubs", a comprehensive history of the Cubs by Glenn Stout. Thanks to everyone who entered. Many thanks also to BCB reader StampMe, who compiled the results.

Yesterday, we talked about how Jim Hendry gives out big contracts. Well, today's subject is no different. Jeff Samardzija was given a huge deal out of Notre Dame to skip the NFL entirely. It was a great deal for Jeff. For the Cubs? Well, that verdict is still out.

Samardzija has been tossed around more than a toddler would a Raggedy-Anne doll. The Cubs don't seem to know what they want him to do. Starter-Reliever-Starter-Reliever-Starter-----no back to Reliever....you get the point. It really showed last year when "The Shark" was all out of whack. Samardzija threw 34 2/3 innings last year with a 7.53 ERA and a 1.76 WHIP, which was, well, terrible for any pitcher. Even more so for one being paid like a Major Leaguer.

Samardzija really hasn't pitched great at any level, expect two years ago with the Cubs. Most of that was probably because the hitters hadn't seen his stuff. He has struggled with his control, which will keep him from reaching his goals if he can't locate pitches.

This season the Cubs are going to let him battle for one of the two starting spots open with Ted Lilly still rehabbing his shoulder. He pitched the other day and threw two scoreless inning, but gave up a walk, a hit and hit somebody as well. I still think that Samardzija's best place will be in the pen, but he still has to learn control. WIth Guzman out of the picture now, it looks like he will at least break camp with the Cubs.

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Pablo Sandoval cranked a grand slam HR into the visitor's (upper) bullpen beyond the RF fence to cap a five-run third, and Jonathan Sanchez threw three shutout innings, as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Chicago Cubs 5-1 in Cactus League action under partly cloudy skies at cool & breezy Dwight Patterson Field at HoHoKam Park in Mesa this afternoon.

box score

Carlos Zambrano got the start for the Cubs today, and after breezing through the first two innings on just a combined 14 pitches (Ks, 4-3, and 6-3 in the top of the 1st, and then 2B, 4-3, P-3, and 5-3 in the top of the 2nd), the roof really caved-in on "Z" in the 3rd.

John Bowker, Kevin Frandsen, and Aaron Rowand singled to load the bases, and then Eugenio Velez was hit by a pitch to force-in a run (or at least his uniform was hit by the pitch...). Then with the bases loaded and still nobody out, Pablo Sandoval unloaded his grand salami, giving the Giants what turned out to be an insurmountable a 5-0 lead.

And Zambrano continued to struggle after the grand slam had cleared the bases, too, getting Aubrey Huff on a fly out to the warning track in RF, before walking Benjie Molina and surrendering a single to Nate Schierholtz. Then finally (on the inning's 36th pitch), Carlos induced Juan Uribe to ground into a most merciful 6-4-3 DP.

For the day Zambrano allowed five runs on six hits, a walk, and a HBP, one HR, and one strikeout (Aaron Rowand leading-off the game) in 3.0 IP. He threw 50 pitches (32 strikes), with a 6/2 GO/FO.

#1 LHRP John Grabow pitched the 4th inning and had a much better day than last Saturday, when he gave up three runs in just an inning of work. Today Grabow pitched a shutout inning (4-3, L-8, E-5, 5-3), although one batter did reach base when Aramis Ramirez fielded a one hopper and (with all the time the world) promptly threw the ball over Derrek Lee's head (no easy task). But Grabow looked good (11 pitches - 9 strikes, 2/1 GO/FO).

Rule 5 RHP Mike Parisi followed Grabow to the mound and had a solid outing (4-3, Ks, 1B, and F-9). He struck out Aubrey Huff, and he didn't mess around with any of the hitters (14 pitches - 10 strikes). By virtue of Parisi working just one inning (he threw two innings his first time out last Thursday), it would appear that he is not being considered for a spot in the Cubs starting rotation (although he had been mostly a starter throughout his career). But he has done nothing to hurt his chances of making the Cubs Opening Day 25-man roster so far (two outings). And being a "Rule 5 guy" (where the Cubs would probably lose him if he isn't kept on the 25-man roster) helps his chances, too.

As I've mentioned before, Parisi is in a somewhat different situation than 2009 Rule 5 pick David Patton was last year. Patton was more of a "long-term investment," not really ready for MLB in 2009 (he hadn't piched above "A" ball prior to last season), so the Cubs had to finesse him through the season by putting him on the DL for two months and then getting work for him by sending him out on a 30-day minor league rehab assignment. He only threw 27.2 IP (MLB) last year, but he was on the 25-man roster just (barely) enough days to satisfy the Rule 5 requirements regarding time spent on an MLB Active List. So he can be optioned to the minors this year (and in fact he has three minor league option years available).

Parisi, on the other hand, has two years of AAA experience (2007-08), and was available for selection in the Rule 5 Draft this past December only because the Cardinals outrighted him to the minors post-2008 after he underwent Tommy John elbow surgery. If Parisi doesn't pitch well enough to make the Cubs Opening Day roster--if he doesn't win a job by out-pitching others in Spring Training--he will probably get cut (and get reclaimed by STL) and the Cubs won't think twice about losing him. But so far, so good.

Cubs 2008 #1 draft pick RHP Andrew Cashner pitched the 6th inning for the Cubs, and (once again) struggled with his command. Though he threw only ten pitches, only four were strikes. But that was good enough to get a fly out to left and a 5-4-3 ining-ending GIDP to erase the baserunner who reached on a lead-off walk. Cashner must show better control if he is to be considered for an Opening Day bullpen job with the Cubs.

RHP Thomas Diamond made his 2010 Cactus League debut (he got rained out of his first scheduled appearance last Sunday), and looked very good. He threw a ten-pitch 1-2-3 7th inning (F-4, Ks, P-5). Based on what I saw of Diamond at the end of the AZ Instructional League last October, and then after he threw "lights out" in three starts for Mexicali (Mexican Pacific League) after that, I would say Diamond has a definite chance to win a bullpen job with the Cubs out of Spring Training. He was dominating today.

Diamond is a former Texas Rangers #1 draft pick out of the University of New Orleans (current Cubs Assistant GM Randy Bush was Diamond's coach at UNO) who was claimed off waivers by the Cubs last September. He underwent Tommy John elbow surgery in 2007 and then struggled mightily with his control after returning to action in 2008-09, and the Rangers basically just gave up on him. But he is pitching with much better control (and renewed confidence) now, and he certainly looked VERY good today.

LHP John Gaub pitched the 8th and struggled with his command (23 pitches - 12 strikes). He did walk one LH hitter (Nate Schierholtz), but he also struck out another lefty swinger (Brandon Crawford) to end the inning.

RHP Justin Berg worked a five-pitch 9th (4-3, F-8, 5-3), throwing just one ball. He just gets the ball and throws a hard sinker, doesn't really fool anybody, and then waits for his fielders to make routine plays. He's got to be Uncle Lou's kinda pitcher.

Some of you may remember my post from a week ago, where I described Byrd hitting 30 balls in a row to RF during the Cubs first work-out at HoHoKam Park, and that Manager Lou Piniella was watching intently. Well, he must have been impressed, because with LHP Jonathan Sanchez getting the start for the Giants today, Kosuke Fukudome got the day off, and Marlon Byrd hit in the #2 slot behind Ryan Theriot.

Unfortunately, the Cubs offense really sputtered today (but not because Byrd hit second!), with at least one base-runner in every inning (14 total), but they scored only one run.

Here's how...

1st inning: Facing Jonathan Sanchez, Theriot leads off with a line-drive single over the second-baseman's head into right-center, then is immediately picked-off 1st by Sanchez (OUTSTANDING move by Sanchez, BTW).

2nd inning: Xavier Nady (the Cubs DH today, in what was his first Cactus League action of 2010) shoots a line single to RF with one out, then Alfonso Soriano strikes out swinging and Jeff Baker is retired 1-3 on a one-hop comebacker to the mound.

3rd inning: Theriot lines a single to RF with two outs and then steals second, but Byrd is called out on strikes for out number three.

4th inning: Facing RHRP Brandon Medders, Derrek Lee draws a walk on a 3-2 pitch after fouling a ball off his foot earlier in the count, then gingerly limps off the field as Micah Hoffpauir pinch-runs for him at 1st base. Then after a WP moves Hoffpauir up to 2nd base, Ramirez lines a double over CF Eugenio Velez's head to the CF Batter's Eye, scoring Hoffpauir from 2nd. But Nady pops out to the catcher behind home plate, Soriano flies out to CF, and after Jeff Baker walks, Koyie Hill is called out on strikes. Only one run scores.

5th inning: Facing AAA RHP Kevin Pucetas, Theriot lines a single to CF and Byrd lines a single to LF with one out, but then Hoffpauir bounces into a 5-4-3 DP to end the inning.

6th inning: Facing NRI RHP Eric Hacker, Ramirez ropes a lead-off single to LF (his 2nd solid hit of the day after fanning in his first AB) and Nady draws a walk, but then Soriano bounces into a 5-4 FC, Baker lines out to short, and K. Hill grounds out 4-3 to end the inning and leave two runners stranded. (Soriano, Baker, and Hill went hitless today, and left a number of runners stranded).

7th inning: Facing NRI RHP Eric Whitaker, Starlin Castro reaches base on an infield single to deep short with one out, but then Sam Fuld grounds into a 6-4-3 DP to end the inning.

8th inning: Facing NRI RHP Steve Edlefsen, Brad Snyder and PH Chad Tracy draw one out walks, but then Darwin Barney and Jeff Baker strike out (Barney swinging, and Baker looking), leaving both runners stranded.

9th inning: Facing RHRP Waldis Joaquin, Castro lines a two-out single to CF (his second hit of the day -- the Cubs lead-off slot went 5-5!), but then Fuld grounds out 3-1 to end the game.

Manager Piniella ordered a special post-game Batting Practice for those in need (mostly the guys who aren't getting much playing time), and so Jeff Baker (getting fairly regular playing time, but in a deep slump since he reported to Fitch Park last month), Darwin Barney, Starlin Castro, Bryan Lahair, Kevin Millar, Bobby Scales, Chad Tracy, and Josh Vitters were able to take about 50 swings a piece.

The Cubs play the San Diego Padres at the Peoria Sports Complex tomorrow, before the team splits in two for a couple of days as one squad travels up to Las Vegas to play two games versus the White Sox (one Friday night, and the other on Saturday afternoon), while the other squad stays in Phoenix for a game against the Brewers in Phoenix (Maryvale) on Friday and at HoHoKam Park in Mesa versus the 2010 Cactus League newcomers (Dusty Baker's Cincinnati Reds) on Saturday.

- Xavier Nady won't be ready to play regularly until...June!

The exclamation point is for a little joke going around the TCR comments, but Piniella said they'll be cautious with Nady through the cold weather.  Considering he was suppose to be a 4th outfielder/pinch-hitter/short side platoon for Fukudome, it probably won't matter as much as I'm sure the Internet is about to make it out to be, but it could affect the roster construction. Sam Fuld who can play all three outfield positions moreso than Tyler Colvin could get a little edge if spring training numbers are close. Or the Cubs could finally go through with an 11-man pitching staff, considering two of them will be the losers of the 4th/5th starting rotation race.

- Milton Bradley spoke again, this time to ESPN. I'd rather watch back-to-back replays of the 2005 and 2006 World Series than revisit another Bradley story, but everyone else seems to think it's worth commenting on. He doesn't seem to say anything new except some odd reporting baiting about whether hate mail may have come from within the Cubs organization. Bradley doesn't outright deny the accusation, leaving it open with a "Who cares" and "I don't care to know". Scandalous!

Look, Bradley is (as reader "jumbo" wrote), the "ultimate narcissist crossed with a conspiracy theorist".  He'll never accept responsibility for himself and nothing will ever be his fault. Hendry knocked out the response with his:

 I think it's time maybe Milton looked at himself in the mirror. It is what it is. He didn't swing the bat; he didn't get the job done. His production was the only negative, or lack of."

But the Cubs are equally at fault, they signed him without knowing what they were getting themselves into and without putting anything into place to deal with his personality. Nothing that happened last year was a suprise to anyone but the Cubs, yet they handed out the three-year deal and they're the ones that thought Milton didn't need any special treatment. The Cubs are the people that buy rottweilers and then are shocked when it eats their kids. "But it looked so cute and playful at the pet store!"

- Remember this comment from Aramis Ramirez earlier in the spring?

Third baseman Aramis Ramirez refused to take batting practice against teammates during live BP on Saturday. When asked about it, Ramirez said he never takes batting practice against teammates. That’s just something he doesn’t like to do.

We all seemed a bit suprised by the statement, but it seemed reasonable enough. Problem is, our pal Arizona Phil who has been watching spring training for as least as long as I've been here at TCR (2005) and probably much longer, recalls things differently.

I thought it was odd when Ramirez didn't take "live" BP against Cubs pitchers at Fitch Park a couple of weeks ago, when it was said in the media that it's not that uncommon for the "big leaguers" to do that... except it IS unusual.


Ramirez took "live" BP in all other previous seasons, and he was the ONLY Cub hitter to not take "live" BP this year. And then in the 50-swing BP work-out at HoHoKam the day before the first Cactus League game, Ramirez did not get good swings until the last ten or so, when he was able to drive a couple of HR.

Hopefully it's just some oddness, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he's hiding an injury either.

- Jason Frasor is the hot topic for the Cubs and Twins to bring in as a reliever. Frasor had a great 2009 with a 2.50 ERA and 11 saves, to go along with 17 saves in 2004. Phil Rogers reports that the Blue Jays are looking for an outfielder in return and speculates on Tyler Colvin or Sam Fuld. Fuld wouldn't bother me, although the Cubs would certainly need to add an arm or two in there to complete the deal. But Colvin's been putting on a show in spring training and bulked up and looks like he's the first round pick he was meant to be. I'd be more than hesitant to trade him. Even though he doesn't have a job now with the Cubs, he has 3 minor league options left and there's no reason to rush him out of the system for an unspectacular arm, considering the run of bad luck and health the Cubs seem destined to run into.

While Frasor did have a good 2009, his career FIP is 3.80 that nearly matches his career 3.78 ERA. He keeps the ball in the park(0.79) and has good strikeout rates(8.29) and would be leaving the AL East. And he did pick up a change-up after 2008, which could be the reason behind his improved season. On the other hand, the Cubs would presumably be paying the whole bill and I don't think trading a potential 25-30 HR threat that could play center field on a "regular' basis (Jim Hendry's words on WGN on Saturday) for a reliever is a good use of resources. You'll find nothing in Colvin's past minor league records to support the assertion that he could be a starter or bring mad power, but you wouldn't have found them in Geovany Soto's either before 2007. Prospects mature at odd rates and Colvin is becoming an interesting option.

Saying that Cub fans are racist implies that many sports fans aren't.  I am confident that Cubs fans are as racist as the fans of any other team in baseball, and I would bet money that Todd Hundley received mail that would have made Bradley's skin crawl. 

'nuff said.

So let me get this straight. Last Saturday, a Cubs right-handed pitcher named Carlos got pounded early and often by White Sox hitters, allowing two home runs, and everyone here was out with the pitchforks and torches, saying, "Release him! He sucks! He'll never be good! He's the worst pitcher in baseball!"

Today, a Cubs pitcher named Carlos gave up six hits, a walk, and a grand slam to Pablo Sandoval, allowing five runs in three innings of work.

Get rid of him, right? DFA?

I should put the sarcasm photo here, because obviously, the Cubs aren't going to release Carlos Zambrano based on one bad spring training appearance. And also obviously, he's earned the right to have bad spring outings more than Carlos Silva, who got hammered by the Sox last weekend. And if Silva continues to pitch poorly, then yes, the Cubs will have a decision to make about him. But supposedly Silva had a mechanical flaw that's been corrected -- we'll see if that makes any difference when he goes tomorrow against the Padres at Peoria. The point is, don't judge a pitcher -- any pitcher -- off one spring training appearance.

Sandoval's grand slam was pretty much the story of the game; the Giants' five runs in that third inning off Z were the only runs they scored in a 5-1 win over the Cubs. Six Cubs relievers -- John Grabow, Mike Parisi, Andrew Cashner, Thomas Diamond, John Gaub and Justin Berg -- limited the Giants to a single and a pair of walks after that. That's good news, as a couple of those guys, particularly Cashner and Berg, are strong candidates to go north with the team.

Meanwhile, the Cubs managed only one run. Derrek Lee walked and Aramis Ramirez hit an RBI double -- but only after D-Lee had to be removed from the game for pinch-runner Micah Hoffpauir after he fouled a ball off his foot. Hopefully, that was only as a precaution, given that this is an early-spring game.

Today's attendance was 9,381 on another cool day when the game-time temperature was again lower in Mesa (55) than it was in Chicago (60 outside my window on the north side). The weather's supposed to gradually warm into the 70's by the weekend. Average attendance in Mesa for five dates is now 9,968. I would expect that to increase after the next home game, a Saturday afternoon date with the Reds, the first meeting with Cincinnati after their move to Arizona spring training this year.

As Milton Bradley’s further descent, deeper into paranoid delusion continues unabated, I really wonder just how all of those naive dopes who defended him as recently as a couple of weeks ago feel.  Actually, I don’t wonder.  Because I don’t care, and you are all busy trying to dream up nasty tweets to hurl at Paul Sullivan, anyway.

Milton is who we thought he was.  A passive-aggressive sociopath hell-bent on rewriting an inaccurate history–one in which he always plays the hapless victim–of his self-destruction on team, after team, after team.

And if you don’t think the Mariners watched his latest unbelievable interview on ESPN and thought “What the hell did we get ourselves into?”  Well, they did.

Here’s what we know about Milton’s (less than) one year stay with the Chicago Cubs.

• He is apparently an awesome dinner date.  As he managed to assuage any fear Jim Hendry about his past actions in a two hour dinner at a steak house.  Hendry was so overwhelmed by Milton that he tripled the longest contract Milton had ever been offered (three years) and scurried home to trade the most awesomest, bestest, cutest Cub of all time, Mark DeRosa, to make room for Milton.
• Milton showed up for spring training and said all the things you expect to hear.  He was so happy to be a Cub, he loved his trips to Chicago, he couldn’t wait to play with Derrek Lee, it was all gonna be great.  He couldn’t wait to work with Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry again.
• The Cubs had a catered team meal in the clubhouse during spring training.  Guys loaded up their plates, sat around eating and yucking it up and Milton ate his alone…in the weight room.  To this day, nobody knows why.  But Milton had already decided it was them and him.
• He hurt himself in his second at bat of the season.  Stepping on first base.
• He got thrown out of his home debut, after pinch hitting and taking a third strike with the bases loaded.
• His next door locker buddy, Ryan Theriot stopped trying to talk to him in May because Milton would never acknowledge that Ryan was trying to talk to him in the first place.
• The Cubs fired Gerald Perry as hitting coach, citing his inability to connect with Milton as one of the main reasons for the move.
• In a game against the Twins he forgot how many outs there are, while posing after catching a routine flyball and then threw it into the stands allowing one run to score and another to advance two bases to third.
• Two weeks later, Milton is sent home during a game by Lou Piniella for throwing another in an increasingly frequent number of dugout tantrums.
• Milton tells writers that Cubs fans are yelling racist things at him during games.  When asked if he wanted to be more specific, he didn’t.  He later pretended to have never said such a thing.
• Weeks later, Milton says that his three year old son was the target of racially insensitive taunts by other three year olds at his day care.  (Somebody had been watching too many ETrade commercials.)  The next day, Milton didn’t seem to recall making those claims when asked to elaborate on them by reporters.
• Milton said that waitstaff at a restaurant hurled racial epithets at him and a dinner companion.  The next day, Milton didn’t seem to understand what anyone was referring to when he was asked about it by reporters.
• Late in the season, Milton refused to pinch hit when asked to during a game, then engaged in a dugout tirade aimed at replacement hitting coach Von Joshua.  The exchange was so one-sided and heated that one Cubs player describes it as, “Ugly and embarrassing.  Even for Milton.”  Even for Milton.
• The next day, Jim Hendry addressed the team and announced that Bradley had been suspended and would not be with the team the rest of the season.  By several accounts, this announcement was met with applause by the players.

And that list is just the highlights.

That’s a pretty eventful year.  But Milton has already topped himself, with new allegations.  One, in particular, that ought to warm the hearts of the citizens of Mansfield, Ohio.

In an interview with Colleen Dominquez of ESPN, Milton suddenly remembered his tales of the wide-spread racism of three year olds in Chicago, racist busboys, and the wonders of hate mail that somehow arrives even without a stamp.  It’s typical Milton.  One on one he makes these claims.  When asked by a group of reporters he can never seem to remember what he said in the first place.

• Milton says he received hate mail last year, and that he would just give it to the Cubs PR staff.  As he described the mail, he said he could tell before he opened it what it was going to be.  The hate mail didn’t include return addresses, he said.  In the TV version of the interview that aired on Tuesday night, he mentioned some were postmarked Mansfield, Ohio.  I’m sure Mansfield appreciates the shout out.  They might have to rethink their slogan as “The Fun Center of Ohio.” Then you saw evidence of why what Milton says gets him in trouble.  It doesn’t seem like he’s trying to describe that some of the mail had no postage on it, but when Dominguez suggests that is what his description sounds like, he goes with it.  Without coming out and saying it himself, he’s now accused the Cubs clubhouse staff of hand delivering unmailed hate letters to him.  Did he really mean that?  Maybe.  But it sure sounds like he wandered into that corner, then refused to let himself out of it.  Again.
• He retells the tale of his three year old being taunted at day care.  This time he intimates that he confronted the parents of the alleged three year old racists.
• His new version of his story about being disparaged now includes Alfonso Soriano, and a patron saying they don’t deserve their money and should go back to the ghetto.
• He claims his season went downhill after he got tossed in his first Wrigley at bat.  His tortured logic is that he was worried about getting thrown out of games so he couldn’t play “his game.”  It’s odd, because the reaction of the Wrigley crowd that day was one of “Milton got robbed, that was a terrible call!  And, oh, look, he’s sticking up for himself!”  But he’s too smart of a guy not to know that with his history of red-assed on field behavior (which once included him tearing his ACL during an argument) that most umpires were going to cut his theatrics short by giving him the thumb.  He’s worked hard to earn that privilege over the years.
• He says that he wanted Lou Piniella to apologize in front of the team after calling him “a piece of shit,” during the incident when he was sent home from a game at US Comiskular.  Apparently Lou apologizing to Milton, and telling the media that he apologized to Milton wasn’t enough  But Milton said it was the “Christian” thing to accept it and move on.
• He says he only received hate mail in Los Angeles, Oakland and Chicago.  Hey, three out of seven isn’t so bad!  The completely ambivalent fan bases in Montreal, San Diego and Texas didn’t mind him.  Cleveland loved him so much that after he hit .321 in 2003 his manager demanded he be traded and the GM took two whole days to ship him off to Los Angeles for the immortal Franklin Gutierrez.
• Milton says he doesn’t think the city of Chicago is racist.  “If you weren’t booing me, I’m not talking to you.”

Glad you cleared that up.

As somebody who has attended games at stadiums around the country, my suggestion to Milton would be that if he thought Cubs fans liked to yell racist things, he might want to leave Atlanta and St. Louis off of his ever growing list of teams he’s going to play for.

Here’s how bad it was last year with the Cubs.  Do you really think that Jim Hendry wanted to suspend Milton and ruin what little trade value he had left? No.  Sending Milton home wasn’t Hendry trying to deal with one player, it was him having to deal with the other players on the team.  Because the Bradley contract could very well be the tipping point mistake that costs Hendry his job during or after this season, you know he wanted to salvage whatever could out of the situation.  And he still decided to send Milton home.

And baseball players put up with a lot from their teammates.  For them to have openly celebrated his banishment is astonishing.  Hey, they didn’t even clap when Phil Nevin left, and everybody hates Phil Nevin.

But now Milton is gone.  He’s in Seattke and they can deal with him.  And if you don’t think they’re not already regretting it, you’re as nutty as he is.

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Three innings for Z today.

Lou Piniella says yesterday's lineup vs. the Brewers is likely the one you'll see April 5 in Atlanta:

Piniella said the lineup Tuesday is likely to be the Opening Day lineup, with Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukudome, Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Marlon Byrd, Alfonso Soriano, Fontenot and Geovany Soto, in that order.

Jeff Baker still might challenge for the starting job at second base, he said.

Piniella added the bench might include ''one or two'' rookie outfielders from a group including Brad Snyder, Tyler Colvin, Jim Adduci and Sam Fuld, who has spent time with the Cubs.

"I would think that the way we're set up here that one of these young kids will make the team," Piniella said.

I don't see Snyder or Adduci making the team (although see below, Adduci is starting today) -- to me, the competition is between Fuld and Colvin. But does this mean that Lou might actually consider an 11-man pitching staff? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, today, Xavier Nady makes his Cubs debut as DH -- via tweet from Carrie:

Xavier Nady will make #cubs debut. He's starting as DH vs #giants. it's Theriot, Byrd, Lee, Ramy, Nady, Sori, Baker, Hill, Adduci in RF

Note for people wondering why the Cubs are using a DH in a home game -- this is permissible in spring training games as long as both teams consent.

Carlos Zambrano will make his second spring start and likely go three innings. The Giants will counter with lefthander Jonathan Sanchez.

Today's game is on MLB Audio via MLB.com announcers. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The eventual moral of today's story is: never ask a Canadian a serious question, particularly about serious topics like racism.  The cubs.com writer Carrie Muskat did just that the other day, and got a bit of a ramble, with some serious bromance with future Cub Kevin Millar, from noted Canadian Ryan Dempster.

When asked if he has ever encountered racism in Chicago, Demp passed the Ryne Sandberg Aptitude Test with flying colors by noting he, himself is white, and thus, unqualified to answer the question.  When asked if he himself ever receives hate mail, he acknowledged that Millar scribbles teasing notes to him, in crayon, and passes them in the locker room.  I can see Millar folding it awkwardly, handing it to Bobby Scales, stage-whispering "pass this to Demp", then Scales turning to Mikey Fontenot, shrugging futilely, handing him the note and turning back around as quickly as possible as to disassociate himself from the task.

Font, of course, drops the note, not once, but twice, and then manages to fumble it into Demp's lap, just as Ryan stands up to walk to the toilet for a wee.

Fact is, I have sat in the bleachers and heard all sorts of crude, racist comments, shouted for emphasis, to such luminaries as Darryl Strawberry, Rickey Henderson, and Nyjer Morgan (lord, they have fun with THAT one).  I've heard comments way back when for the 'benefit' of Lee Smith, towards the end of his tenure, when he was no longer fooling people.  I've seen people call Jacque Jones vile things pertaining to his persuasion as an African-American.  As a Cub. 

I did not have the pleasure (right) to sit in the bleachers last year, but I would be willing to bet my house, and all the cool stuff in the basement, that at least one Bleacher Chad called Bradley the n-word, or something similar, during his stay with us.  Probably, once he went public with his assertions of harassment, which coincided with the eventual demise of the 2009 Chicago Cubs, the number of racist comments only increased, if I know my mindless proto-yuppie drunks like I believe I do.

Anyone who steps out and says that Milton Bradley is 100% lying about what was said to him is sadly delusional, in severe denial, and simply wrong.  I believe there was hate mail.  I believe there may have been an incident at his childrens' school.  Maybe you, gentle reader, have lived your life in an enlightened enclave of this earth, where nobody ever makes stupid, prejudicial remarks about anyone.  Good for you.  I do not reside in such a place.  Ridiculous, hurtful statements are made every single solitary DAY in my hometown about Blacks and Mexicans, by people who frankly, I am close to.  It is a learned behavior, passed down from one generation to another in a hallowed tradition of ignorance and fear.

We all react to it differently.  Dempster makes a joke out of it, which he tends to do about the troubles about all people who are not himself.  Others, like some of the spineless twits I see all the time on Facebook, deny that such things happen.  A few people, usually those heavily steeped in political correctness and leaning so left that they can't do math anymore, for all the times they've smacked their left forehead into the doorjamb, wring their hands and condemn Cubs fans for their drunkenness, lack of thought, lack of human dignity, and overall beneathness.

Then come the true lowlifes, the Sox fans, Cardinal fans, and lately, Brewer fans, who read what these real-life LOOGY's write and hold that up as certain proof that Cub Fans are not knowledgeable, because any person that would call Milton Bradley an N-word certainly knows nothing about baseball, certainly less than a good Sox fan, Cardinal fan or Brewer fan.

Never mind that much of the racial taunting I have witnessed happened in the bleachers at Comiskey.  Never mind that most Cardinal fans expressed sincere shock when their swollen, pus-filled hero finally admitted to using the juice.  Never mind it is most Brewer fans who don't know who the hell plays for their team, besides Braun and Prince.  (Not that they have any real reason to know who plays for them).

Yes, Virginia, some people who come to Wrigley Field, presumably to root for the home team, are racists.  They say crude things about Black people.  Invariably, though, these same mopes also say crude things about White people, as well as Latin people and most recently, Asian people.  If the two guys from India someday pitch for the Pirates, you can bet there will be a lot of "dot" jokes from the boozy dick-breaths who sit behind the vines, as well.

This is part of the reason why I, myself, sit in the other sections of the park that are not bleachers.  When sitting in the upper deck or behind home plate with your wife or family or group of friends, you still feel you are there with your group, as one little enclave in a sea of likeminded enclaves.  But in the Bud Light Bleachers, a crowd mentality does tend to form.

This togetherness, fueled by alcohol, bought or smuggled, plus any other available intoxicants, does result in an emboldened spirit and the elimination of any inhibitions.  The poor inhibitions that, frankly with this bunch, are probably a weak shield holding back the true ignorance of the species, spoiled, self-entitled twenty-somethings who 'owe it to themselves' after a hard day of screwing all of us out of our economy in the trading pits or the bank branches, to get 'totally wasted' and yell obscenities at the poor excuse of a human being standing in right field who is so little invested in his craft that he forgot how many outs there were last inning.

So, yes Milton Bradley, I believe you.  People were crappy to you here.  Then again, bucko, if you would have removed your head out of your own ass, paid attention to your craft more, complained less, and kept your own damn stupid mouth shut around reporters, things would have went a lot better for you.  Yes, as you cited, you can be Andre Dawson or Ernie Banks and make it here as a Black man.  Those guys played hard every day of their lives, at far less than 100%.  Both were renowned for playing every day with crippled knees, and never complaining.  They were adult men, who realized they were making good money playing a child's game.  You, Bradley, are not an adult.  Once you figure that out, dickstick, your career and your life may work out better.

As pointed out in this comment by Dave86 in yesterday's community projection post, there were some errors in SWL's spreadsheet calculating AVG/OBP/SLG for the players projected. The spreadsheet added all the projected averages and averaged them rather than recalculating them from the counting stats.

The corrected numbers are after the jump. I think you'll find most of them (admittedly, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez may be a little high) more realistic. The counting stat projections were correct and do not need to be reposted.

Geovany Soto: .283/.361/.477, .838 OPS

Derrek Lee: .303/.384/.538, .922 OPS

Jeff Baker: .283/.347/.435, .782 OPS

Aramis Ramirez: .310/.385/.565, .950 OPS

Ryan Theriot: .291/.358/.380, .738 OPS

Alfonso Soriano: .282/.335/.519, .854 OPS

Marlon Byrd: .286/.346/.461, .807 OPS

Kosuke Fukudome: .280/.386/.441, .827 OPS

When we last saw Angel Guzman, he was walking off a mound (or an approximate facsimile thereof) while leaving bits and pieces of his shoulder behind on the rubber.  Like Prior and Wood before him, pitching for the Cubs must have Guzman experiencing post traumatic stress disorder.  Any time he stands on piece of slightly raised ground, he must feel nauseous just from the memory of arm injuries passed.

So, consider this a retrospective more than a preview.  Guzman will not be pitching in 2010 for the Cubs.  Or, realistically, 2011, or 2012, or ever again (unless he wants to emulate the masochist Chad Fox, who seems to derive pleasure from the pain of an in-game arm injury). 

Let's look back at the olden days, when Guzman was a fresh faced prospect who threw with thunder and filled the 4th spot of Jim Hendry's dream rotation, behind Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Carlos Zambrano.  Hendry said in 2003 that, had Guzman stayed healthy*, the Cubs would have won the World Series that year.  Strong stuff for a youngling like Angel.

(*that's right, folks.  He was suffering from a series of nagging, prolongued arm injuries as recently as a time before we invaded Iraq!)

In later years, as he made small stabs into a world without arm soreness, Guzman made all kinds of impacts on the Cubs.  My favorite memory of him comes from 2006-or-so, when he described Carlos Zambrano as being a sort of "dad" to him.  I don't know how the Big Moose must have felt about that, seeing as how he's not even 2 years older.

After finally getting healthy enough to pitch for the Cubs in 2006, Guzman did his best to preserve his blossoming career by pitching his way to an 0-6, 7.39 ERA record in the last days of Dusty Baker.  Sadly it was too late.  In '07, he managed to give Lou Piniella all of 12 games pitched and 30.1 innings of work.  But the numbers were better -- 0-1, but with a 3.56 ERA.

He returned in 2008 to pitch all of 9.2 innings -- detecting a pattern here? -- this time posting a 5.59 ERA.  But arm injuries struck again.

Finally, last year, Guman did the unthinkable.  After cracking the riddle of cold fusion and inventing the first-ever perpetual motion device, Guzman did something even more awe inspiring: he stayed healthy.  Yes, friends, Angel Guzman finally woke up one morning and said "pip pip, I shall be a reliable asset for my team, cheerio!" 

He delivered upon his promise, strangely made in a contrived and non-believable British accent, by pitching 61.0 innings in relief and posting a 2.95 ERA.  The Cubs were finally hoping that his arm had somehow grown immune to injury, and they were relying on Angel to be one of perhaps three trustworthy arms in a bullpen that will likely consist of seven total relievers.  In other words, his "middle relief" pitching role could have just as easily been described as "essential."

But, alas, it was not meant to be.  While rehabbing from knee surgery, Guzman fell into that old pitcher's trap of screwing up his mechanics and hurting his shoulder.  It's a tale as old as Betty White, with Guzman's misfortunes being just another chapter.

So, he's done.  Finito.  Toast.  It's over, Johnny. 

Better luck next year, Angel, we wish you a speedy -- if not insanely unlikely -- recovery.

Find quality deals on baseball tickets at Coast to Coast Tickets!

Yesterday, on the 5 minute commute from office to home, Boers and Bernstein were discussing Jumbotrons and blowing up the Cubs roster this year.

And they absolutely nailed it.

Not only are the expectations for the Cubs in the tank nationally (except you know where), but the time to do it may be during the season this year. And they pulled back the curtain on Jim Hendry:

"I don't want him making those deals." - Terry Boers

Exactly.

There is no basis to know that Jim is the guy to build a team by identifying young talent. Sure, he can fleece the Pirates. But Jim saw a team go from 5 outs from the World Series to a team that lost 96 games. How did he turn it around? Hendry got the Trib to unzip the the wallet to re-fill an empty park.

They, appropriately, take Hendry to task for giving out no trade clauses. They note that $140 million payrolls are a thing of the past.

And Bernstein also says that the Ricketts clan has already thought about this. And they have a plan.

The confidence in the Ricketts is welcome, if yet unwarranted and undeserved. Let's hope Dan is right, because Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly and Aramis Ramirez could be the key to the Cubs winning a World Series.

It will just take someone other than Jim Hendry to make it happen.

Take a listen to the first 15 minutes. Dead solid perfect.

Joe Inglett clubbed a two-run homer with two outs in the top of the 9th, as the Milwaukee Brewers overcame an early 3-0 deficit and defeated the Cubs 5-3 in Cactus League action at cold and rainy Dwight Patterson Field at HoHoKam Park this afternoon in Mesa.

The start of the game was delayed almost an hour as a noon-time downpour flooded HoHoKam Park. But the rain did stop, and the dark clouds gradually broke apart, even allowing the sun to shine through by mid-game.

box score

Randy Wells got the start for the Cubs today, and pitched three shutout innings (4/2 GO/FO), striking out two, and facing the minimum number of batters possible (nine) while throwing just 28 pitches (21 strikes), with the pitches fairly-evenly spread over the outing (12 pitches in the 1st inning, five in the second, and 11 in the third). He did allow a Craig Counsell first-inning line single to center, but then Counsell was erased when Wells picked him off with a nifty move, totally freezing the veteran like the proverbial "deer in headlights." Not satisfied with just a dominating pitching performance and a fancy pick-off, Wells also drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.

The Cubs threatened but did not score in the bottom of the 1st, as Ryan Theriot reached base on a infield single when Milwaukee starting pitcher Jeff Suppan could not cleanly handle a topper in front of the mound. Then with two outs, The Riot stole second and advanced to 3rd on a catcher's overthrow error, but Aramis Ramirez struck out (looking) to end the threat.

The Cubs fared better in the bottom of the 2nd, however, as Marlon Byrd roped a double into the LF corner leading off the inning, and Alfonso Soriano followed with another double off the CF "Green Monster" (Batter's Eye). But because Byrd went back to tag up at 2nd with the expectation that the ball might be caught, he did not have enough time to score on the play, and so the Cubs ended up with runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. Mike Fontenot then lined a single to CF to score Byrd with the first Cub run (running at less than full-speed, Soriano held up at 3rd), and Wells knocked-in Soriano with his sac fly to right.

Derrek Lee lined a home run over the right-centerfield fence leading off the bottom of the third to make the score 3-0, and then closer Carlos Marmol got the early call (managers often will use their closer early in a Spring Training game so that he can face major league hitters). But Marmol struggled with his command today, as it took him 31 pitches to get through the one inning. He had nasty stuff and he did strikeout the side (Counsell, Edmonds, and Gerut), but he also allowed two runs (one earned) on a walk and two singles along the way. (One run was unearned because catcher Geovany Soto air-mailed a throw over Aramis Ramirez's head at 3rd base while trying to cut down Carlos Gomez on a stolen base attempt, allowing Gomez to score).

NRI RHP (and 2009 Cubs Minor League Pitcher of the Year) Casey Coleman was next to take the hill for the Cubs, and he worked two complete innings plus two batters into a third inning. He struggled with his control (43 pitches - only 21 strikes), but he also somehow found the means to pitch out of trouble, allowing just one run while stranding five Brewer baserunners during the course of the outing, all this despite allowing three hits (a single and two doubles), two walks, and a HBP. RHP Marcos Mateo relieved Coleman when the youngster reached his pre-planned pitch count max limit, and got the final two outs of the 7th inning.

While Coleman is expected to spend the 2010 season in the Iowa Cubs starting rotation (he projects as an MLB 4th or 5th starter), I suppose it is possible that Coleman might get "drafted" into the Cubs bullpen at some point, especially if there are no othyer viable options. While Coleman does not have closer (or even set-up) type stuff, he probably could make a decent middle-reliever capable of giving the Cubs a quality inning or two when needed.

Meanwhile, the Cubs threatened in both the 5th and 7th innings, but did not score.

Theriot led off with a double and Kosuke Fukudome followed with a walk in the bottom of the 5th, but both runners were left where they started after D-Lee lined out to LF, Ramirez popped-out to Brewer 1B Prince Fielder in foul territory, and Byrd flied out to deep left-center (nice running catch by Gomez).

Facing ex-WAS RHRP Marco Estrada in the bottom of the 7th with the score tied 3-3, PH Kevin Millar worked a lead-off walk, and was advanced to 2nd base when Sam Fuld put down a picture-perfect 1-4 sac bunt. Starlin Castro then reached base on an infield hit (a "swinging bunt" down the 3rd base line), with Millar advancing to 3rd with the potential go-ahead run. But then with Starlin Castro breaking off first, Micah Hoffpauir struck out swinging on a 3-2 pitch, and Castro was called out for sliding past 2nd base (he had the base stolen easily, too). I hate to say this because it's not fair to Castro, but the play brought back nightmares of Ronny Cedeno running the bases.

LHP James Russell worked a 1-2-3 top of the 8th for the Cubs, striking out the side on just 14 pitches. I wouldn't be surprised if Russell makes the Cubs Opening Day 25-man roster as a reliever, especially if both Tom Gorzelanny and Sean Marshall begin the season in the Cubs starting rotation (what with Ted Lilly not expected to be ready at the start of the season).

Tyler Colvin roped a single to RF with two outs in the bottom of the 8th, but Darwin Barney flied out to the warning track in deep right-center to end the inning, keeping the game tied at three going into the 9th.

2009 Iowa Cubs closer Blake Parker made his 2010 Cactus League debut in the 9th, and eventually allowed the two-out two-run game-winning HR to Inglett, after getting off on the wrong foot by walking the first man he faced. Like Randy Wells, Parker is a former catcher who was converted to pitcher by the Cubs, and while he has the potential to be a decent MLB reliever, he also has had a nasty habit of surrendering 9th inning gopher balls going back to the last couple of weeks of the PCL season last Summer and then again with the AFL Mesa Solar Sox in October-November '09. Perhaps as a direct result of this misfortune, Parker tends to nibble a lot (he threw 18 pitches in the 9th inning today, but only nine strikes), before having to groove a pitch down the middle to avoid another walk. He really needs to learn to just trust his stuff.

The Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 9th against Brewers NRI LHP A. J. Murray, although Welington Castillo did hit a near game-tying HR down ther RF line (it was caught by Jody Gerut on the warning track in front of the fence).

The San Francisco Giants visit HoHoKam Park tomorrow, and Carlos Zambrano is scheduled to get his second start in the game.

Well, maybe they should have cancelled this one, too.

On a day when it was warmer in Chicago (49 degrees) than it was in Mesa at game time (43 degrees, as reported in the boxscore), Cubs reliever Blake Parker gave up a two-run homer to the Brewers' Joe Inglett and that was the difference in a 5-3 loss to Milwaukee, edging the Cubs' spring record down to 3-2.

Pat Hughes mentioned on the WGN broadcast that it's still going to be another week until the first roster cuts; Parker, who was the closer at Iowa last year, didn't do himself any favors in the now virtually open competition for the last two or three spots in the major league bullpen.

Derrek Lee hit his second homer of the spring, a solo shot.

There was some good news that came out of this game. Randy Wells, the first Cub starter to go three innings, made the most of it -- giving up only a single, while striking out two. Wells also drove in a run with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly. Carlos Marmol got nicked for a couple of singles and a walk, which resulted in two runs (one unearned due to an error. He did strike out two.

Of the young Cub relievers today, lefty James Russell put on the best showing, striking out all three batters he faced. Granted that only one of them (Jody Gerut) has any major league experience, but Russell, who is the son of former major league closer Jeff Russell, has earned some more opportunities to show Lou and the coaches what he can do.

After today, the rain and cold weather is supposed to move out of the Phoenix area and gradual warming into the 70's is expected through the weekend and into next week. That's got to be good news for the players, who could be excused for thinking they'd taken a detour through the upper Midwest the last three days. Today's game was delayed by rain for about 50 minutes.

Carlos Zambrano makes his second spring start tomorrow vs. the Giants at Mesa. Perhaps you-know-who -- HWSNBN -- will not be heard on the MLB.com audio broadcast as he was during today's game. Attendance today was 8,475, not bad for a day when the weather was so awful. That makes the season average for four dates 10,114 -- likely to start increasing as the weather improves.

There is nothing wrong with signing a LOOGY to come out of the pen for a team. Matter of fact, most teams actually need one to face the Ryan Howard's of the world. So, who is the Cubs LOOGY?

I'll tell you that it is not John Grabow, or at least it shouldn't be. The Cubs picked up Grabow at the trade deadline last year, which was probably the best they could do. The problem is that they decieded to resign him to a two-year $7.5 million contract this offseason for some reason. If there is one thing that Jim Hendry is good at, it is signing relievers to mulit-year deals for lots of money. It's not a very good trait, but a trait he owns and uses quite often.

Grabow finished 2009 with a respectable 3.36 ERA, but his WHIP was 1.41, which is not great for a releiver. Against lefties, Grabow held them to a .222 average with a .607 OPS against. That's not terrible again, but I would rather have a lefty that shut lefties down even more than that. Against righties, Grabow was worse, which is to be suspected. Righties hit .238 with a .697 OPS against. The Cubs could do worse for relievers, but they could do much better. His numbers last year match his three-year average, so there shouldn't be any shock with the preformance Grabow gives in 2010.

AJ's take:
Yarbage couldn't be more right about Hendry's tendency to sign middling veteran relievers to relatively exorbitant contracts. But in terms of Grabow's likely performance, I have to disagree with Yarbage on this one. I'm afraid he might be very, very bad next season.

Last year, Grabow walked about five guys per nine innings. The year before, the number was about 4.5 per nine. In America, we call that "not very good" in terms of control.

Lucky for Johnnie G, he only gave up five home runs in his 72 IP last year, so the walks didn't bite him in the ass. But if you look at how many of his fly balls allowed turned into home runs -- roughly 5.7% last year -- you realize how appropriate the word "lucky" is in this discussion, because for most pitchers (and on average over John's career) about 10% of your fly balls will leave the yard.

Grabow will probably keep walking guys, and he'll probably give up more home runs than he did in 2009, which will inflate his ERA. Expect an earned run average close to 4.50. OK, so, maybe not terrible, like Yarbage was saying to begin with, but not set-up worthy, I wouldn't think. And if he doesn't cut down on the walks, definitely a chance to be shockingly bad.

Remember how mad Lou used to get when Heilman and Marmol and Gregg refused to stop walking dudes? That anger may resume so long as Grabow continues to get a significant number of innings.

Rob's take:
Not a LOOGY.  However, I am not as reticent about Grabow's salary as my friends are.

Kurt's take:
I like choo-choo trains! 

Coast to Coast Tickets has a large selection of tickets to Chicago Cubs games and other MLB games!

As I watch the Cubs this spring, I get asked a lot about Alfonso Soriano and what he means to the team. I think he's very important to this team, but I don't believe the 2010 season is going to rise or fall based on Soriano's performance alone. We're probably not going to see the career numbers he was able to post with the Rangers and in his one season in Washington, but I do believe he'll be much better than he was last year. Hopefully, Xavier Nady heals from his arm injury and is able to be effective. Then, you might see a rotation in the outfield to give Soriano some time off so his knee doesn't act up again and Kosuke gets some time off against tough left-handed starters.

 

Bob

Randy Wells makes his 2nd start of the spring.

I know that some of you tire of me ripping other writers, and I will reiterate again that I appreciate your position and that I could give two shits about it.

Every once and a while I like to head on over to Bleed Cubbie Blue, where most of us have been banned from posting, and because of that, when I need to refute something that the talentless void that is Al Yellon has written, I have to do it here because he won’t let me do it there any more.

Today, he’s got a doozy.  He unveiled the results of the moronic community projections he and his legion of dumbasses worked on the past few weeks.  You probably know the drill.  You guess what numbers certain players will put up during the season and you average those with what everybody else engaged in the pointless exercise thinks.  These are never any good, and they’re almost always wildly optimistic.

So I was interested to see what the Pollyellons would come up with.  And, it’s just about what you would expect.

They think that six of the Cubs regular eight players will post OPS’s of over .800, and that three of them will top .900.  Well, it turns out they really only think two guys will top .900.  You’ll see.  Anyway, if their projections are true, Rudy Jaramillo deserves a raise, and Mark McGwire is going to demand to find out where Rudy’s getting his shit.

One set of numbers struck me as really odd.  Their projection for Kosuke Fukudome is laughable.  Here’s what Al has down as the projections for Kosuke’s averages.

              BA      OBA     SLG     OPS
Kosuke        .292    .395    .554    .949

That’s just wrong, and dumb.  But when you look at the raw numbers Al published for Kosuke, they don’t look THAT crazy.  Crazy, yes, but not THAT crazy.

430 at bats, 120 hits, 27 doubles, four triples and 11 homers.

Here’s why they don’t look THAT crazy.  Because when you figure the batting average, on base average and slugging percentage correctly, you get this.

              BA      OBA     SLG     OPS
Kosuke        .279    .385    .437    .822

It’s still too high, but it’s not quite as laughable.  And the best part is that in the comments section (that we’re not allowed to play in), Al just can’t figure out why everybody was so gosh darned optimistic about Kosuke.

So it made me wonder.  If he screwed that up, how many of the other ones did he botch?

The short answer is…all of them.

He got them all wrong.  Every single one.  He didn’t do the math right for any of them.  In fact, if you just look at batting average, on base average, slugging percentage and OPS, he had 32 chances to take the raw numbers and average them.  He was wrong 30 times.  Thirty.

Al batted .062 on this exercise.

To be fair, since he didn’t ask for hit batsmen you can’t accurately calculate on base average (hits + walks + hit batsmen/ at bats + walks + hit batsmen + sacrifice flies).  But that doesn’t matter for this exercise because you just leave that out of both sides of the equation.  Same with sac flies since he didn’t ask for it.  Sac bunts aren’t factored into on base average.  See, no wonder stat heads think they’re dumb.

So how far off was Al?  I mean he didn’t miss them all by 127 points, like he did Kosuke, right?  I underlined and made the two he figured correctly red.  He can print it out and put it on his mommy’s refrigerator.

                      Actual Math                             Al's Math
               BA      OBA     SLG     OPS             BA      OBA     SLG     OPS
Soto          .284    .361    .474    .835            .289    .365    .483    .849       Al +14
Lee           .302    .383    .537    .920            .304    .384    .539    .924       Al +4
Baker         .283    .348    .436    .784            .282    .345    .434    .779       Al -5
E-ramis       .309    .384    .556    .950            .312    .386    .568    .954       Al +4
Theriot       .291    .358    .379    .737            .291    .356    .378    .735       Al -2
Soriano       .282    .335    .518    .853            .282    .333    .517    .851       Al -2
Byrd          .287    .347    .465    .812            .286    .346    .461    .807       Al +5
Fukudome      .279    .385    .437    .822            .292    .395    .554    .949       Al +127

It’s pretty obvious that he let the lemmings put in their own averages and he averaged those, instead of taking the time to figure out the averages himself, from the numbers he demanded they provide him anyway.  Or is it?  Because they came fairly close most of the time.  He jacked up Soto’s pretty badly.  Maybe he just doesn’t know how to calculate anything?

Nah, not our boy Al.  He knows everything.

Oh, and how long did it take to check his work?  About ten minutes.  Nice job though, Al.

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We all know the Cubs need bullpen help.

We also know the Cleveland Indians are probably not going anywhere this year and probably would like to get rid of Kerry Wood's contract, which calls for him to be paid $10.5 million this year, and $11 million in 2011 if he has 55 games finished this season (otherwise, the $11m becomes a club option).

We also know that the Cubs don't have a whole lot of payroll space. But could the Cubs bring Wood back in the 8th-inning role -- with the possibility of him being available to close if Carlos Marmol fails -- if the Tribe would eat a large portion of that deal? If Wood were a setup man, he wouldn't have 55 games finished (he had 50 last year as a closer, and 56 as Cubs closer in 2008).

Or -- now here's something you'd probably all be in favor of -- could the Cubs and Indians trade contracts? Could Carlos Silva be of interest to Cleveland?

George Castle says "bring him back":

Wood’s veteran stature, his knowledge of the pressure surrounding all things Cub and the fact he won’t wet his pants in a tight spot in the eighth make him the best man for the job now. His motivation would be unquestioned, and he’d be coming home after having moved here full-time from longtime quarters in the Phoenix area.

Carol Slezak in the Sun-Times, though, says Wood's too expensive:

Wood is coming off a pretty good season, and bullpen help is hard to find. But it's so like Cubs fans to think that a sentimental favorite can return to Wrigley Field and save the day. So let's nip this one in the bud, OK? Because the Cubs aren't about to spend $10.5 million on anyone -- let alone a player with a lengthy history of injuries.

Again, maybe the money could be negotiated -- and the "lengthy history of injuries" ended for Wood in 2007. His DL time in 2008 was for a blister, not arm-related trouble, and he was healthy in 2009. Despite numbers that don't look that great for 2009, Wood was pitching for a much poorer team last year than he did in 2008, often going several days without a save opportunity, and his numbers from July 1 to the end of the season were solid and not dissimilar to his 2008 performance.

If the money issue can be solved, this is the right move to make. Bring him back, Jim.

On to today's game after the jump.

Randy Wells makes his second start of the spring, so I assume he'll be going three innings today. We may see some of the relievers who were going to go in the split-squad games on Sunday. Jeff Suppan will start for the Brewers.

Lineup via tweet from Carrie:

SS Theriot, RF Fukudome, 1B Lee, 3B Ramirez, CF Byrd, LF Soriano, 2B Fontenot, C Soto, P Wells

Today's game is on WGN radio with Pat & Ron. If you have MLB Audio, you can listen to that or the MLB.com broadcast. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

From 2004. 

 I'm on an extended business trip, so I'm putting up some of my fav older posts while I'm gone. Please keep comments coming as I'm gonna depend on you for what's REALLY going on, and I'll do my best to answer.

Thanks to everyone who submitted projections in the community projection series. For the starting eight position players, we had anywhere from 52 projections (Marlon Byrd) to 98 (Derrek Lee). There were enough to make the overall projections legitimate ones, and I don't think you'll find any of them way out of line.

The numbers you'll see after the jump were rounded up or down from what appeared the spreadsheet. In certain cases this might mean that some averaging numbers might be off by small amounts.

Geovany Soto: .289/.365/.483 (.849 OPS) 464 AB, 64 runs, 132 hits, 26 doubles, 1 triple, 20 HR, 77 RBI, 56 BB, 96 K

Derrek Lee: .304/.384/.539 (.924 OPS) 549 AB, 92 runs, 166 hits, 35 doubles, 2 triples, 30 HR, 112 RBI, 72 BB, 111 K

Jeff Baker: .282/.345/.434 (.779 OPS) 381 AB, 57 runs, 108 hits, 21 doubles, 2 triples, 11 HR, 53 RBI, 38 BB, 73 K

Aramis Ramirez: .312/.386/.568 (.954 OPS) 540 AB, 92 runs, 167 hits, 35 doubles, 2 triples, 33 HR, 113 RBI, 66 BB, 83 K

Ryan Theriot: .291/.356/.378 (.735 OPS) 556 AB, 83 runs, 162 hits, 24 doubles, 5 triples, 5 HR, 48 RBI, 58 BB, 75 K. For double clutches, entries ranged from "3" to "infinity" to "every time" to "too many" to "4342455454155443554".

Alfonso Soriano: .282/.333/.517 (.851 OPS) 521 AB, 82 runs, 147 hits, 30 doubles, 3 triples, 29 HR, 90 RBI, 41 BB, 118 K. For outfield hops, entries ranged from "0" to "entirely too many" to "unknowable" to "54333123242321341".

Marlon Byrd: .286/.346/.461 (.807 OPS) 523 AB, 76 runs, 150 hits, 33 doubles, 3 triples, 18 HR, 79 RBI, 48 BB, 92 K

Kosuke Fukudome: .292/.395/.554 (.950 OPS) 430 AB, 71 runs, 120 hits, 27 doubles, 4 triples, 11 HR, 55 RBI, 74 BB, 78 K. For revolutions in batter's box (otherwise known as "helicopter swings"), entries ranged from "-13" to "0.75" to "10000000".

Other than Fukudome's SLG -- which I think is too high -- these averaged-out projections seem pretty realistic. If Soto, Ramirez and Soriano can meet them -- they're all coming off subpar years for various reasons -- and the rest can perform up to what are close to career averages, the Cubs will have a very good offense.

I chose for Marshall the nickname "Doghouse," because at this point I doubt that Lou Piniella would trust him with the keys to his car. 

It's not that Marshall's been bad for the Cubs.  In fact, he posted a 3.23 ERA in 39.0 innings of relief last year, while racking up 7 holds.  He did his job, and he did it well enough to be back in 2010, hopefully as a bright spot in an otherwise murky bullpen. 

Over the span of his tumultuous career in Chicago, Marshall's made 134 appearances, including 59 lackluster starts.  He's won 19, lost 29, and posted a mediocre ERA of 4.55 while allowing 390 hits and 149 walks in 379.2 innings of work.  None of those stats are bad enough to hate him, nor are they good enough to expect success from him.

Chances are, if Piniella uses Marshall correctly in 2010, the Cubs lefty will toss between 50 and 60 innings of work, serving not as the LOOGY (lefties batted .243 against him, which is not good enough to warrant that role) but as a standard 5th/6th inning guy.  What Lou should not do is use Sean Marshall in a starter's role. 

I nicknamed him Doghouse, but he's still a bullpen option I'd trust over most of the other guys out there.   He just as easily could be renamed "Reliable," or perhaps "Regular" (or "Depends").  Let's hope for the former, for many reasons.

AJ's take:

The thing that makes Marshall so interesting to me is his mix of pitches. For example, did you know only 21% of his pitches thrown last year were a straight-up fastball? In contrast, nearly a third of his pitches were curve balls.

Marshall doesn't throw a fastball very often because he doesn't throw very hard. He averaged 87mph on it last year. What's worse, the vast majority of his pitches were thrown within 6mph of each other, between 81 and 87. Only his curve ball generates significant difference in velocity, which he throws at 71.

I'm afraid that, given his repertoire, it will be difficult for Marshall to ever make it through a major league line-up more than twice. But given the status of Lilly's shoulder, he may be asked to do that a few times at the beginning of the season. I bet he's the fifth starter through April, which'll give him something like three starts for the month. From there, who knows?

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No longballs for our side today -- instead, the Cubs pounded out 12 hits and drew eight walks off nine (!) Athletics pitchers and defeated the A's at Phoenix 10-3, running their spring record to 3-1.

That's right, I said NINE pitchers -- the Oakland starter, Brett Anderson, didn't even make the usual two innings that most starters take in their first spring start. A's manager Bob Geren had to yank him with two out in the second inning after he had given up a hit and a pair of walks. He must have reached a prearranged pitch limit.

A few of the other A's relievers did OK, but the Cubs teed off on Faustino de los Santos; he allowed six runs without getting anyone out in the seventh. He gave up a single and a double, wild-pitched in a run, then allowed a walk and another single. Tyler Colvin then hit what could have been a double-play ball, but instead reached on an error. After one more walk de los Santos was done. Bobby Cassevah (yeah, I know: who are these guys?) got out of the inning, but not before allowing three more runs.

Meanwhile, the Cubs pitchers who threw today did reasonably well. Ryan Dempster retired all six batters he faced; Jeff Samardzija threw two scoreless frames and Esmailin Caridad finished up with a 1-2-3 ninth. I really like Caridad and think he might do a good job in taking over the 8th inning role from the injured Angel Guzman.

All three of the A's runs came as a result of homers -- Kurt Suzuki's solo shot off Sean Marshall, and a two-run job off Tom Gorzelanny by former Cubs farmhand Josh Donaldson. Two other former Cubs -- Eric Patterson and Jake Fox -- also played for the A's today, but didn't do much.

Attendance on a day when it wasn't much warmer in Phoenix (53 degrees at gametime) than it is right now outside my window in Chicago (48) was 4,301. Meanwhile, for the three games so far at HoHoKam Park, the Cubs are averaging 10,661 in attendance, pretty close to what they did a year ago, with better weather to come.

About the only news today was that Mike Fontenot (who went 2-for-3) played half the game at shortstop; Lou appears to want to at least see if he can handle it as a backup, with Andres Blanco out for a while. Fontenot had one uneventful chance in the field, so it's way too early to tell.

I haven't seen anything official yet, but it should be Randy Wells starting in Mesa tomorrow against the Brewers, if the rotation so far holds.

For the fourth year running I go through the various prospect lists. I'm trying to stick the more established ones and there are even more lists available at Wiklifield. Scout.com didn't seem to put out a Cubs list this year or has yet to and I'm not waiting any longer. Click on the image for the link to the original article.

5-Star Prospects
1. Josh Vitters
2. Starlin Castro
   
   4-Star Prospects
   
3. Hak-Ju Lee
4. Brett Jackson
   
   3-Star Prospects
   
5. Andrew Cashner
6. Jay Jackson
7. Chris Carpenter
8. Chris Archer
9. Kyler Burke
10. Ryan Flaherty
11. John Gaub

Four More: Chris Huseby, Logan Watkins, Dae-Eun Rhee, Darwin Barney

What They Say: While things didn't work out at the big-league level (cue broken record), the Cubs' 2009 season down on the farm was an unmitigated success, with far more steps forwards (many of them huge) than regressions, and a possible piece of thievery with finding Jackson at 31^st overall. The North Siders will move way up in this year's organizational rankings.

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1. Starlin Castro, SS
2. Brett Jackson, OF
3. Josh Vitters, 3B
4. Andrew Cashner, RHP
5. Jay Jackson, RHP
6. Hak-Ju Lee, SS
7. Logan Watkins, 2B
8. Chris Carpenter, RHP
9. Ryan Flaherty, SS/2B/3B
10. D.J. LeMahieu, SS/2B

What They Say: Most of Chicago's best farmhands are at least a couple of years away from making an impact in the major leagues, so the Cubs may have to transition from trying to contend to trying to reload if they aren't able to quickly turn their fortunes around in 2010. That would mean more waiting for fans whose patience already has been stretched thin.

---

Rankings are preliminary and could have changed in the book that Sickels publishes.

1. Starlin Castro (B+)
2. Josh Vitters (B+)
3. Brett Jackson (B)
4. Jay Jackson (B)
5. Andrew Cashner (B)
6. Hak-Ju Lee (B)
7. Chris Carpenter (B-)
8. Kyler Burke (B-)
9. Ryan Flaherty (B-)
10. D.J. LeMahieu (C+)
11. Brooks Raley (C+)
12. Logan Watkins (C+)
13. Esmailin Caridad (C+)
14. Blake Parker (C+)
15. John Gaub (C+)
16. Matt Spencer (C+)
17. Dae-Eun Rhee (C+)
18. Casey Coleman (C+)
19. Tyler Colvin (C)
20. Jeff Beliveau (C)

OTHERS: (Grade C): James Adduci, OF; Jeff Antigua, LHP; Chris Archer, RHP; Darwin Barney, SS; Justin Bristow, RHP; David Cales, RHP; Welington Castillo, C; Rafael Dolis, RHP; Brandon Guyer, OF; Chris Huseby, RHP; Austin Kirk, LHP; Scott Maine, LHP; Trey McNutt, RHP; Mike Parisi, RHP; Chris Rusin, LHP; James Russell, LHP; Ryan Searle, RHP; Tony Thomas, 2B.

What They Say: The Cubs system has more depth than is commonly realized, particularly up the middle. Castro took a huge leap forward this year. He'll need some consolidation time, and I hope they are wise enough to give it to him, but at worst he should be a good major league regular and he could end up as a star. Brett Jackson also has star potential, but I still have some concerns about his strike zone judgment and want to see him at higher levels before completely buying into the maximum projections. Josh Vitters is a weird case; I posted his full comment in the Cubs player list thread on the blog. I don't want to be a fundamentalist about his low walk rate, but 12 walks for an entire season is pretty ridiculous. It helps that he doesn't strike out much, and because of his age I'm willing to be patient, no pun intended, for awhile longer. Guys like Lee, Flaherty, Watkins, and LeMahieu give them plenty of options up the middle to go along with Castro. Kyler Burke is the big sleeper in this system and I'm not sure why he doesn't get more attention.

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Diamond Futures

You can see the method behind their rankings by visiting this link. They have a 300 page PDF prospect guide on all the teams available for $9.95 if you're interested. They gave me a complimentary copy and I thought the information and detail was top notch at the price.

1. Starlin Castro (A)
2. Josh Vitters (A)
3. Brett Jackson (A-)
4. Andrew Cashner (A-)
5. Hak-Ju Lee (B+)
6. Kyler Burke (B+)
7. Jay Jackson (B+)
8. Logan Watkins (B)
9. D.J. LeMahieu (B)
10. John Gaub (B)
11. Chris Archer (B-)
12. Dae-eun Rhee (B-)
13. Jeff Angtigua (B-)
14. Chris Carpenter (B-)
15. Rafael Dolis (B-)
16. Trey McNutt (B-)
17. Brooks Raley (B-)
18. Matt Spencer (B-)
19. Ryan Flaherty (B-)
20. Blake Parker (B-)

What They Say: We never know how things are going to come out when we start these rankings, but our biggest surprise has to be the Chicago Cubs coming in at #6. It’s not that the Cubs don’t have some talented players, it’sjust that they graduated five players to the Majors in 2009—from an already weak system, and if you had evaluated the team in early June their prospect hopes looked pretty dim. Then Starlin Castro puttogether one of the most ‘helium’ filled seasons in the Minors, Brett Jackson was drafted and surprised most everyone with his play, Andrew Cashner located his missing command, Kyler Burke finally had the breakout season everyone had been waiting for, John Gaub became one ofthe Minors’ best relief prospects and they had a huge haul of young prospects from the Pacific Rim. Suddenly it is like an entirely different organization. The strength of the organization lies in its depth, as only our top three organizations have a longer list of ‘C’ or higher prospects. There also is a good balance between high-ceiling and high-floor players. Additionally, likely no organization in baseball works the Pacific Rim harder than the Cubs, and it looks like they are about to reap some of the fruits of their efforts…but everything isn’t roses for the Cubs, as once you get past the top nine prospects, pitchers make up all but eight of the next twenty-five spots. Perhaps more importantly, few of the Cubs’ prospects will be ready to contribute before late 2011 or 2012, so it will likely be another couple of years before the impact of the rebounded farm system is felt at the Big League level.

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1. Starlin Castro
2. Brett Jackson
3. Josh Vitters
4. Jay Jackson
5. Andrew Cashner
6. Hak-Ju Lee
7. Chris Carpenter
8. D.J. LeMahieu
9. Chris Archer
10. Jose Valdez

 

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Arizona Phil's Top 15

1. Andrew Cashner
2. Jay Jackson
3. Starlin Castro
4. Josh Vitters
5. Welington Castillo
6. D.J. LeMahieu
7. Brett Jackson
8. Hak-Ju Lee
9. Chris Carpenter
10. Kyler Burke
11. Ryan Flaherty
12. Sam Fuld
13. Tyler Colvin
14. Darwin Barney
15. Brandon Guyer

 

---

And now for the always humorous list of 16 from yours truly (15 in years past). I generally like guys that actually have done something at AA or higher, but that's just a guideline and the Cubs don't have too many of those in their system at the moment. The age is what they'll be playing at during the 2010 season.

1. Starlin Castro (age 20)- The boy wonder is the hot topic of spring training and it doesn't appear like anything will slow his ascent to the majors. The Edgar Renteria comparisions seem about right to me, anything better than that will require a refined eye or development of 15-20 HR power. He looks like he'll find Wrigley in 2010 and be a solid regular at worse. At age soon-to-be 20, we still don't know if he's reached his peak skillset.

2. Andrew Cashner (age 23) - i don't think anyone but the Cubs think he'll ever make it as a starter, but I have hard time believing he won't be at least a major league closer some day down the road and a dominating one at that. Two plus pitches along with an occasional changeup and he appears to be finding better control. It seems like he'll find the Cubs roster in 2010 as well.

3. Josh Vitters (age 20) - He has the most upside of anyone in the organization in my not-so-humble opinion, but two years worth of injuries and you have to wonder if it's going to become a chronic thing. The walk rate is a bit worrisome, but not as much as the injuries so far. The fact that he probably won't see the majors until 2011 or 2012 puts him behind Castro and Cashner at the moment.

4. Jay Jackson (age 22)- He looks to have all the makings of a mid-rotation starter with the upside of a #2 if everything breaks correctly. I do fear a little Sean Gallagher in him, good control and an array of pitches, but not much of an out pitch. That can get you by in the minors, but the majors could provide problems. I'm shocked he didn't get an NRI this spring training.

5. Hak-Ju Lee (age 19) - He's a long way from Wrigley, but the reports that he could push the boy wonder to second base are pretty strong and an elite defensive shortstop would be a nice thing to have. He struck out a little too much for my tastes (16.4% K/PA), but did walk at over a 10% clip and with rave reviews about his speed, the leadoff spot seems natural. There's a ton of competition at shortstop in the system, so let's see how he handles the higher levels.

6. Tyler Colvin (age 24) - Colvin wouldn't have even been in thet top 16 until spring training and the reports that he bulked up 25 pounds over the offseason and is hitting moonshots in camp. He's gone from an afterthought/4th outfielder with questionable plate disclipline at best to potential everyday center fielder with 30 home run power. He is roadblocked at the moment with Soriano, Fukudome and Byrd, but with 3 option years left, there's no reason to rush him out of the system. It also wouldn't be too hard to trade Fukudome or Byrd after 2010 if Colvin can show something at the major league level at some point in 2010.

7. Chris Carpenter (age 24) - The backstory on Carpenter is a player drafted out of high school in the 7th round in 2004 by the Detroit Tigers that decided to go to Kent State (presumambly would have been drafted much higher if he didn't plan to go to college). He then blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery and another procedure to clean out scar tissue before the Cubs drafted him in the 3rd round in 2008. He went through 3 levels last year, but just 130.2 IP with an 8.1 K/9 rate to 3.6 BB/9 rate, so control is an issue. He does seem like a guy that could go through the system fast with a 92-95 mph fastball that can touch 97 and a good hard curveball. He's working on a changeup which would be the key to major league success as a starter.

8. Brett Jackson (age 21) - I'm not as high as most on Jackson quite yet. He was impressive with 7 home runs in Peoria last year (although just 1 in Boise in a similar number of plate appearances). It just seems a little flukey. He also struck out 25% of the time in his 128 PA's in Peoria. Small sample sizes of course, but as he goes up the ladder, he'll need to get that way down unless he's a 30 HR guy, which doesn't appear to be the case.

9. Esmailin Caridad (age 26) - A late bloomer that was signed by the Cubs out of the Japanese leagues. While he threw in the low 90's as a starter in the minors, he easily touches 95mph when relieving with a good slider. He could be a surprise main set-up man this year or even a desperation closer down the road.

10. Ryan Flaherty (age 23) - He probably doesnt' stand a chance at staying at shortstop with the Cubs, but he did pop 20 home runs last year in Peoria with a decent walk rate of just under 10% and a K rate at just above 18%. He's already started playing 2b and 3b and verstaility in the National League is of course a big plus. He seems to be a big student of the game including a series of videos on hitting technique on youtube.

11. Kyler Burke (age 22) - I'm pretty cautious on Burke as his breakout 2009 season was also his third go-around in the Midwest League. But he was a first round talent when drafted by the San Diego Padres and has a cannon out of right field. He had 61 extra-base hits and incredible improvement in his walk and strikeout rates, but you have to worry if pitchers were just afraid to pitch to him.

12. Logan Watkins (age 20) - Watkins was a 21st round pick in 2008 that received third round bonus money to keep him from Wichita State. I can't find confirmation, but he only had 318 PA's last year, so I assume there was an injury. He was an all-state QB and defensive back in high school and BA describes him as a gifted athelete. He's shown pretty solid plate disclipline so far with the ability to put the ball in play and has a strong enough arm that he could play 2b, 3b or the outfield along with shortstop. If he can find just a little power, he could rise higher among the Cubs crowded middle infield.

13. Welington Castillo (age 23) - This is mostly based off Arizona Phil's recommendations and observations, but he seems like he could be a plus defensive catcher with 15-20 HR power. On the other hand, he's struck out nearly 20% of the time in the minors without showing any desire to take a walk.

14. Sam Fuld (age 28) - I love Fuld's Tom Waddle-like style of defensive play, but he's likely going to kill himself at some point against an unforgiving outfield wall. He's shown pretty decent walk rates through the minors and puts the ball in play, but not enough power or speed that I could ever see him getting a regular job unless out of desperation. But a major league reserve isn't a terrible major league career either.

15. Blake Parker (age 25) - He's a converted catcher that will be going on his fourth year of pitching so I'm giving him a bit of a break. He did well as a closer in Iowa and has put up K rates north of 10 last season although way too walk happy (5 BB/9). He throws a low 90's sinker that can touch 95, picked up a changeup from Dae-Eun Rhee who has one of the best in the system and is working on his slider.

16. Chris Archer (age 21) - His strikeout rate of 9.8 K/9 in the Midwest League was great, but a 5.4 BB/9 rate is not so great. He keeps the ball in the park though, and right now has a low 90's fastball, with the "potential" of a plus curve and weak changeup according to Diamond Futures. That's not particularly promising in my opinion to be a major league starter.

Some Honorable Mentions:

Justin Berg - plus sinker but never more than an expendable bullpen guy

John Gaub - could be a solid LOOGY, but seems to rely more on deception than stuff

James Russell - lefty bullpen guy, seems a lot like Sean Marshall without the ability to start

DJ LeMahieu - No one thinks he can stick at shortstop and he needs to find some power to be a major league 2b-men.

Dae-Eun Rhee - We'll see how he does after recovering from injury, allegedlly one of the more exciting arms with a fantastic changeup

Rafael Dolis - see Dae-eun Rhee about the injuries

Mitch Atkins - hopefully his 2010 is closer to his 2008, and I still think could be a back-end rotation guy that has been healthy almost his entire career. But he's sure been hittable in what little I've seen so far.

Casey Coleman - doesn't sound like anything special stuff-wise, but was one of the Cubs minor league players of the year in 2009 and sinkerballers that can eat up innings can find good careers in the majors.

The guys from 10 on down would be C to C+ grades in my book and you can flip them anyway you want. Relievers that I don't see every see getting a chance to close are tough to get too excited about and you'll see them in the honorable mentions. 

It's a very young system with guys in their early 20's that are close to contributing. That's a nice thing to have considering the major league club is mostly on the wrong side of 30. I usually don't expect much from farmhands until age 24 or 25 at the major league level, so anything before that is a bonus and a good sign for their futures. But with that youth comes risk and still not a lot of guys with much success at AA or above, so be prepared for the Brian Dopirak-like drop-offs as well with some of these players (and yes I know Dopirak has had a nice resurgence with the Toronto Blue Jays, but he was slated to be Derrek Lee's replacement by 2007 with the Cubs).

Go get 'em Ryan!

With yesterday's split-squad cancellations, many of the minor leaguers and non-roster invitees who were going to get a chance to throw in Cactus League action will have to get their work in elsewhere; the two pitchers who were to start yesterday will throw in relief today. Full pitching rotation for the Cubs today after the jump. It'll be cool today and tomorrow -- only in the low 60's -- but then warming up rapidly toward the weekend.

Before you go there, a few links of interest today:

• Ed Sherman of Crain's Chicago Business interviews new Cubs marketing chief Wally Hayward.
• Joe Posnanski, an excellent writer, posted about the Rule 5 draft on his site. The post explains how the draft works and also gives some interesting history about the draft. I note, however, that Posnanski fails to explain the reason that Josh Hamilton wound up with the Reds. (He makes it sound like the Cubs could have kept him -- let's not start that falsehood again.)
• USA Today posted about a roundtable discussion including baseball people from many areas of the game about how to improve baseball.

Ryan Dempster will make his scheduled start today, his first of the spring. Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija, who were supposed to start the split-squad games yesterday, will both throw in relief. Sean Marshall is also expected to throw in today's game. Brett Anderson will start for the Athletics; among relievers for Oakland in today's game will be former White Sox farmhand Gio Gonzalez.

Today's starting lineup, via tweet from Carrie:

SS Theriot, RF Fukudome, 1B Lee, 3B Ramirez, CF Byrd, LF Soriano, DH Soto, C Hill, 2B Baker

There is no radio or TV coverage for today's game. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Over the last several months, I've written a number of posts about the effort to bring a new spring training complex for the Cubs to Mesa, Arizona. During this series of posts I have made no secret of my own feelings about this issue -- I believe the Cubs should stay in Mesa -- and have made several posts on this topic, including two interviews with the mayor of Mesa, Scott Smith.

In the comments to these posts many of you asked whether I would post a different view of this issue if I could get it -- to which I said I would. Thanks to Jim McLennan of our SBN Diamondbacks site, AZ Snakepit, I had the opportunity to pose questions to Derrick Hall, the president of the Diamondbacks. You'll see his responses after the jump.

First, here's a clarification I received from Mayor Smith regarding the so-called "Cubs tax" on Cactus League tickets:

I understand there have questions regarding the amount of money that would be available for teams in the Cactus League other than the Cubs under the current funding proposal. First of all, contrary to reports, funds will be available to all Cactus League teams from the first day monies are collected. Under the rental car/ticket surcharge proposal currently on the table, an estimated $82 million would be collected in the first twenty-five years and would be available for use by teams in the Cactus League other than the Cubs. The Cubs debt will be paid off in twenty-five years. After that, all monies collected will go to teams other than the Cubs. This will provide tens of millions of dollars in additional funds for cities and teams. It is unclear right now what revenue sources and amounts will ultimately be included in the legislation, and these numbers will most certainly change. It all depends on what is finally negotiated at the Legislature.

And, here's an introductory statement that Derrick Hall sent in his return email to me:

Let me begin by saying we want the Cubs to stay here. We would like to collectively identify solutions for them and want to work with them. This is also not a battle between the 14 other teams, Commissioner, and municipalities versus the Cubs. We are all opposed to parts of the legislation - specifically the ticket surcharge, not the Cubs. We believe the legislators hearts are in the right place, but their funding is not the solution.

Follow me past the jump for the rest of the interview. Many thanks to Derrick Hall for his time and his responses.

BCB: Can you state clearly and in detail why you are opposed to one of the proposed funding methods, the ticket surcharge?

DH: We are all opposed to the ticket surcharge because it involves taxing the fans of all clubs and creates a terrible precedent in this bad economy. Our state was hit harder than any other in baseball in this economic downturn, other than perhaps Detroit and Michigan. We have a clear understanding of the statewide budgetary hurdles, and do not want to put any more pressure on our public. We did our due diligence through our RFP process to determine the best possible candidates with the fewest, if any, public funding. Additionally, what do we about teams such as the Angels, who recently put millions of their own dollars into their facility? Or the A's, who asked for $14-16 million in upgrades before extending? They were denied due to the budget constraints of Phoenix, yet still extended. These are just a few examples of monies that would likely need to be reimbursed if we travel down this path. If the taxpayers voted and approved the surcharge, we would be fine with it. We do not agree with legislative fiats, and would rather it go to a referendum. But with that being said, my counterparts at the other 13 Clubs may disagree, because their fans are the ones traveling, yet our residents would be speaking for them with a ballot.

BCB: Please give your reaction to this statement by Mesa Mayor Scott Smith: "First of all, contrary to reports, funds will be available to all Cactus League teams from the first day monies are collected. Under the rental car/ticket surcharge proposal currently on the table, an estimated $82 million dollars would be collected in the first twenty-five years and would be available for use by teams in the Cactus League other than the Cubs. The Cubs debt will be paid off in twenty-five years. After that, all monies collected will go to teams other than the Cubs."

DH: I respect Mayor Smith and consider him a good friend. I know he wants to do all he can to keep the Cubs and I admire that. I have seen the numbers and do not see how they add up. We did the math ourselves, and based on what we consider the average ticket price, minus comps, with the proposed 8% number, we would raise less than $1.5 million per year. The legislators' numbers show over $2 million from there to begin with, and begins to escalate to a point well over $7 million per year. I do not understand how such an escalation can be predicted - it is simply not realistic. Additionally, there are other teams that will experience expired agreements in the very near future, such as the Brewers in just two years. Yet, they do not have access to any of the supposed funds until the Cubs have paid off their new complex. We will risk losing teams like Milwaukee, Texas, San Diego, etc. in just a few years from now. My colleagues suggested a hotel bed tax to go along with the rental car tax instead of a ticket surcharge. Who truly benefits from spring training visitors?

BCB: It's my understanding that the new complex the Diamondbacks and Rockies will begin play at next spring will not be subject to the surcharge because it is on native American land. That being the case, why are you opposed to this surcharge?

DH: That is correct in our opinion, which should show that this is not a selfish move on any of our parts. We want what is fair and equitable to all Cactus League Clubs. In years past, we were in recruiting mode. Now, we are in retention mode and need to keep the needs of ALL Cactus League teams in mind. But our fans will be affected - even though they may not receive a ticket increase at our complex, they will when they go to see our Club on the road.

BCB: What are the advantages of building on native American land? What incentives were the Diamondbacks and Rockies given, if any?

DH: The main advantage was the capital capacity. The Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community made it clear that no public funding would be necessary.

BCB: What do you foresee happening to the the Cactus League if it loses the Cubs?

DH: I really could not predict. Again, we do not want to lose them and believe we will keep them here. They are extremely important to the Cactus League and continue to draw the best attendance wise. The Cactus League is strong and will always attract teams due to the weather and travel distances.

BCB: Assume that some public money will be needed to build the new Cubs complex. If you could come up with your own funding mechanism for such a complex, what would it be?

DH: We have given the legislators a few suggestions. The top priority and choice for MLB right now is to propose a bill to the Arizona House of Representatives that would permit municipalities in Arizona to create Local Revenue Allocation Districts ("LRADs") to finance economic development projects within voter-approved districts through the application of incremental property taxes approved by the affected taxpayers. We hope that all parties can come to agree that this will benefit every party.

Or: Another Baseball Philosophy Blog
There's an old saying - being a Cub fan and expecting them to win is a lot like praying to God and actually expecting an answer.  Well, it's not actually an old saying, but it could be.

I was browsing through the Facebook photo album of our writer the Uncouth Sloth, who has the most ridiculous Cubs collection I've ever seen (for a needs-to-be-updated reference point, start here, or better yet, find him on Facebook and see the up-to-date basement o' glory).  He's got a basement full of it -- he's got a royal blue Cubs couch and matching recliner!  He's got walls covered with pictures, autographed bats, baseballs, pennants from every playoff team, he's got a commemorative brick, he's even got a seat from the ballpark!  It'd be enough to make the greatest Cub fan weep in awe.

It doesn't take much of a study of that amazing basement to realize that Rob's life-long passion has been the Cubs.  But, although he's been a Cubs fan since he was a kid, as the years have passed he's become a husband and father, a responsible citizen, and a pillar of morality (yes, Rob, really).  Yet, if his epitaph says anything but "life long Cubs fan," I think his family and friends will be surprised, confused, and perhaps even disappointed. 

Like many of us, Rob has invested his time, his money, and, most importantly, his heart into the Chicago Cubs.  I doubt he would disagree when I say that he lives and dies by how well the Cubs play.  I also do not think that he'd disagree were I to write that he expects the Cubs to win, even when he knows that they won't.

Atheists and even many -- but not necessarily most -- religious-types would probably suggest that praying to receive an answer is an exercise of futility.  God, were He to exist, would not work that way.  And yet, I doubt you'd find many people who actively pray without holding some kind of hope of seeing any kind of result, coincidental or not.

Certainly, there are Cub supporters out there who react with incredulous scorn toward those who actively and openly display an emotional response to such an apparently scientific game.  If you think about baseball from an emotional, instinctive place, then they look upon you as though you should have died off with your neanderthal brethren thousands of years ago.  Seriously.  If they could set their phasers to Obliteration and blast you out of existence, they would.  That is not an exaggeration.  They believe that baseball -- and the outcomes of baseball -- should not only be viewed through a very clinical, scientific scope, but if you actually respond to poor outcomes in an emotional way then you are apparently missing the point and you are a pitiful, contemptible creature.  And under no circumstances should you ever "expect" anything -- if you follow a team with the expectation of seeing a championship, then you are an indescribable fool.  The team owes you nothing, they say, and you should expect nothing.  We've seen these free thinkers on the net, and perhaps you've even met one or two at games or bars, although that type tends not to escape their home basements too often and people without the social skills to make real friends rarely go to pubs. 

On the contrary, I think it's an extremely human reaction for us to expect certain results based on our efforts.  It's just unfortunate for us that, in the world of sports, we could cheer ourselves hoarse, spend ourselves poor, and watch until we go blind, and yet our efforts have no direct effect on the final score.

Still, it is not wrong to expect results, to hope for them, and to feel crushed when they are not delivered.  It's just a part of faith, where prayers are made with hopes that they will be heard, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they aren't.  In the green cathedral that is Wrigley Field, where baseball is practically a religion to some, and a divine comedy to others, there is a reason why fans are called "the faithful." 

I would just caution us all to be careful -- baseball, as with life, has never promised its faithful any kind of reward.  And in baseball, the only "fair" that exists is the one that rests between the two chalk lines that mark the playing field. 

Expect to win.  Expect to sometimes be emotionally crushed.  Expecting anything else marks you as not being a fan, or a part of the faithful.  Instead you're just an observer.  And that's fine too.  The field is big, and the stands hold tens of thousands.  There's room for everybody, and we'd all benefit from remembering that.

It’s bad enough that the Tribune has started something called “The Morning Phil” which is really just Phil Rogers reminding us every morning that he knows shit about baseball.  But on Sunday, he sat in a pressbox in Glendale after the Cubs-Sox game was rained out and he wrote another column.  This one was just as confounding and backed up by zero facts as usual.

Screw it.  Let’s see what horseshit he came up with this time.

Headline: Rainman’s 10 baseball truths so far in spring training

Get it, because it was raining, and because Phil writes like Raymond Babbitt.  And by the way, Rain Man is two words, not one.  But why would the Tribune waste time getting that right?

GLENDALE, Ariz. — An umbrella?

Are you kidding me? The things you need to pack for spring training are sunscreen — SPF 30+ for Midwesterners — a cap and Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook, so you’ll know something about the players in the game after the fifth inning.

Yes, let’s all pack the $32 Baseball America Prospect Handbook, an overpriced annual that takes its job so seriously they let baseball dipshit Phil Rogers write the prospect capsules for the Chicago White Sox.  Next year, they’re going to let Seattke Sutton handle the Mariners write up.

1. Neither Chicago team will enter the season as a division favorite. The Cardinals winning the NL Central is almost as automatic of a choice as the Phillies, behind Roy Halladay, winning the NL East. Some people will pick the White Sox to win the AL Central, but not as many as will pick the Twins (assuming Joe Nathan’s elbow is OK) or Tigers. I’ve visited the camps of all five of these Central teams and believe the optimism in four of them to be well-founded.

Did you follow any of that?  Nobody crafts a sentence quite like Phildo.  Keep in mind this is a guy who two years ago wrote a game story for a Cubs-Dodgers game, got the score, and the winning team wrong in the lede.  He’s a trained professional.

2. Baseball Prospectus is dissing one of the two Chicago teams it picks to go 80-82. That’s the Sox, who are clearly the better of our two teams. After the unlikely spending spree that brought Jake Peavy and Alex Rios last season, Ken Williams and Rick Hahn have done what they do best — filling the cracks with solid players at bargain prices.

I’m sure Baseball Prospectus has factored in the fact that the White Sox answer to a bad offense in 2009 was to add the human out machine, Juan Pierre, and to take $58 million over the next five years and flush it down the toilet–Alex Rios style.  But please, keep giving Kenny credit for trying to win the pennant in 2009 by trading for a pitcher who was on the disabled list, and for getting stuck with Rios’ contract when he never dreamed the Jays would just make him eat the whole thing.

The best part of importing guys like Freddy Garcia, J.J. Putz, Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones and Omar Vizquel is they add a ton of low-risk depth while prospects like Jordan Danks, Dayan Viciedo, Daniel Hudson and Clevelan Santeliz continue a relatively low-pressure development. “I like our kids,” Ozzie Guillen said Sunday. “Before we’d bring guys here who were kind of an embarrassment. Now our minor-league system is better.”

That had better be the “best part” of importing those guys, because since none of them can actually play, there had better be a reason for tying up 20 percent of your roster with them.

3. $140 million doesn’t buy what it used to. The Cubs, who join the Phillies in spending more money than every team except the Yankees and Red Sox, somehow have themselves about half a pitching staff. They had big bullpen issues long before Angel Guzman arrived with a sore shoulder and failed to address them, instead spending the winter preoccupied with off-loading Milton Bradley. The rotation isn’t scaring anyone, either.

See, that’s where you are wrong Phil.  That rotation scares the shit out of me.

4. Andruw Jones, baseball’s most experienced 32-year-old, isn’t ready to call it a career. He has lost weight and is in the best shape he has been in for years, and it’s showing on the field. He last had double-digit steals in 2001 but is running great, as evidenced by steals in his first two games.

Wait, he’s stolen two bases already in two spring training games!  Holy shit!  He’s on pace to steal 200 bases this year, then!  Considering he hasn’t stolen more than eight bases in a season since 2001, that seems to be just about the worst possible way to evaluate him.  Great job.  Andruw also has only hit better than .265 once since 2000 (seriously.)  He’s been terrible for three years now, and doing a few sit-ups isn’t likely to change that.

He could wind up with a bigger role than he’s being penciled into, provided he stays healthy. “He’s played center field real good,” Guillen said. “If Andruw continues playing like that, we’ll find a place for him to play.”

That place figures to be Charlotte.

5. Jake Peavy carries himself the way a front man should, whether it’s in a band or a starting rotation. His stats could take a beating as he moves from the NL and Petco Park, but the only one that will bother him is if he can’t maintain the .583 winning percentage. His Woodjock concert Thursday in Scottsdale will show the results he gets when he puts his mind to a cause.

He carried himself that way, all the way to 101 innings last year.  He’s been injured in three straight seasons now.  That’s not a good trend.  And Phil, if you want to use win-loss record to evaluate a pitcher (which is dumb), how about the fact that he’s only won more than 15 games once in his career.  He and Carlos Zambrano have been full-time starters the same number of years and Carlos has more wins (105 to 95) and a higher winning percentage (.607 to .583).  Now what were you talking about, again?  Oh, yeah, Jake’s putting on a concert.  Great.

(And, oh, along the lines of the Adrian Gonzalez talk, don’t overlook his influence on Roy Oswalt, who might ask Houston for a trade later this season. How would you like a rotation with Peavy, Oswalt and Mark Buehrle at the top?)

Peavy’s “influence” on Roy Oswalt probably only works if the White Sox can actually produce some prospects to trade to the Astros for him.  Since you allegedly wrote the prospect capsules in Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook, you’d know they don’t have any.

6. No knock on him, but Marlon Byrd isn’t likely to be the Cubs’ starting center fielder for even two of the three years of his contract. Brett Jackson, a 2009 first-round pick from California, is the kind of college player who advances fast. He’s big, strong and can run. He has just as much of a chance to be a star as shortstop Starlin Castro. In Jackson and the Sox’s Jared Mitchell, Chicago’s teams both have center fielders to help build future teams around.

Why would that be a knock on him?  Just because he signed a $15 million contract, why would he be offended that you’re giving his job away to a guy who has played 53 minor league games, and none above low-A?  Just how much head trauma have you suffered in recent years?

7. The Cubs really might go 80-82, payroll be damned. They look more like a team in transition than one that will allow Lou Piniella to finish the job he was hired to do. How could they have invested in Bradley, not Adam Dunn? When they gave Bradley $30 million over three years, Dunn would have loved to have taken his $20 million from the Cubs rather than the Nationals.

Your insight is tremendous.  So you mean having a guy who posted a .928 OPS last year would have been better than a guy who had a .775 and who played just as much shitty defense?  Your crystal ball and its ability to see the past is remarkable.

8. The Mark DeRosa trade still looks bad. Cubs GM Jim Hendry really likes the pitchers he got in that trade (Jeff Stevens, John Gaub and Chris Archer), but now’s the time to get something out of the right-handed Stevens and the left-handed Gaub, and both are off to shaky starts this spring.

Sigh.  So you’re writing off the DeRosa trade, despite the fact all three guys they got for him had excellent seasons last year in the minors, none are more than 25 years old, and all have projectable big league futures, because you are giving up on Stevens and Gaub after two spring training games?

9. Sox players have more fun than Cubs players. Guillen is a big part of that. “He keeps the clubhouse loose, keeps things moving,” said Rios, who played for Cito Gaston in Toronto. “I think it’s a good thing.”

Pat Riley once said there are only two outcomes in professional sports, “Winning and misery.”  Most of the Sox smile and laugh around Ozzie because they can’t understand a fucking thing he says.  In either language.

10. Carlos Silva, not so much. I still think the Cubs should have just released Bradley instead of going through the agonizing process of trading him. Because the Mariners are paying $9 million of the $25 million owed Silva, the Cubs will save $5 million if they wind up releasing Silva, who looked like he was throwing BP against the Sox on Saturday.

This, is the essence of what makes Phil Rogers such a hack.  His point appears to be this.  The Cubs should have just released Milton Bradley instead of trading him for Carlos Silva.  Even though they saved money by trading for Silva and getting Seattke to give them $9 million.  Phil, does realize that they can still release Silva, and still save the money, right?  Oh, why would he realize that?  It’s only his fucking job.

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In the past, when a spring training game was called off, it was considered a cancelled event, and tickets were refunded. This happened to me in 2003 when I sat in the parking lot at Surprise for 45 minutes, with no letup in sight of heavy rain and the game vs. the Royals was cancelled.

I got a refund from Ticketmaster, including the fees.

Not so, apparently, today with the game at Glendale vs. the White Sox. The White Sox press release says you can only exchange the tickets:

The ticket becomes a gift certificate that may be exchanged at any time in the future at the Camelback Ranch Baseball facility or by mail to Camelback Ranch Baseball at 10710 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85037 for an individual ticket of equal or lesser face value for a future spring training game (subject to prior sales). In no instance shall the ticket be exchangeable for a ticket with a face value greater than the face value of the ticket. This policy may be amended anytime without notice.

No cash refund or credit will be issued and gift certificates may not be applied to any account balance.

I feel compelled to point out that the White Sox sell tickets via Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster's refund policy for cancelled events states:

Ticketmaster typically only offers refunds and/or exchanges based on the promoter's, team's or venue's instructions. In order to receive a refund or an exchange that may be offered, you will have to comply with the promoter's, team's or venue's instructions or deadlines, which, along with the decision about whether or not to issue a refund or an exchange, may be at the promoter's, team's or venue's discretion.

Thus, apparently, the White Sox are perfectly within their rights to do this. However, I would consider this an ill-advised policy. Many of the fans can't go to another game, and this isn't a postponed game that's going to be rescheduled -- it's a cancelled event. The Cubs have yet to announce a policy here, but in the past, they have refunded tickets for cancelled spring training games.

Looks like another bit of evidence of greed on the part of Jerry Reinsdorf.

UPDATE: This is further confirmed by a phone conversation I had with someone in the HoHoKam Park box office at 2:45 pm CST on Sunday. The gist of it was:

Any tickets purchased through that box office would be refunded if you brought the tickets to the box office, or if you bought them by credit card, your card would be refunded.

Also, anyone who bought tickets for today's game via tickets.com would have their card refunded. The only exception is if you bought tickets through a "third party" (likely referring to StubHub), in which case you have to deal with StubHub.

This is the only sensible way to approach a cancelled event like this. It's not like a postponed game during the regular season that gets rescheduled; it's more like a concert that you have tickets for that gets cancelled for whatever reason.

Shame on you, Jerry Reinsdorf.

Today's game has been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. We'll let you know if we add a game on WGN-TV.

Weather permitting -- and it doesn't look very good -- we'll get a look at two of the candidates for the starting rotation today. More after the jump, but if both split-squad games are rained out, that takes away a real opportunity for many pitchers to show Lou & Co. what they've got.

Here's a good article from Yahoo's Tim Brown on Alfonso Soriano and what he means to the Cubs' success this year.

Tom Gorzelanny will start in Mesa vs. the Dodgers. He will be followed by Thomas Diamond, Jay Jackson, Brian Schlitter, Mike Parisi and Esmailin Caridad.

Jeff Samardzija will start in Glendale vs. the White Sox. He's scheduled to be followed by Mitch Atkins (although Atkins threw yesterday, so that original schedule might not be followed), J.R. Mathes, John Gaub, Jeff Stevens and Blake Parker.

Today's game vs. the White Sox is on WGN-TV with Len & Bob. It's also on WSCR with the Sox announcers. The Mesa game will have no radio or TV. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday for the Cubs/White Sox game

MLB.com Gameday for the Cubs/Dodgers game

SB Nation game preview for the Cubs/White Sox game

SB Nation game preview for the Cubs/Dodgers game

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

I'll leave it up to the media to tell us what's going on with Angel Guzman's shoulder problems.

On second thought, I'd better not.

Once again the media doesn't get it. From Howard Schlossberg's piece in the Daily Herald:

While surgery is a possibility, the Cubs are aware that most major rotator-cuff surgeries, while successful in and of themselves, don't always enable the player to make a comeback.

Thank God it wasn't Bruce Miles writing this (I love Miles work). It does show, once again, a lack of understanding regarding what gets reported.

To quote Dan Aykroyd, "Just the facts, ma'am":

1. The Cubs.com article reports, Angel Guzman's MRI showed a "significant tear in a ligament in his right shoulder" which medically speaking translates into a torn inferior glenohumeral ligament (see diagram, item C). If the glenoid or socket's labrum is also torn, this means the entire front of his shoulder is very loose and may be detached. This is an injury that leads to instability, as in shoulder dislocations or subluxations (partial dislocations). This is what Aramis Ramirez had last season in his glove side shoulder (not his throwing shoulder).

2. Angel Guzman HAD a glenoid labral tear repaired in 2003. The labrum is the fibro-cartilagenous rim of the socket (glenoid). The middle and inferior glenohumeral ligaments are adjacent and embedded in the capsule of the shoulder joint in front of the shoulder and they attach to the labrum. These ligaments do not have to be injured for the labrum to tear or detach from the glenoid. 

3. Angel Guzman DOES NOT HAVE a rotator cuff tear. The muscle-tendon commonly understood to tear when referencing a rotator cuff tear is the supraspinatus (see MRI image of supraspinatus tendon tear) which is on top and attaches to the greater tuberosity of the humerus (arm bone). The rotator cuff muscles and tendon attachments are immediately outside the shoulder capsule layer, so it is quite separate from the labrum and capsular ligaments.

Guzman's shoulder woes date way back and include labrum repair surgery in 2003. Jim Callis from Baseball America had this on Guzman back on November 26, 2003:

The Cubs thought Guzman was ready to make a Mark Prior-like ascent in 2003, beginning the season in Double-A West Tenn and getting to the majors by midseason. If Chicago didn’t have so much pitching, he could have pressed for a big league job. Guzman led the Cubs with a 1.13 ERA in the Cactus League, and his teammates voted him the most impressive rookie in big league camp. He caught fire in late May, going 3-1, 1.01 over his next five starts. After shutting out eventual Southern League champion Carolina for seven innings on June 20, Guzman was picked to pitch in the Futures Game and would have been the logical callup when Prior hurt his shoulder in mid-July. But Guzman never threw another pitch in 2003, as his shoulder was bothering him. Doctors diagnosed a slight tear in his labrum, and he had it corrected with arthroscopic surgery.

Also remember they shut down Guzman last September with shoulder pain that got labeled a triceps strain based on exam and an MRI. No commentary on other shoulder pathology was mentioned. The Cubs must have felt his shoulder was OK with the rest from an early shut down although one wonders what impact his recovery from January knee arthroscopic surgery might have had on his throwing.

The FEAR of full recovery in a pitcher's throwing shoulder in repairing this is warranted. See Mark Prior if you want to see how well someone recovers from instability surgery. Although from what I've read Prior had capsular laxity and not a detachment of the labrum and there is a difference. Capsular laxity gets surgically addressed by a procedure that tightens up the capsule (capsular shift) and a detachment needs to be reattached. In reattaching the capsule-ligament complex, the trick is to do it where it's not overly loose or tight, so in a pitcher this is the problem because they need more laxity than non-throwing athletes, just not too little, as they'd lose extension and external rotation and not too much or the instability persists.

So near term, Angel Guzman will get a second opinion, probably from orthopedic guru Dr. James Andrews, in Birmingham, Alabama. He'll probably go the ARam route in trying to rehab for 3 months and if that fails go the repair route. That's what 2nd opinions are for though.

So for all the sportswriters out there, here's the rest of my mini-primer on shoulder anatomy:

The rotator cuff is a group of 4 muscles that surround the shoulder in front (subscapularis), on top (supraspinatus) and behind (infraspinatus and teres minor). These muscles lie immediately outside the shoulder capsule which is the fibrous tissue (all joints have capsules) that connects the two major parts of a joint, in this case the glenoid (socket component of the scapula or shoulder blade) and humeral head.

The acromion is the bony overhang from the scapula that connects the shoulder blade to the clavicle (collar bone) or the AC joint (acromio-clavicular). The acromion is also an attachment for the larger and more superficial deltoid muscle. Impingement syndromes often are related to spurs or curve-shaped components from the anterior acromion and the AC joint. When the AC joint is injured, that is called a separated shoulder. It is the glenohumeral (ball and socket) part of the shoulder that is injured when a dislocated shoulder is described.

The long head of the biceps attaches at the 12 o'clock position just above the glenoid socket. It attaches into the fibrocartilaginous glenoid rim which surrounds the socket in which the capsule attaches as well. This can be injured inside the joint, known as a SLAP lesion (superior labrum, anterior to posterior) or it can be injured outside the joint from impingement when the humeral head rubs against the acromion.

Shoulder bursitis also comes from similar impingements. The bursa is a normal layer of tissue that helps the gliding between two impinging surfaces and when it gets inflamed, it thickens, making the space between the two surfaces tighter, a vicious cycle.

Finally, Since Guzman was shut down last year from a triceps injury near the shoulder, I'll mention that the triceps isn't usually a consideration in shoulder injuries. Still, it does have one of it's three attachment sites just below the very bottom of the glenoid socket.

---

Update: Sun-Times writer, Gordon Wittenmeyer just posted this interview with Angel Guzman

Cubs pitcher Angel Guzman says he plans to have surgery on his injured shoulder, even though he's been told few pitchers ever come back from that kind of surgery.

"It's going to be tough," said Guzman, 28, who was diagnosed over the weekend with a significant ligament tear near his armpit and instability in the shoulder. "But it's better than not having it and not having a chance. Doing it, I have a small chance, but there is a chance. So I'm going to take the chance."

Guzman says the decision isn't final. He plans to see famed orthopedist James Andrews – who already has done operations on Guzman's shoulder and elbow -- as soon as this week and then consult with his agents and his family.

 

Obviously, women are not excluded when it comes to Man-Point dockage, and my Bud is simply off limits.
I’ve seen guys make this insensitive move as well: uncool.
Okay, back to the Cubs.
I was in a Tweeter when Bob Howry took care of business in the 9th, and it was really impressive on about ten large, hi-def TVs in a row. 
I’m actually not afraid of Ryan Dempster as closer.
I don’t think the Cubs ever have had an “automatic” closer, so I’m used to the heart attacks.
But there’s something about Bob Howry - his look and his approach - that inspires confidence.
He looks like he should be called something corny like “Iron Man Bob Howry”.
Which he sort of was last year, and maybe it’s coming back to him now.
Anyway, Cubs beat the Mariners 5-4 in a nice comeback win and take a series.
The kids (Pie, Fontenot, Theriot, Marshall) are all playing well.

 I'm on an extended business trip, so I'm putting up some of my fav older posts while I'm gone. Please keep comments coming as I'm gonna depend on you for what's REALLY going on, and I'll do my best to answer.

Carlos Quentin slugged a two-run homer in the top of the 1st and a three run home run in the top of the 2nd, giving the White Sox a lead they would never relinquish, as the Sox demolished the Cubs 15-3 in front of 12,712 fans and a national TV audience on WGN this afternoon at Dwight Patterson Field at HoHoKam Park in sunny Mesa.

box score

Acquired from the Seattle Mariners for Milton Bradley this past off-season, Carlos Silva got the start for the Cubs today and he is who we thought he was, allowing six runs on seven hits (including two Carlos Quentin home runs) in just two innings of work (43 pitches - 28 strikes, 0 BB, 2 K, 2/2 GO/FO).

Carlos Marmol worked the top of the 3rd and pitched great (1-2-3 inning: 3-U, Ks, Ks, 13 pitches - 11 strikes).

Down 6-0 at the start of the bottom of the 3rd, the Cubs mounted a rally, scoring three runs off Sox starter Dan Hudson, who was extended into the 3rd inning after facing only six batters through the first two. With one out, Geovany Soto laced a single, and Bobby Scales was hit by a pitch (the second HBP for Scales in two days). Ryan Theriot singled to load the bases, and then Kosuke Fukudome came through with a two-run ground single through the box into CF to score Soto and Scales and send Theriot to 3rd. Derrek Lee then got The Riot home with a line drive sac fly to right.

And that was the extent of the Cubs scoring today.

But the White Sox certainly were not finished.

LHP James Russell worked the 4th & 5th (36 pitches - 23 strikes, 3/1 GO/FO) and pitched well, allowing one unearned run (LF Alfonso Soriano over-ran a ball while trying to field a base hit with two outs in the 5th, allowing a runner to score all the way from 1st), two hits and a walk, with two strikeouts (including the fearsome Carlos Quentin).

Cubs 2008 #1 draft pick RHP Andrew Cashner pitched the 6th and 7th, and after a skittish first inning (25 pitches - only 11 strikes, with two walks on nine pitches to the first two batters he faced), Cashner settled-down and threw strikes in his 2nd inning (10 pitches - 8 strikes). Cashner allowed just one run (one of the walks scored in the 6th), but he was helped out the jam by a savvy pick-off at 2nd base by catcher Welington Castillo. On the play SS Andres Blanco suffered what appeared to be a right knee injury, and had to leave the game.

RHP Jeff Kennard entered the game in the top of the 8th with the Cubs down 8-3, and it was just plain excrutiating to watch. Kennard surrendered back-to-back home runs to Sox minor leaguers Brandon Short and Cole Armstrong to start the inning, and then after loading the bases on a single and two walks, Kennard gave up a bases-loaded two run single to another minor leaguer (Christian Marrero). At this point, Cubs Manager Lou Piniella made the slow walk to the mound and Kennard suffered a pitcher's worst Spring Training indignity... getting yanked out of a game without completing even one inning of work. For the day, Kennard allowed four runs on four hits (two HR) and two walks, with two strikeouts, throwing 37 pitches - only 18 strikes, in just 2/3 of an inning.

Mitch Atkins was brought in to complete the inning, and he struck out the only man he faced (Jordan Danks).

LHP John Grabow pitched the 9th (20 pitches - 12 strikes, 1 K, 0/2 GO/FO), and he was not a whole lot better than Kennard, allowing a single, a double, and then a three-run HR (to Jayson Nix). But at least Grabow finished his inning.

For the Cubs, Ryan Theriot and Geovany Soto had two hits a piece (all singles), but Theriot also hit into a rally-killing 4-6-3 DP with two on and no outs in the 5th. And after starting the Cactus League schedule 5-6 with three doubles, a single, and a home run, Tyler Colvin cooled-off a bit by going 0-2 with a strikeout (swinging) and a game-ending 6-4-3 DP.

The Cubs have a split squad doubleheader tomorrow, one game a rematch with the White Sox at Camelback Ranch and the other a home game versus the Dodgers at HoHoKam Park. RHP Jeff Samardzija and LHP Tom Gorzelanny are scheduled to start the games, although weather could be a problem, since rain is forecast with temperatures in the 50's. I believe one of the two games will be televised by WGN-TV, but I'm not sure which one.

As you can imagine, I wasn't in a big hurry to post the recap of today's 15-3 loss to the White Sox, the Cubs' first spring loss of 2010.

Carlos Silva had a real chance to show the Cubs, and everyone else, that what's been said about him all winter was wrong. At that, he failed miserably, giving up seven hits and six runs in two innings of work, including a pair of home runs to Carlos Quentin. (For the record, Quentin had been 1-for-3 with a walk in four career regular season PA vs. Silva.)

I realize this likely means that Silva is headed to the 60-day DL or maybe even an outright release. At this point, the Cubs probably will give him at least one or two more chances to show that he has anything left -- and then I would recommend exactly that. If a guy's going to be this bad, you obviously can't have him hanging around even as the 12th man on the staff who pitches in garbage time. But to me, with only three games completed out of more than 30 scheduled, it's too early to completely throw him on the scrap pile. And no, I do NOT want Milton Bradley back under any circumstances. For that, the deal was still worth it.

It is, though, getting closer to dumping time. More after the jump.

As for the other Carlos who threw today, Carlos Marmol, much better results were had. Marmol looked sharp and focused, despite a couple of pitches thrown well out of the strike zone. He struck out two and didn't walk anyone and what more could you ask?

Meanwhile, the other Cubs pitchers didn't show so well, either. Andrew Cashner, who is now in the bullpen mix, walked two and gave up a run, and John Grabow looked awful, giving up a three-run homer to Jayson Nix. Four more runs were allowed by Jeff Kennard, who won't see Wrigley Field this year without a ticket.

The Cubs offense, so good the last two days, was mostly absent today. Kosuke Fukudome drove in a pair of runs with a bases-full single and Ryan Theriot had his first two hits of the spring. Geovany Soto's two singles and a base hit by Chicago-area native Jim Adduci were the rest of the "offense".

On the WGN telecast, Lou said that the two open rotation spots were being fought for by Silva and Jeff Samardzija from the RHP side, and Tom Gorzelanny and Sean Marshall from the LHP side. (Two, because Ted Lilly, Lou said, would likely not be ready till May 1.) Samardzija and Gorzelanny are supposed to start tomorrow's split squad games (Gorz against the Dodgers in Mesa, Shark vs. the White Sox in Glendale), but this weather forecast calls for chilly rain all day in the Valley, and two rainouts might result, setting both of them back.

And as if that weren't bad enough news, Andres Blanco sprained his knee today on what looked otherwise like a routine play, and he may be out for more than a week.

It's early enough in the spring so that all of these things can work themselves out. But today wasn't a good day. Let's hope for better things tomorrow, weather permitting.

One thing you quickly notice from being around the Cubs is their acceptance of the fact that last year didn't go as planned and the determination to return to winning form. You can really sense the sense of purpose when you're around these guys.

Just what do you think Larry is telling him?

*The Cubs have batted .412 (28-for-68) in their first two spring training games.

Spring training greetings on a mild, partly cloudy day in Mesa.  Rain is expected tomorrow, but hopefully we'll get in Round 2 of Cubs-Sox from Glendale.  Today at HoHoKam, it's Carlos Silva's Cubs debut as he faces Daniel Hudson.  Still waiting for the MRI results on Angel Guzman's shoulder, but the Cubs are not optimistic.  So, there will be another opening in the bullpen to be won out of camp.  Also, Xavier Nady's Cubs debut has been pushed back.  He was supposed to DH tomorrow, but the Cubs are remaining cautious as he returns from Tommy John surgery.  Lou didn't seem too concerned about Nady's situation.  Alfonso Soriano makes his spring debut today.  Catch it all on WGN and WGN America at 2 central.

Len

Even with two wins in a row, we now have to be concerned because Angel Guzman and Jeff Gray both have injury woes that may keep both of them from being ready for Opening Day. Bruce Miles explains why the Cubs didn't sign Kiko Calero, even though they had said they were interested in a veteran reliever:

In any event, GM Jim Hendry will step up his efforts to land a veteran righty for the pen. That reliever, if Hendry can get him, most likely will come through a trade and not free agency. The Cubs, from what I was told, didn’t like the medicals on Kiko Calero, who signed with the Mets.

So that means the Cubs may look again at Jason Frasor or Luke Gregerson. The Cubs were rumored to be interested in those relievers last month. Frasor has a pretty big contract ($2.65 million) that the Cubs might not want. According to Gordo, Jim Hendry has the Cubs scouting just about everyone:

"In a perfect world, we would [add a pitcher]," Hendry said. ''We're doing no different than we always do. We've got every game, every club scouted in Florida, as well as out here. If there's something to be made, we will. It's not easy to make a quality camp deal. So we'll keep our eyes open."

Said [Lou] Piniella: "Jim's trying. I know he's told me we have scouts following a couple teams in particular. If he can get something done, he will. We'll see where that goes. If not, we'll just have to do it with what we've got here."

Speaking of large contracts, I'm going to throw this one out for discussion. There's a certain Cleveland reliever who's available:

Cleveland reportedly is willing to deal ex-Cub Kerry Wood, but Wood's $10.5 million salary is above the Cubs' budget.

So here's the question: if the Indians were willing to eat most of that contract in trade, would you bring Wood back? Personally, I'd consider it.

More on today's matchup after the jump.

Please put the pitchforks and torches away, even though Carlos Silva will be the Cubs' starter this afternoon. Maybe he won't suck. He will be followed by Carlos Marmol, James Russell, Andrew Cashner, Jeff Kennard, and John Grabow. The reason Marmol (probably) throws in the third inning is so he can face major league hitters -- this is common practice with closers early in spring training.

Daniel Hudson will start for the White Sox. It's a split-squad game for them, so don't expect too many Sox regulars to play.

Today's game is on WGN-TV with Len & Bob. It's also on WGN radio with Pat & Ron. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Minor League Camp opened this week, as pitchers & catchers reported to Fitch Park after the Cubs moved up Center Streert to HoHoKam Park. Other minor league players will report on Tuesday.

Here are the projected Cubs Minor League Camp rosters (142 players), the DSL Cubs Reserve Lists (two teams combined - 66 players), plus some other stuff.

Players at Minor League Camp are often initially placed one level above where they are expected to play that season, and then they either get released or get demoted one or even two levels lower once the Cubs start to make cuts and send players to Minor League Camp (Fitch Park) from HoHoKam, with an accompanying downward cascade of players from Iowa to Tennessee, Tennessee to Daytona, etc.

* bats or throws left
# bats both

PROJECTED 2010 CUBS MINOR LEAGUE CAMP ROSTERS:

IOWA (29):

PITCHERS (15):
Todd Blackford
David Cales
Chris Carpenter
Marco Carrillo
Hung-Wen Chen
Jay Jackson
* Casey Lambert
Alessandro Maestri
* Scott Maine
Arismendy Mota (AAA Rule 5)
Jake Muyco
* Jeremy Papelbon
Gregory Reinhard
* Dustin Sasser
Brian Schlitter
NOTE: Arismendy Mota was selected by the Washington Nationals in the AAA Phase of the December 2009 Rule 5 Draft and then was subsequently traded to the Cubs for cash considerations, so by rule he must be given a 15-day “fair trial” in Spring Training with AAA Iowa, but he can be assigned to any of the Cubs minor league affiliates prior to Opening Day.

CATCHERS (3)
Luis Flores
* Mark Johnson
* Mark Reed

INFIELDERS (7)
Russ Canzler
# Matt Matulia
Scott McClain
Jonathan Mota
Marquez Smith
Tony Thomas
* Ryne White

OUTFIELDERS (4)
Jason Dubois
Brandon Guyer
* Matt Spencer
Ty Wright

TENNESSEE (30):

PITCHERS (17)
Chris Archer
* Jeffrey Beliveau
Austin Bibens-Dirkx
* Ryan Buchter
Chris Huseby
Josh Lansford
Jordan Latham
* James Leverton
Oswaldo Martinez
Dan McDaniel
Craig Muschko
Mike Perconte
Ryan Searle
Aaron Shafer
* Chris Siegfried
* Luke Sommer
Henry Williamson

CATCHERS (3)
Michael Brenly
John Contreras
Jovan Rosa (ex-3B)

INFIELDERS (6)
* Ryan Flaherty
# Marwin Gonzalez
D. J. LeMahieu
* Jake Opitz
Rebel Ridling
Nate Samson

OUTFIELDERS (4)
* Kyler Burke
* Tony Campana
* Jason James
# David Macias

DAYTONA (31):

PITCHERS (19)
* Jeffry Antigua
Justin Bristow
Alberto Cabrera
Julio Castillo
Manolin DeLeon
Yohan Gonzalez
Steve Grife
Marcus Hatley
Robert Hernandez
Su-Min Jung
Kevin Kreier
Corey Martin
Ronny Morla
Jon Nagel
Julio Pena
* Brooks Raley
Dae-Eun Rhee
* Chris Rusin
Josh Whitlock

CATCHERS (3)
Jae-Hoon Ha
* Richard Jones
Mario Mercedes

INFIELDERS (6)
* Matt Cerda
* Justin Bour
Junior Lake
* Hak-Ju Lee
* Bobby Wagner
* Logan Watkins

OUTFIELDERS (3)
Runey Davis
* Nelson Perez
# Jose Valdez

PEORIA (32):

PITCHERS (19):
Rogelio Carmona
Tim Clubb
Diego Encarnacion
Eduardo Figueroa
Jesse Ginley
Danny Keefe
* Austin Kirk
Luis Liria
Toby Matchulat
Trey McNutt
* John Mincone
Tarlandus Mitchell
Dionis Nunez
* Marcos Perez
Andres Quezada
Carlos Rojas
Jose Rosario
Larry Suarez
Robert Whitenack

CATCHERS (3)
Jose Guevara
Brandon May (ex-3B)
# Alvaro Sosa

INFIELDERS (6)
D. J. Fitzgerald
Dwayne Kemp
George Matheus
Jordan Petraitis
Greg Rohan
Charles Thomas

OUTFIELDERS (4)
* Francisco Guzman
Jesus Morelli
Cody Shields
Kevin Soto

BOISE/MESA – EXST (20):

PITCHERS (10):
Gian Guzman
* Cody Hams
Dylan Johnston (ex-OF)
Hector Mayora
* Drew Rundle (ex-OF)
Jake Schmidt
Adam Spencer
Nick Struck
Tzu-An Wang
Yao-Lin Wang

CATCHERS (2)
* Sergio Burruel
Garrett Maines

INFIELDERS (4)
# Robert Bautista
* Ping-Chieh Chen
* Wes Darvill
Derek Helenihi

OUTFIELDERS (4)
Dong-Yub Kim
* Kyung-Min Na
Blair Springfield
* Sean Williams

NOTE: The Boise/Mesa Spring Training roster is established prior to the start of Minor League Spring Training games (which should begin around March 18th), and will consist of players moved down from Peoria and Daytona, players moved up to Fitch Park from the DSL Cubs (see DSL CUBS roster below), and players who are rehabbing from injuries. This squad then becomes the Cubs Extended Spring Training (EXST) team at Fitch Park April-May-June.

DSL CUBS (combined roster) - (66):

PITCHERS (37):
Frank Batista
Jane Bremon
Darlin Castro
Miguel Corletto
* Welington Cruz
Antonio Encarnacion
Denis Estrada
* Carlos Galvez
Ramon Garcia
Enyel Gonzalez
Alvido Jimenez
Joel Lanfranco
* Richard Leyba
Eric Martinez
Pedro Medina (ex-OF)
Roneidy Mejia
Jade Mendez
Loiger Padron
Amaury Paulino
Enyelberth Pena
Felix Pena
Junior Pena
Starlin Peralta
Roderik Pichardo
Francoris Pineda
Ramon Reyes
Albert Robles
Jhon Rodriguez
Santo Rodriguez
Melvin Rosa
Braulio Rosario
* Abner Ruiz
Julio Sanchez
Yilver Sanchez
Deuris Severino
Jose Tineo
Francisco Turbi

CATCHERS (6):
Yonan Fuenmayor
Miguel Gonzalez
Yamel Liria
Ricardo Parra
Carlos Romero
# Hector Suarez

INFIELDERS (12):
# Arismendy Alcantara
Joel Altagracia
Yohan Astacio
# Vismeldy Bieneme
Melvin Camarena
# Rafael Disla
Gregori Gonzalez
* Carlos Henry
# Jose Montecino
Juan Pena
* Melido Perez
# Jesus Rodriguez

OUTFIELDERS (11):
Xavier Batista
Smaily Borges
Alejandro Damian
Dariyn Figueroa
* Eduardo Gonzalez
Jasly Gonzalez
Albert Hernandez
Manuel Pestana
* Alvaro Ramirez
# Gregorio Robles
Rander Valdez

NOTE: The DSL Cubs most-likely to get promoted to Fitch Park for Minor League Camp (or Extended Spring Training) include SS-2B Arismendy Alcantara, 3B-1B Joel Altagracia, RHP Frank Batista, RF Xavier Batista, 1B-OF Smaily Borges (26-year old Cuban defector who played for DSL Cubs #2 last season), C Miguel Gonzalez, RHP Felix Pena, 3B-1B Juan Pena, OF Alvaro Ramirez (24-year old ex-NYY who was signed by the Cubs in June 2009 after he was released by the Yankees), RHP Ramon Reyes, RHP Melvin Rosa, RHP Yilver Sanchez, and RHP Jose Tineo.

 

MINOR LEAGUERS GONE LAST 12 MONTHS

RELEASED:
Ryan Acosta, RHP (ST) – signed with NYY
Erick Almonte, INF (ST) – signed with MIL
Cliff Andersen, OF (BOISE)
Ezequiel Astacio, RHP (IOWA)
Luis Bautista, 1B (ST) – signed with TB
Alfredo Belizaire, LHP (DSL CUBS)
Edward Campusano, LHP (ST)
Angel Castro, RHP (ST) – signed with PHI
Glenn Cook, OF (AZL CUBS)
Michael Cooper, RHP (ST)
Daley Cox, LHP (AZL CUBS)
Jesse Estrada, RHP (TENNESSEE) – signed with WAS
Arturo Florentino, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Erik Hamren, RHP (PEORIA)
Ryan Harvey, OF (ST) – signed with COL
Jim Henderson, RHP (ST) – signed with MIL
Sean Hoorelbeke, 1B (EXST)
Grant Johnson, RHP (ST)
Jericho Jones, OF (DAYTONA)
Bryan Jost, 1B (ST)
Ken Kadokura, RHP (ST)
Ryan Keedy, 1B (DAYTONA) – signed with FLA
Jesse Lebron, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Anderson Machado, INF (IOWA) – signed with MIL
Jose Made, INF (DAYTONA)
Pat Mahoney, C (ST)
Shawn McGill, C (ST)
Juan Medina, C (AZL CUBS)
Maicol Medina, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Alexander Mejia, 1B (DSL CUBS)
Tommy Mejia, RHP (ST)
Carlos Morales, INF (DSL CUBS)
Billy Muldowney, RHP (DAYTONA)
John Muller, RHP (ST)
Bubba O’Donnell, RHP (ST)
Mark Pawelek, LHP (ST) – signed with CIN
Genezaret Pena, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Carlos Perez, C (ST)
George Pineda, RHP (AZL CUBS)
Cedric Redmond, RHP (EXST)
Roeldwin Reyes, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Kyle Reynolds, 3B (TENNESSEE)
Tony Richie, C (ST)
Richie Robnett, OF (TENNESSEE) – signed with NYY
Jayson Ruhlman, LHP (TENNESSEE)
B. J. Ryan, LHP (IOWA)
Tomas Sanchez, RHP (DSL CUBS)
Audy Santana, RHP (ST) – signed with SF
Joe Simokaitis, RHP (TENNESSEE)
Matt Smith, LHP (ST)
Ryan Sontag, OF-LHP (BOISE)
Mike Stanton, LHP (ST)
Harol Tolentino, RHP (ST) – signed with PHI
Melvin Vasquez, LHP (AZL CUBS)
Steve Vento, RHP (DAYTONA)
Jose Vigay, C (DSL CUBS)
Chris Weimer, 1B (AZL CUBS)
Jason Waddell, LHP (IOWA) – signed with DET
Bill White, LHP (ST) – signed with PHI
TeWayne Willis, OF (ST)
Jonathan Wyatt, OF (DAYTONA)

TRADED:
Alberto Alburquerque, RHP (to COL for Jeff Baker)
Dumas Garcia, RHP (to TOR for $$$)
Josh Harrison, IF-OF (to PIT with Kevin Hart for John Grabow & Tom Gorzelanny)
Rocky Roquet, RHP (to OAK for $$$)
Justin Sellers, INF (to LAD for $$$)

POST-2009 MINOR LEAGUE FREE-AGENTS – DID NOT RE-SIGN WITH CUBS:
Doug Deeds, OF – signed with AZ
Matt Craig, 1B
Casey Fossum, LHP
John-Ford Griffin, OF
Jose Pina, RHP – signed with OAK
Luis Rivas, INF
Nate Spears, INF - signed with BOS

VOLUNTARY RETIRED:
Kurt Calvert, OF
Matt Williams, C

SELECTED IN DECEMBER 2009 RULE 5 DRAFT (AAA Phase):
Miguel Sierra, RHP (by TB)

RESTRICTED LIST:
Francisco Acosta, RHP
Wilson Contreras, C-3B
Clark Hardman, OF
NOTE: F. Acosta was placed on the Restricted List in July 2009, Hardman (2007 9th round draft pick out of Cal State - Fullerton) was placed on the Restricted List in October 2008, and W. Contreras (17-year old Venezuelan who received an $850K signing bonus last July) was placed on the Restricted List post-2009 after he was suspended by MLB for 50 games after testing positive for a prohibited substance.

Angel Guzman, back in his prospect days
What's more appropriate -- calling him Frankenguz, or Guzmanstein?  Should we change the term from surgery to guzery?  Nah, that last one's too much.  Regardless, by this point, the frail body of the former Cubs prospect Angel Guzman has to be riddled with more scars than a lazy serf's back. 

The story out of Chicago has Guzman about to go under the knife, again, because his body has failed him, again, leaving the Cubs with their dicks in their hands, again, putting even more pressure on an untried-but-hopefully-true young Cubs pitching staff to shore up the bullpen. 

We'll still be featuring Guzman in the Season Preview series, although he very well may have thrown his last pitch with the Cubs.  After all -- how many times can he get hurt before Hendry realizes that his attraction is a fatal one?  How often can Guzman disappoint the team before Jim comes to understand that, even though they are sharing an apartment together, it isn't appropriate for Hendry to change his look to more resemble a single, non-white Angel? 

We get by now that Hendry has his obsessions, and he tends to stockpile them beyond belief, but Guzman should no longer be one of them.  To rely on him beyond this point will just leave Cub fans in Guzony. ...Guzzorrow?  Eh.  I give up.

(Note to the moronic: we know that a. he hurt his shoulder, not his elbow, and b. his real life arm isn't loaded with stuffing and springs.  ...then again, maybe it is.  Clearly Guzman should've bought Sealy)

Brad Snyder crushed a game-winning two-run double off the CF Batter's Eye in the bottom of the 9th, scoring Bobby Scales from second base with the tying run and Sam Fuld from first with the winning run, as the Cubs edged the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-7 in Cactus League action in front of 11,775 fans under sunny skies (65 degrees) at Dwight Patterson Field at HoHoKam Park in Mesa this afternoon.

box score

The Cubs fielded a starting lineup today that featured three of their recent #1 draft picks (LF Tyler Colvin, 3B Josh Vitters, and CF Brett Jackson) and their #1 position player prospect (SS Starlin Castro), but only one front-line big league position player (2B Jeff Baker, presuming one considers Baker a starter). But the Diamondbacks brought Justin Upton, Adam LaRoche, and Mark Reynolds up from Tucson to hit 3-4-5 in their lineup.

Carlos Zambrano was the Cubs starting pitcher, and (like Randy Wells yesterday) he threw two perfect innings (28 pitches - 18 strikes), mowing down the D'backs 4-3, 3-U, 6-3 (Upton), Ks (LaRoche), F-8 (Reynolds), and 5-3.

Dan Haren got the start for Arizona, and he also threw two shutout/hitless innings and faced only six batters. (Kevin Millar walked leading off the bottom of the 2nd inning, but was erased on a "strike 'em out/throw 'em out" when Josh Vitters fanned swinging).

And the game remained scoreless going into the bottom of the 5th, as NRI RHP Casey Coleman (the Cubs 2009 Minor League Player of the Year) threw two impressive shutout innings (27 pitches - 17 strikes, 3/2 GO/FO), striking out one and walking none while allowing just a two-out Chris Young PH double in the 3rd, and Jeff Stevens struck out the side (Mark Reynolds-Chris Snyder-Ryan Roberts) in a 1-2-3 top of the 5th.

Ex-Cub Aaron Heilman, who was traded to Arizona during the off season for two minor leaguers, entered the game for the D'backs in the bottom of the 5th and really got lit-up. Josh Vitters led-off with a line single to right-center, and scored the game's first run when Brett Jackson tripled off the CF "Green Monster." The ball did a ricochet off the Batter's Eye into LF, and Jackson almost ran up Vitters' ass coming around second base headed for third. It looked like Jackson probably could have had an easy inside-the-park-HR, but 3rd base coach Mike Quade held him up at 3rd (much to the chagrin of the fans). Koyie Hill followed with a vicious line-drive single that caromed off Heilman's foot and landed in short LF, scoring Jackson. After Jeff Stevens struck out failing to lay down a bunt, Starlin Castro singled to right-center, sending K. Hill to 3rd. Jeff Baker walked to load the bases, and then Tyler Colvin (who had roped a double over the right-fielder's head in the bottom of the 4th) pulled a sharply-hit single between first & second, scoring Hill and Castro with the third and fourth runs of the inning, while sending Baker to 3rd. The inning ended when Baker was thrown out at home 8-2 trying to score on a Kevin Millar fly out to CF. (Baker quite obviously left early from third, but he got thrown out anyway).

The Snakes came right back in the top of the 6th, as their first two batters reached on fielding miscues. (CF Brett Jackson lost a routine fly ball in the sun on what was scored a double, and then 2B Matt Camp booted an easy grounder for an E-4). Stevens (working a second inning after throwing 16 pitches in his first inning) did not handle the adversity very well, as he then gave up a Tony Abreu RBI single to left, a walk to Gerardo Parra to load the bases, and a gargantuan Justin Upton grand slam that hit off the top of the scoreboard, thereby unloading the bases. Stevens was allowed to pitch to two more batters (a screaming line-drive to LF and fly ball to the warning track in CF), before John Gaub entered the game to get the final out of the inning on a ball that bounced off his body and then back to the catcher, resulting in a somewhat unusual 1-2-3 GO. Stevens finished with a line of 1.2 IP, 3 H, 5 R (4 ER), 1 BB, 3 K, and 1 HR, 42 pitches - 24 strikes, 0/2 GO/FO.

Gaub also pitched the 7th inning and allowed a long lead-off HR over the LF fence to D'Backs utility infielder Ryan Roberts, but struck out the final two hitters he faced. Gaub is the protypical LOOGY (lefty specialist), but he faced only one LH hitter today (Brandon Allen, who he retired on a routine 4-3 GO). Gaub labored through his 1.1 IP, going to full counts on several hitters (31 pitches - 20 strikes, 2/0 GO/FO).

The Cubs threatened but did not score in the bottom of the 7th, as Starlin Castro hammered a one-out ground-rule double to deep right-center (it was hit to exactly the same spot his triple was hit yesterday, and this one would have been a triple, too, if the ball hadn't bounced off the rock-hard warning track and then up & over the fence), but was left stranded after Matt Camp flied out to CF (Castro advanced to 3rd) and James Adduci grounded out 4-3.

RHP Marcos Mateo worked the top of the 8th for the Cubs, allowing a ground ball single and a HBP, but no runs (14 pitches - 9 strikes, 3/0 GO/FO).

Down 6-4 going into the bottom of the 8th, the Cubs rallied to tie the score off Diamonbacks LHRP Clay Zavada. With one out, Brad Snyder fisted a single to right, and advanced to second on a Vitters rope-single to left (his second hit of the day). Brett Jackson reached base for the 4th time (two walks, a triple, and a HBP for B. Jackson today) when he was hit by a pitch on the upper right shoulder by Zavada, loading the bases, and then Chris Robinson lined an RBI single to CF to score Snyder, leaving the bases loaded with out. James Adduci was up next, and he ripped a low line-drive to RF that Collin Cowgill snagged with a spectacular diving catch, but Vitters had a brain fart and forgot to tag up (he ran for home as soon as the ball was hit), so he did not score. But Darwin Barney got Vitters off the goat horns, drawing a bases-loaded walk on a 3-1 pitch to force-in a run and tie the score at six. Matt Camp then struck out (swinging) with the bases-loaded to end the inning.

RHP Justin Berg entered the game for the Cubs in the top of the 9th, and promptly allowed a Cole Gillespie HR over the LF fence that gave the Diamondbacks the lead. Berg then retired then next three batters in order, but the damage was done. (19 pitches - 12 strikes for Berg today)

So the Cubs entered the bottom of the 9th needing one run to tie, and two to win. With D'backs RHRP Esmerling Vasquez on the mound, PH Bobby Scales (batting LH) led-off the inning and was immediately drilled with a pitch. Micah Hoffpauir followed with a hard-hit ground-single to RF that just missed hitting Scales, such that Scales had to hold-up at 2nd base. Sam Fuld was sent-in to PR for Hoffpauir, and then hitting with a 3-2 count, Snyder apparently got the pitch he was looking for, hammering it off the CF Batter's Eye to give the Cubs the victory.

The Cubs face the White Sox tomorrow at HoHoKam Park, in a game that is supposed to be televised on WGN-TV. Newly-acquired RHP Carlos Silva (obtained by the Cubs from Seattle in the Milton Bradley deal) is scheduled to get the start for the Cubs, presuming the game does not interfere with lunch.

Hi Guys.

I'm in Prague. It's crazy busy and I've got stories already but I don't have time just yet.

Anyway, I'm walking thru the city here, and there are all kinds of souvenir places.

I walk in one, and they've got these Russian dolls (I think they're called) - the ones that fit inside one another? And this shop had all the pro teams of every sport on the planet - every soccer team, rugby team, everything. Olson's out here and he said he' d seen the Cubs but I didn't believe him. The store guy says, "Wheech team?" I go, "Chicago Cubs?" He goes, "Follow." And sure enough, there they are.

 

If you can't read it, it's D. Lee, A. Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Ryan Theriot, and the tiniest one is Fontenot.

 

I don't know why, but I bought the thing for 590 crown, which you divide by 18 to figure out the rough US money translation. 

Okay, on another plane in the morning. Thanks for keeping up with the comments and I'll be back in awhile.

Here are more shots of Prague.

This place is super beautiful!

    

Just about anyone who's anyone on the Cubs roster today likely spent the afternoon playing golf -- OK, maybe working out at Fitch Park -- as the only starter today who will likely see significant playing time for the major league squad when the come north was Jeff Baker.

Nevertheless, the assorted prospects, minor leaguers and Kevin Millar (who called himself "Dad" to the rest of the lineup, via this Carrie Muskat tweet) blew a big early lead, then came from behind twice in the late innings to defeat the Diamondbacks 8-7 and keep the spring record perfect at 2-0.

Sam Fuld scored the winning run as a pinch runner, and we learned earlier today from another Muskat tweet:

Sam Fuld's wife tried to get home run ball from Thursday but a #cubs fan wouldn't give it up. It was their son Charlie's 1st game.

Hey! If you're the fan who caught that ball, give it to the Fuld family. It means a lot more to them than it does to you, and I'm sure Sam would sign a few things for you in exchange.

In fact, various Carrie Muskat tweets were interesting and informative today, particularly the ones regarding Angel Guzman and Jeff Gray. More after the jump.

Muskat's blog indicates that both Guzman and Gray might not be ready for Opening Day:

Guzman was projected as a possible right-handed set-up option for the Cubs. He hasn't been close to throwing off a mound. Could he be ready by Opening Day?

"Not at all," Piniella said. "Gray is starting to get on the 'doubtful' list -- not doubtful, let's call it the 'borderline' list."

Now, some of you are going to bemoan the fact that Kiko Calero is no longer available, but I say again: I'd be leery of a guy who 29 other teams passed on, and the one that signed him only gave him a minor league deal. Based on this cubs.com article, the team still has plenty of bullpen options in camp already:

With Guzman and Gray out, there are more opportunities for the young pitchers such as John Gaub, Thomas Diamond, Blake Parker, and James Russell. Another arm Piniella likes is Andrew Cashner, the Cubs' No. 1 Draft pick in 2008.

"Cashner's a nice looking young kid," Piniella said of the right-hander. "That's going to be up to the organization. First of all, let's see how he pitches here. Let's see what the organization has planned as far as starter, reliever. I think Jim will make that decision and rightfully so."

You'll see Diamond and Parker throw Sunday in separate split-squad games; Cashner will go in tomorrow's televised game (WGN, 2 pm CST) against the White Sox.

I'm not worried. Yet.

About today's game, Carlos Zambrano and Casey Coleman threw well; Jeff Stevens didn't, and Justin Berg, who is also in the bullpen mix, gave up a 9th-inning run to some Arizona scrubs before the bench bailed him out and got him a win. In addition to Starlin Castro's two hits, Tyler Colvin had another pair of hits (single and double, two RBI) and last year's #1 pick, Brett Jackson, had his first spring hit. The Cubs teed off on their former teammate Aaron Heilman for five hits and four runs in his one inning of work.

It's only two games, but Colvin may be forcing Lou to consider him in the outfield mix. I hope he plays again tomorrow so we can all see him in the televised game.

A chance to comment on some happenings from the past week....

- The Cubs signed Cuban defector Juan Yasser Serrano and while he may not be able to hit a curveball, he probably can throw one. At a $250K bonus (about 4th/5th round money), I don't think the expectations are going to be to high. An "insider" of Caribbean Baseball didn't give a flattering report back in April of last year:

The stark truth (known by all close followers of Cuban baseball) is that Juan Yasser Serrano was a rather mediocre Cuban Leaguer whose 2007-2008 record was a below average 2-7 won-lost mark, further diminished by an elevated 6.46 ERA and a hefty .312 opponents' batting average against his deliveries. And this, while hurling for one of the league's very best teams, Villa Clara. Serrano's three-year lifetime mark entering the current campaign was 14-16, with a 4.40 ERA for a club that captured division titles in all three seasons he labored there. It is hard to imagine a young prospect as being one of the most notable talents on the island when last season he posted the third worst ERA on his own team's 15-man pitching staff.

The article is more a criticism of his agent trying to elevate his status, but at $250K, it appears that didn't really work too well. The right-hander is 21 years old, throws a fastball between 89-92 mph at the moment and will likely start the year in Hi-A Daytona.

- Everyone's favorite topic...Milton Bradley! He had some interesting things to say yesterday. Let's start off with the somewhat insightful part.

"Just no communication," Bradley told the paper, referring to his Cubs
tenure. "I never hit more than 22 homers in my career, and all of a sudden I get to Chicago and they expect me to hit 30. It doesn't make sense. History tells you I'm not going to hit that many. Just a lot of things that try to make me a player I'm not."

I'm not sure if anyone was expecting 30 home runs, but the Cubs certainly expected him to be the #5 hitter and drive in runs and I've mentioned in the past how dumb this is. Bradley's a high OBP guy that takes lots of pitches and doesn't seem at all interested in expanding the strike zone just to put the ball in play. This is the player he is and if the Cubs wanted something else, they should have signed someone else. His skillset does not translate into an RBI guy, it translates into a pretty decent #2 hitter actually. For all the talk of the Cubs being more of a scouting team that favors seeing a guy play and getting to know a player, they sure acted like they had no idea what type of player or personality they were getting themselves.

I'm going to borrow from Transmission here to finish off my point.

Let me quote to you from the delightful children’s story and excellent allegory, The Little Prince:

“If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?” the king demanded. “The general, or myself?”

“You,” said the little prince firmly.

“Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform,” the king went on. “Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.”

But I'm not here to exonerate Bradley, because his statements from yesterday were filled with all kinds of bullshit as well. Let's get back to the first quote.

"History tells you I'm not going to hit that many. Just a lot of things that try to make me a player I'm not."

History also says you're a nutcase and can't stay healthy, yet Cubs management took a chance on you at 3/30M. How about coming out of your little cocoon of unaccountability and taking some responsibility for yourself and a bit of appreciation for the folks that took a chance on your baseball skills?

"Two years ago, I played, and I was good," Bradley told The Times. "I go to Chicago, not good. I've been good my whole career. So, obviously,
it was something with Chicago, not me."

Obviously Milton Bradley failed his logic class.

As reader Charlie pointed out, I'm not sure the city of Chicago was such a problem considering his home/road OPS splits of  .892 at home and .646 on the road. Bradley is more likely talking about the culture of the team and the city and how everyone should have just chilled and let Milton be Milton.

It's a bunch of nonsense of course from Bradley, just more rhetoric to pass the responsibility buck about his own failures and mistakes to all the other people trying to keep him down. It's frustrating as a fan, especially someone like myself that supported the signing and the abilities he could have brought the club. I wanted Bradley to succeed, I thought he could succeed with the Cubs, but every piece of bullshit and whininess that comes from his mouth just makes Carlos Silva in a Cubs jersey look that much better. And it takes a lot of bullshit and whininess to make Carlos Silva look good in any jersey.

- ESPN has a new insider blog named TMI, featuring a sabermetric slant and writers like Tom Tango and Dave Cameron.

- Paul Sullivan is to Cubs reporting what Fox News is to politics. His recap of yesterday's game was more worried about spinning the narrative of a loose anti-Bradley team, than realizing that five home runs in a game and a 9-3 blowout will put everyone in a good mood.

- The Sun-Times puts together an utterly ridiculous Top 50 list of all-time Cubs. I may revisit this debauchery at another time. The old-time pictures are cool though.

- Some "fan" denies Sam Fuld's wife and baby his home run ball from yesterday. I hate drawing conclusions from just one side of the story, but this one fan really sounds like an asshole...must have been a lost White Sox fan.

UPDATE: In the comments on the link, an eyewitness says a Cubs player threw the ball to a little girl and then there may have been some negotiations (I assume with the Mom), but not as greedy or assholish as it originally sounded. Tragedy averted. Still might have been a White Sox fan though.

- NFL free agency kicked off today and the Bears look to be big players in the market. The Bear Truth has the latest and be sure to grab the RSS feed. And register. And tell your friends.

- 3 questions to John Sickels from his old friend Rob Neyer on his prospect book. I enjoyed this passage:

I'm also a lot less arrogant in my middle age than I was when I was in my late 20s. Back then I would make a lot more snarky or sarcastic comments about particular players or front-office mistakes, but as I've grown older I don't do that as much. I've come to realize that there is still an awful lot we don't know about prospect development. I've become more comfortable saying "I'm not sure." Sometimes that irritates people (especially people in their 20s!) but truth is an absolute defense, and if I'm not sure about something I'm not going to pretend that I am sure.

- The guys that use to run Thunder Matt's Saloon and then College of Idiots have a new blog, Exile on Clark Street. I believe their the 49th Cubs blog I've added to the TCR blogroll (lower left sidebar). Check it out.

-
Phil Rogers says Cubs were close on Calero until they saw his medical records:

# Cubs Close to signing Kiko Calero but medical work scared them away. Rather have healthy kids in bullpen than another injury risk.

And now the ironic compliment twitter from Muskat:

#cubs Angel Guzman had MRI Thursday on right shoulder. Official results expected Friday, but not expecting good news

She did update it to say the team is still optimistic about the results.

On this day, March 5th, 2010, during a Spring Training game in Mesa, Arizona, Kevin Millar attempted to steal a base. He was unsuccessful.

Ladies and gentlemen, your joke of the day.

Between 2006 and 2007, Tom Gorzelanny pitched well over 200 innings while maintaining a sub-4.00 ERA. Then, in his 100 2008 innings, Tom ended up with an ERA well above six.

What gives? Or, rather, gave?

Tom has never struck out a ton of guys; his strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate held roughly constant over the three year period. He allowed a pretty similar number of hits to opposing batters in both '07 and '08, as well.

If it's not K's or H's, you gotta look at BB's and HR's (trust me, that's just what you gotta do.) So let's do that for Tom:

2007: 3.03 walks per nine, 0.80 home runs per nine innings
2008: 5.98 walks per nine, 1.71 home runs per nine innings

There you have it. In 2008, Tom started walking a ton more guys, and gave up a lot more home runs. So, yeah, that's gonna, like, inflate your ERA and stuff.

What happened in 2009? Actually, Gorgonzola struck more guys out than he ever had before. And while that trend may or not be sustainable, you gotta look at the numbers on walks -- back down to 3.26 per nine -- to really start feeling good.

So what to expect from Gorzo in 2010? Personally, I doubt he'll continue to strike out a batter an inning, just based on every inning he's ever pitched before 2009. However, Gorzo has shown much better control in the past than he did in 2008, so I believe he may sustain that better walk rate into 2010. And from what I've read, anytime a pitcher gives up 1.71 HRs per nine innings, it's more fluky than anything else.

Conclusion? So long as the Cubs trust Gorzelanny enough to give him a shot at the starting rotation (and if they pick Samardzija or Silva over him, God help us all), I think he'll be a pretty decent 4th or 5th option. 4.50 ERA, maybe 80 Ks in 120 innings, and hopefully closer to 40 rather than 80 walks.

Go get 'em Z!

You realize, of course, what yesterday's big five-homer, 9-3 barrage of the A's represents.

Now fans are going to expect this to happen every day during spring training. Not quite so easy today -- the Diamondbacks are a better team than the Athletics (who might be the worst team in the American League) and the Cubs will be facing a better pitcher than they did on Thursday.

Nevertheless, winning is always better than losing. Lou Piniella often likes to see one minor leaguer do well in spring training and latches on to him -- and the kid makes the roster. He did this with Micah Hoffpauir -- who, granted, was no "kid" when he made the team -- but maybe Tyler Colvin will now catch Lou's attention. In any event, if Colvin continues to hit the way he did yesterday, he will have to get consideration for the 25-man roster.

Meanwhile, Carlos Marmol, who won't pitch until Saturday, is going into this year with much more confidence, knowing the closer role is his. Throwing strikes would also be useful.

Carlos Zambrano makes his first Cactus League start today. Casey Coleman, Jeff Stevens, John Gaub, Marcos Mateo and Justin Berg also are scheduled to pitch. Shameless plug: you can read more about Coleman, whose father and grandfather were major league pitchers, in the Maple Street Press Cubs Annual. The story was written by BCB's Josh77. You should be able to now find the annual in Chicago-area bookstores, newsstands, and places like Walgreens and Target. It's also on sale at the HoHoKam Park gift shop and I believe in certain bookstores in the Phoenix area.

For reference for the next few days, Bruce Miles has all the scheduled pitchers.

Dan Haren will start for Arizona. Adam LaRoche will make his AZ debut. Mark Reynolds is also scheduled to make the trip from Tucson.

There is no radio or TV coverage of today's game, but here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

SB Nation game preview

First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.

Discuss amongst yourselves.