After the two roster moves on Monday, the Cubs 25-man Opening Day roster is all but complete. Koyie Hill will backup Geovany Soto and Micah Hoffpauir will fill Daryle Ward's role from the past two seasons. With that said, the 13 position players, barring a trade, are set. The Cubs' 40-man roster stands at 36 players.
According to multiple reports, Lou Piniella will have his bullpen set before camp breaks on Thursday and the team heads east to unofficially open the new Yankee Stadium. The final two spots on the Cubs' 12-man pitching staff are down to five candidates...and Jim Hendry is working on trading at least one of them.
Jeff Samardzija, Chad Fox, Angel Guzman, Chad Gaudin and David Patton are the candidates. Two will make it, one is likely headed to Iowa, one is trying to be dealt and one is out of options.
Jeff Samardzija did not help his cause on Monday. He allowed an inherited runner to score on a 2-1 pitch to Billy Butler. Samardzija came in with the game tied and runners on first and third with two outs. Samardzija quickly fell behind 2-0 before throwing a strike.
Lou Piniella has shown in the past he is little to no patience with relievers that come into a game and do not throw strikes. Samardzija will play a big role for the Cubs in the upcoming season. Just not on Opening Day.
Angel Guzman showed flashes on Monday of how good he can be...but consistency has been his problem, other than injuries, throughout his career. Guzman broke off a couple of beautiful breaking balls in the upper 70s in his first inning but started missing his spots the next inning. He gave up a couple of hits, then was replaced by Samardzija.
Angel Guzman has a Major League arm but his confidence and consistency are questionable at best. Could the Cubs come up with a mystery injury and hide him for a little longer on a rehab assignment?
For the second day in a row, the mainstream media mentioned Jim Hendry could be working on trading Guzman.
Chad Gaudin has not been the same pitcher since his late night run in with the dumpster last fall. Gaudin is out of options and reportedly Hendry is trying to trade him. Gaudin could be a valuable bridge from an ineffective starter to the late inning setup men.
The Cubs need a long reliever and Gaudin could fill that role...without him, Lou Piniella will have a bunch of one-inning guys that could burn out a pen quickly or worse yet cause Piniella to overuse Carlos Marmol.
Chad Fox has quietly put together a very solid spring and could find his way on the Opening Day roster. Fox has allowed three runs, all earned, on 10 hits in 10 innings (10 games) with two walks and nine strikeouts....that is a 2.10 ERA with a 1.20 WHIP. Teams are hitting over .300 against him.
David Patton is the most interesting of the remaining pitchers fighting for a job. Patton was not pitched above A-ball but all he has done this spring is throw strikes and show a lot of poise on the mound. Lou Piniella likes him and what is not to like...12 strikeouts, two walks and eight hits allowed in 10 2/3 innings. Patton's 0.84 ERA has been plastered all over the media but his 0.94 WHIP has not...and neither has a .233 opponents batting average.
Patton is scheduled to pitch on Tuesday...and Chad Gaudin and Chad Fox should be on Larry Rothschild's list as well.
The Cubs bullpen has the most questions entering the season. It should be an interesting 48 hours. Stay tuned....
David Patton Bullpen Session from Feb. 25
Am looking forward to the season starting (finally), but I really have some concerns over the projected lineup that Lou is likely to roll out. In particular, the 1-2-3 combination of Soriano, Fukodome and Lee can be disastrous. I sense that Soriano will rarely see a hittable pitch until he lays off the away breaking ball (or the 55 foot fastball); Fukodome shows no-change from the second half of last year, and his spinorama move will get old very quick this year; and Lee is just an aging vet who's "one hit wonder" is well behind him.
While Bradley is the real deal, assuming he stays on the field, we are truly going to miss DeRosa (earlier than we think I predict).
For the pen, I'd opt to keep Guzman (let's see what he can do in "real games" before releasing him for nothing) and Patton, and have the Shark keep working at AAA and ready for an early call-up. Without trashing the DeRosa trade too much again, I just don't know how a guy who hit 20+ HR's and 80+ RBI's yields us nothing in return. Ultimately, we got rid of DeRosa, Pie and Hill this off-season, and have nothing to show for it. Just sad.
I agree with you completely. DeRosa was the most consistent bat we had all year--bar none. And his fielding was also very good and consistent, too. So we dump him for three pitching prospects that aren't likely to pitch 25 innings between them in MLB this year. Huh? And we kept our worse player: Funkodome.
If you look at last year's lineup, it is easy to see that most games--yes, most games--were won by the middle/bottom of the lineup. Edmonds, Soto, DeRosa, Theriot. Half of that production is gone now, and some say Bradley replaces it. Bradley will do well to replace DeRosa's stats. But what about the #1 hitting CF in MLB last year after he came to the Cubs? Edmonds led MLB CF's in OBS and Slugging.
Hill, sadly, will never amount to anything. Je's a great talent with mental problems: Steve Blass disease. Pie is Corey Patterson II, imho. I don't think he'll amount to even Corey's stature.
Send Fox down. If somebody wants him, let them take him. He's 35 I think, and basically a 11 or 12th man on your staff. Gaudin--I risk losing him to waivers. Let someone else pay the $2 million if they think he can still pitch. I'd keep the future: Patten, and I'd risk Guzman.
Lastly I'd say, I wish we had more offensive horses, because I think we are going to need them.
I agree on DeRo. I think he will be sorely missed. I still believe it was done in hopes of securing the necessary prospects for the Jake Peavy deal. If that doesn't happen, we won't truly know the value of this trade until the prospects either perform at the major league level or not.
Speaking of Rich Hill . . . he's like Dontrell Willis: a head case. He cannot mentally bring himself to throw strikes. I think both of them are done.
My feeling is they should keep Patton and Fox, while letting Samardzija open the season at Triple A. And I like the decision to let Gregg close.
Maybe we're forgetting the circumstances of the DeRo, Pie and Hill trades--and letting Woodie go. DeRo and Woodie got us the $15 mil that enabled signing Bradley and Dempster. DeRo also got us 3 mid to lower level pitching prospects. (That's not as good as a top 10 type prospect--but I'm remembering that Soto was a mid to lower level prospect once. The RHP, Stevens, and the LHP, Gaub, appear to have some promise.
Pie got us Garret Olson and the pitching prospect Henry Williamson. Olson and Cedeno got us Heilman--who looks to be strong in the pen. At this time Pie has a .231 BA and a .293 OBP. Olson has a 11.57 ERA and Cedeno is just OK with a .297 BA and a .328 OBP. Hill must be disabled because he has no stats with the O's.
Like everyone else, I see DeRo and Wood as top tier players, and I loved having them on the team. But they were the two guys that could be moved if we were to try to improve our post season performance.
Fox - cut
Patton - Keep
Guzman - Keep
Gaudin - trade
Shark - AAA
If not Guzman, keep Gaudin.
I hate Lees contract I want Micah to be our everyday first baseman. Hendry sucks at putting contracts together.
and at this point, who cares about options. Obviously they havent worked out for us by this point why keep someone around just cause of them being out of options when they have been outpitched by Patton. Keep patton, trade Lee and gaudin or guzman or vizcaino preferably. I really dislike spring, it always seems like there are good players we have in spring who we never give a shot Hoffpauirs best years are gonna be crapped away sittin behind Lee and right now, Micah is the better hitter of the two.
Heck they should just cut vizcaino and eat the salary, Geoff Jenkins just got cut and so did Sheffield. The tigers and Phils are eating alot more then we would by cuttin vizcaino. Then we can easily keep patton and one of the out of option guys. Lets field the best team we can.
I would have dumped Soriano's contract, eaten a good portion of his ludicrous contract, and taken whatever prospects we could have gotten. Additionally, we should have shuttled Lee for a Sanchez or a McLouth. I then would have saved DeRosa, put him left field FT, and last year you could have traded Hill and Pie and landed Brian Roberts. Now that would have been some lineup this year. But instead our untouchables of Pie/Hill from last year landed us Heilman (wonderful, a middle reliver). Just brillant talent assessment and management...again. I know it's all hindsight, but sometimes this just looks so ridiculous as to how this team is run.
Bryan,
Right on again. Hendry--in Steve Stone's words--is "learning on the job." I wouldn't mind it so much if I had any evidence that he was actually learning.
Poor talent evaluation will kill any organization--just look at the Bears. And then Hendry--like Jerry Angelos hiring the 0-16 Coach of the Lions--goes out and signs the fired Pirates GM Dave Littlefield as head of Cubs scouting. The Pirates have had 16 consecutive losing seasons! Hendry skunked him in the Jose Hernandez for Aram trade, and then gives him a job! And don't forget: Ed Lynch is still on the Cubs payroll!
First of all I love this website although I rarely post because I'd prefer not to argue with people that want the same thing as me...a championship baseball team. However, all the negative posts just kill me. I mean really when do we become so good that we demand perfection? If I had to guess Jim Hendry's approval rating on this site is lower than George Bush's. By no means is Jim Hendry or perfect or the best GM in baseball. But how many other GM's in Cubs history have produced a perennial baseball team? He's made some below average trades and contracts but let's not forget he got Aramis (not to mention Lofton) and Lee for nothing. Raise your hand if you miss Bobby Hill and Hee Seop Choi. Before you say "Hendry's an idiot if I was the GM I would trade Lee and Soriano" just stop because you're not the GM and your hypothetical trades would probably never happen in real life. No doubt must of us would love to be, but there's a reason Hendry is and we're not. It's not like he's a former player or coach handed the position. The guy must've done something right to work his way up to the position, while we're sitting in the bleachers. Name a team in the league that doesn't have a bad contract or made a bad trade.
As for the trade Lee, play Hoffpauir talk, yes I would love to see Hoffpauir get the chance but if the guy's hitting was that much better than Lee's offense and defense don't you think we'd be playing him? Is Lou really that dumb and all his managerial success just luck? Who's advice on talent do you want....the scouts and coaches that have watched these guys up close and broken down every aspect of their game or average Joe's who's watching the game on the couch with a beer? Are scouts peferct? No but I'm guess average Joe ain't either.
I love this site because I love getting the latest info and rumors but there are days when I swear if I didn't watch the games I'd think we had the worst run team in sports with absolutely no talent. I'm not asking people to stop sharing their opinions but rather take a deep breath every once in awhile and enjoy the ride. We all love playing Monday morning quarterback but no matter what we do or say, it's not going to make a nickel's worth of difference because I'm willing to bet Jim Hendry and Lou Pinella aren't reading our opinions. Thank you Neil for putting together an amazing site and to everyone who provides insightful posts. We have a great team this year and I look forward to breaking this curse! I know it's ironic to tell Cubs fans to stay positive, but if you can't at least stay classy!
"As for the trade Lee, play Hoffpauir talk, yes I would love to see Hoffpauir get the chance but if the guy's hitting was that much better than Lee's offense and defense don't you think we'd be playing him?"
Um no, simply because of what we are paying Lee. Its that simple. It has nothing to do with scouts or coaches opinions. Lous said it himself, hes gotta find at bats for Micah. Lee has a no trade clause and is paid a ton. We arent gonna let him sit on the bench when he is still productive. Even if Micah will be more productive, which I really do believe would happen if he played every day. I mean seriously look at it Vizcaino is a scrub and they are keeping him cause they dont wanna lose the money. In most cases your not gonna pay someone to not play for ya.
Thanks Drew for the kind words...
I don't understand why Heilman couldn't be our long man/backup starter. Wasn't he just in the competition for the 5th starter? Keep him stretched out a bit, he doesn't have to be a strictly a short reliever. Chad Gaudin is done. Lets see if the Shark can last a while in big league bull pen.